Drilling Under the Sea

prof_peabody writes "The IODP (Intergrated Ocean Drilling Program) is about to get rolling in a couple of days. If you live in one of these countries then your tax dollars have contributed to the construction of the giant drillship Chikyu, which was launched a little while back (project timeline). The American contigent website is loaded with info and obligatory acronyms. The first leg of the IODP will investigate how water flows through rock formations beneath the seafloor during an eight-week expedition this summer to the eastern flank of the Juan de Fuca Ridge off the coast of British Columbia. Some of you geeks with beards may remember the DSDP (Deep Sea Drilling Project) or the recently completed ODP (Ocean Drilling Program). The real advance in the new program that will cost well over a billion dollars is the IODP riser drill ship that 'will provide a way to drill into continental margins where oil and gas deposits can cause drilling safety concerns and into regions with thick sediment sections, fault zones, and unstable formations.' A good overview of the IODP can be found here, and the necessary references to Megalodon and none other than The Core."

Comments

Why the core?

[Hungus]

"and the necessary references to Megalodon and none other than The Core."

I would have thought the The Abyss would have been a much better reference than The Core. Certainly better science, and for that matter better science fiction.

Re:no more oil from the middle east.

[InternationalCow]

You confuse fuel with energy source. The problem with alternative fuels is that you need energy to generate the most promising of those, ie hydrogen. So we would need solar, nuclear, wind or whatever power to get us the hydrogen. Fusion is not here yet. Non-fossil fuel is not trivial. Vegetable or other biomass fuels will also generate hydrocarbons. And I agree with you that as long as we keep looking for oil and keep getting it there will be little incentive for the big players (oil companies...) to go into renewable energy sources. So for the time being, unfortunately, we'll keep our dependence upon the middle east. By the way - oil is not only fuel. Plastics and so on are also made from it. That may even be the worst dependence. Imagine a world without plastics. If only for that reason we'll keep using oil for at least a couple of decades.

Answer, logistics, and power

[the_twisted_pair]

A quick Google will show you just how big all the equipment involved in drilling really is, and just how much power is required to support drilling operations - a hint, it's in the megawatt range. You are not doing it with batteries. Ships like this have huge deck-mounted powerplant independant of the propulsion requirements to cope with demand.

There's simply not enough space to store the necessary equipment on board, esp. when you consider the need for bentonite coolant circulation etc. Assembling the drill string either through or outside the hull would be an interesting problem, as would the bouyancy/stability control as you dump a few hundred tons of payload overboard.

So a nice idea, but much more economical done from a big surface ship - even when it means waiting on the weather.

Chikyu is Japanese for...

[B4RSK]

Chikyu (should be Chikyuu actually) is Japanese for Earth, as in the planet we live on.

Just in case anyone is curious.