Comment

Comment by cnote337

I'm a geologist. I work on well sites for a living. My biggest concerns about what have been talked about in the video are with regards to rock removal, and hole stability. But those are always my concerns.

The oil and gas industry currently uses "mud" either oil based or water based, in order to keep their holes from collapsing on themselves. Holes collapse. It's what they want to do, this is a factor of overburden - the collective weight of the rock above the hole 'pushing' down. It is also the primary means of communication with downhole tools through mud pulse telemetry, and the primary means of removing rocks - currently in the form of cuttings.

There is no mention of this mud system or other alternative (an innovation that would also need to be ground breaking for the industry) that will 1) keep the hole from collapsing 2) remove the volume of rock required to continue going down and 3) allow communication with your downhole tools.

It feels like this is a massive hole in the logic.

parent cnote337 1 year ago

Discussion

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton