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To: WEBNATURAL who wrote (4708)	5/14/1998 10:07:00 PM
From: Ditchdigger	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 5015

One last thing for you oil buffs,borrowed from another thread.Very neat sh*t.. By Andrew Kelly HOUSTON, May 7 (Reuters) - Star Wars laser technology developed during the Cold War to shoot down Soviet missiles may find a more terrestrial use in the not-too-distant future to drill for oil and gas. Research is still in its infancy, and nobody wants to make any extravagant claims at this stage. But if all goes well, laser beams could provide a faster and cheaper means of drilling. That would be a breakthrough equal to the advent of rotary drilling, which replaced cable tool technology in the late 19th century and is still used today. Richard Parker of the Gas Research Institute in Chicago said a two-year basic research project had been launched earlier this year and was already drawing plenty of attention. ''We've got a tremendous amount of interest from the industry wanting to invest in this technology. They see this as a worthwhile research project,'' he said. The institute is putting up half of the project's initial $1.2 million budget, with the Army and the Air Force each contributing a quarter of the budget. Dr. Ramona Graves of the Colorado School of Mines leads the research team, which includes laser experts from Kirtland Air Force Base and the Army's White Sands missile range, both in New Mexico. Parker, Graves and other members of the team visited Houston this week to present details of the project at the oil and gas industry's annual Offshore Technology Conference. The basic research phase of the project will consist of laboratory tests, feasibility studies and cost-benefit analysis. Researchers hope their groundwork will lead to the development of a prototype laser drilling rig that could be tested in the field within 10 years. That will require a much greater investment than the initial outlay for basic research, but Parker said the military already had done much of the costly early work on high-power lasers. Star Wars technology, once a closely guarded military secret, can now be tapped under a program set up by Congress to strengthen U.S. industrial and technological competiveness. And in the spirit of post-Cold War cooperation, Russian scientists also are contributing to the project. Graves said Andrei Ionin of the Lebedev Institute in Moscow had provided valuable input on laser technology. Parker said he was confident that researchers would ultimately prove that laser drilling could work, but conceded there was a risk it might not turn out to be cost-effective. ''I think we have the technology to do it, but can we do it economically?,'' he asked. Nevertheless, laboratory tests by a member of the research team at White Sands earlier this year were encouraging. Dr. Kenneth Sundberg, a research scientist with Phillips Petroleum, found that a laser could penetrate sandstone and shale more than 100 times faster than a conventional drill bit. The laser also created a glassy layer around the edge of the hole which researchers believe could reduce or eliminate the need to line boreholes with protective casing. Frank Bonar, president of Rocksaw Technology, said he was impressed by the laser drilling project and saw direct benefits in his own business of excavating rock for gas pipelines. ''It looks like they've already got a breakthrough in some applications that are going to be commercially helpful to us. ... I think it will reduce the cost dramatically,'' he said. Rap Dawson, an Exxon drilling engineer, said he was interested in the principle of laser drilling but believed the project faced many technical and economic obstacles. ''We should support this sort of thing but we shouldn't get the idea that there's a 75 percent chance it's going to work. It's a lot lower than that I would think,'' he said. (P - news)