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Drilling and Fracturing with Millimeter-Wave
Directed Energy

Paul P. Woskov and Dan R. Cohn

December 2008
MIT PSFC December 2008

Drilling and Fracturing with Millimeter-Wave Directed Energy

Paul Woskov and Dan Cohn
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Introduction
The recent availability of efficient, megawatt millimeter-wave sources has created an
opportunity for a significant advance in drilling and underground fracturing technology.
Current fully mature mechanical drilling technology becomes prohibitively expensive
below 7.6 km (25,000 ft) for hydrocarbon fuels and at shorter depths in hard rock where
geothermal resources are located. Furthermore, substantial yet to be exploited natural gas
resources are trapped in tight formations where fracturing is required or in the case of
Enhanced Geothermal Systems the hot dry rock must be fractured to allow heat exchange
water flow. Improvements in drilling and fracturing technology are clearly needed to
access more hydrocarbon energy supplies and to make practical sustainable geothermal
energy. Millimeter-wave directed energy technology makes possible a new capability to
drill deeper, faster, and to facture at higher pressures with reduced pollution. MIT has
filed a patent application that describes how this capability can be employed.

Millimeter-wave (MMW) radiation refers to electromagnetic frequencies higher than

microwaves but below that of infrared radiation. At millimeter-wavelengths transmission
becomes insensitive to scattering by small particles and optics imperfections that would
prevent infrared/optical transmission. MMWs can be transmitted unperturbed through
smoke. Yet, these wavelengths are short enough to be guided as an intense beam within
the cross-sections of typical boreholes. Megawatt millimeter-wave sources with greater
than 50% electrical conversion efficiency are now available [1] and waveguide
transmission in boreholes to depths over 10 km (32,000 ft) with 90% efficiency is
possible [2]. Therefore it is now practical to efficiently project intense energy in a
working environment to great distances.

The importance of this capability can be appreciated by the fact that with the thermal
properties of rocks as now known [3, 4] a fully absorbed 1 megawatt beam of energy can
completely melt a 5 cm (2 in.) diameter column of hard rock at a rate of about 400 m/hr
and completely volatilize (turn to smoke) a column of rock at a rate of about 80 m/hr.
These capabilities can be projected to depths where mechanical drill rates fall off to less
than 1 m/hr and approach zero. Furthermore, repetitive pulses could be fired at a rate
that fractures rather than melts rock. A short, quarter second, 1 megawatt pulse would
cleanly deliver the energy equivalent of 50 grams of high explosives. This would provide
an energy equivalent of about 24 tons of explosives/year at a pulse rate of 60 pulses/ min
for 300 days a year. Using the approach described here directed energy drilling and more
efficient fracturing can be practically implemented for the first time with millimeter-wave
beam technology that is now available off the shelf.

Background Directed Energy Drilling

Directed energy rock drilling research has been pursued since the invention of the laser in
1960. Initial work was restricted by low power laser availability to use of directed energy

1
MIT PSFC December 2008

as an auxiliary tool to weaken rock by heating or to cut notches for easier mechanical
drilling [5, 6]. In the 1990’s megawatt StarWars lasers (U. S. Army MIRACL and U. S.
Air Force COIL) where used to demonstrate stand alone directed energy drilling. In
shallow rock surface extraction experiments, rates of penetration were shown to be 10 to
100 times faster than rotary drilling [7, 8]. Consequently, the concept of directed energy
drilling has a demonstrated experimental basis. However, practical laser based drilling
systems have not been realized because laser technology suffers from low efficiency,
high costs, and difficulties of efficient optical beam transmission. Particle extraction
without disrupting the optical drilling beam is a very formidable obstacle. Millimeter-
wave technology over comes all these difficulties to make directed energy
drilling/fracturing systems practical.

Millimeter-Wave Drilling
A MMW deep drilling system requires only one component in the borehole, the
waveguide, which has only one motion of advance into the hole as it is deepened. There
are no other parts or mechanical movements in the borehole. All the drilling and
fracturing work is done by the beamed energy and concurrent purge gas flow. Figure 1
shows an elevation cross-section view of the
bottom of a borehole with a cylindrical metallic waveguide
waveguide as a conduit for the beam energy and
purge gas flow. The metallic MMW waveguide annular space
is of smaller diameter than the borehole, which
glass wall
leaves an annular region of free space between
the outside diameter of the waveguide and the
inside diameter of the borehole for exhaust. The exhaust
reaming of the borehole to a diameter larger
than the central waveguide is facilitated by the purge gas
natural divergence of a MMW beam launched
from a waveguide [9]. The borehole itself acts
as a dielectric waveguide (like a long
launched beam
wavelength fiber optic) to continue the
propagation of the energy to the ablation
surface, allowing a large stand off distance, Z,
between the central waveguide and vaporization
front. Z

Rock and product glass melt are good MMW

absorbers [10, 11]. A fully absorbed 1 smoke
megawatt beam with an average surface power
density of 50 kW/cm2 in a 5 cm diameter
borehole will raise the rock surface temperature volatization/melt
front
to 3100 °C (boiling temperature of SiO2 at 1
atmosphere) in about 1 millisecond [12]. The
resulting saturated pressure rock vapor will form Figure 1. Cross-section of circular borehole
nano particle smoke [13-15] that would be with MMW drilling waveguide.
blown out by the purge gas. However, complete

2
MIT PSFC December 2008

vaporization may not be necessary for extraction since the viscosity of the glass melt
would be sufficiently low at 3000 °C (< 2 Poise) [16] to allow the impulse from
vaporization to drive part of the melt into the micro fractures in subsurface rock that
occur naturally [17] or that are thermally induced by the directed energy drilling.
Therefore, rates of penetration could be faster, and energy requirements lower, than those
predicted based on complete rock vaporization.

The glass melt on cooling would form a strong high temperature borehole wall that later
could be perforated where needed. Glass is a stronger, stiffer material than high strength
concrete and most rocks [18, 19]. A separate casing or high specific gravity fluid fill to
keep the borehole from collapsing due to lithostatic pressures would not be needed. A
glass lined borehole would also serve as a robust conduit that is ideal for transferring high
temperature corrosive geothermal fluids. All the current drilling steps of grinding,
extraction, and casing would be replaced with one directed energy drilling operation.
MMW directed energy drilling would be particularly adept at penetrating hard rock in
high temperature, high pressure environments where current mechanical drilling
technology can not easily function.

Fracturing
Fracturing is required in many deep underground formations to extend borehole access to
deep underground energy resources. It is a key element in Enhanced Geothermal
Systems to make possible the circulation of injected water into hot dry rock between
injection and production wells to extract heat. Fracturing is also necessary to extract
natural gas and petroleum from tight formations, which are being increasingly accessed
to meet growing energy demands. Currently there is a large market to stimulate natural
gas and petroleum reservoirs using hydraulic fracturing.

MMW directed energy can be used to achieve high pressure fracturing by transmitting an
intense beam of energy into the borehole to heat a working fluid and converting it into a
high pressure gas or super fluid at the required underground location. Operation of
directed energy high temperature fracturing technology could be either continuous to
maintain a steady high pressure as in conventional hydraulic fracturing or it could be
rapidly pulsed to achieve high peak impulses that would propagate fractures in a hammer
like manner. A propping material (proppant) in the working fluid and high average
pressure would keep the fractures open between pulses to propagate the next pressure
pulse to new fracturing beyond the preceding fractures. Since the high pressure is
generated by a beam of energy locally in the borehole, mechanical limits for generating
high pressures are removed and pressure drops for transmitting a high pressure flow long
distances are circumvented. Such an approach could make it possible to access deeper
and tighter energy resources with reduced environmental impacts by reducing hydraulic
fluid flow requirements. The environmental concerns about the large amounts of water
required and the effects of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing in natural gas
production from tight gas areas such as the potentially large Marcellus Shale region in
New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia could be greatly alleviated.

Opportunity

3
MIT PSFC December 2008

There are substantial energy resources deep beneath earth’s surface that have yet to be
exploited for lack of an economical deep drilling technology. In sedimentary and
basement rock formations in the U. S. there are an estimated ~1025 Joules of geothermal
energy to depths of 10 km (33,000 ft) that could potentially be heat mined using injection
of water into hot dry rock if a low cost drilling technology were available [20]. This
quantity of energy far exceeds the ~ 1020 Joules or 100,000 times the total annual energy
use in the U. S. [21]. Unlike solar or wind power, geothermal power is sustainable
energy that is available 24/7.

It is also estimated that there are 169-187 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of on shore and off
shore gas resources in the U. S. below 4.6 km (15,000 ft) [22] that are yet to be accessed.
This corresponds to over a 7 year supply at the current consumption rate of 23 Tcf per
year in the U. S. [23]. Average costs for on shore drilling below 4.6 km (15,000 ft) have
been shown to be $5.3 million per well, increasing exponentially with depth with the
deepest wells costing up to $15 million [24]. If these drilling costs could be significantly
reduced it would open up access to vast new energy resources.

The capital cost of a one megawatt gyrotron system would be less than $8 million. If a
vaporization rate of 40 m/hr for a 5 cm diameter borehole is assumed (half of the
maximum projected rate) it would take about 200 hours to drill a 7.6 km (25,000) deep
well. Taking setup time into account, around thirty wells could thus be drilled per year.
Over a period 10 years the capital amortization cost of the gyrotron could be about $25k
per well. This is a very small fraction of the current cost of $15 million per deep well,
suggesting that millimeter wave directed energy drilling has the potential to be a
breakthrough technology to enable geothermal energy and access to deep energy
resources.

Rugged fieldable gyrotron systems could be ordered today and adapted with modest
development to drilling. As featured on the CBS news program 60 Minutes in the spring
of 2008, the U. S. Army is testing in the field 100 kW, 95 GHz cw gyrotrons for its active
denial weapon [25]. These gyrotron systems are completely contained with all power
supplies on Humvees. They have been driven on off road terrain and shown to be
reliable. Furthermore, a 2 MW, 95 GHz cw gyrotron system with a total weight of 1900
lbs is under going tests for deployment on aircraft [26]. Consequently, the source
technology for millimeter-wave drilling and fracturing is now available. A millimeter-
wave drilling or fracturing system could thus be rapidly implemented once a decision has
been made to build one.

References
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Crystallography, pp. 18-27, 1995.

4
MIT PSFC December 2008

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22. IHS, The Source, July 6, 2006, http://petrochemical.ihs.com/news-06Q3/doe-

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