On the heels of a successful two-year study of the potential of military lasers to drill for natural gas, researchers at the Gas Technology Institute have teamed with the US Department of Energy and with university and industry partners to assess the commercial viability of laser drills for the petroleum industry. Such drills would represent the most significant technological advance in the industry since the advent of rotary drilling a century ago.
Lasers promise several advantages over mechanical techniques.
They not only could offer a penetration rate of more than 400 feet per hour, but, because they create a ceramic sheath as they drill through rock, the need to stop and pull out of a borehole to reinforce it with steel casing would be eliminated. Moreover, the laser head could incorporate a sensor array for real-time monitoring down the hole, again eliminating the need to stop drilling. All of this would add up to a great economic benefit. The project was born out of a challenge to envision revolutionary drilling techniques. In 1997, the institute and its partners at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden sought to beat swords into plowshares.