About NADET
The National Advanced Drilling and Excavation Technologies Program and Institute
NADET is based on the premise that many basic industries, national programs, and the American tax payer will benefit if drilling and excavation research funds, talent, ideas, and technologies can be pooled to develop advances that are beyond the capabilities of individual participants and programs. Essential activities include oil, gas, and geothermal drilling; mining; tunneling; and environmental programs. All are of critical importance in themselves in an increasingly global economy and in view of declining domestic mineral and energy reserves. Many important national programs are also at stake, including assuring the stability and security of energy and mineral supplies, urban infrastructure expansion and modernization, environmental preservation and remediation, hazardous material storage, and defense-related excavation. Our ability to compete in world markets and even at home will be strongly affected by the state of our technology.There are indications that the time is right for the NADET approach. Discussions with oil company executives indicate that they believe pooling of R&D funding is a viable way to obtain more bang for their buck. Indeed, several have voiced a willingness to become sponsors of NADET's future programs. Other industries are expressing their belief that cross cutting technology could be valuable to them. At the same time cooperation between government and industry, including shared funding, is being recognized as an important way to bring new technology into the marketplace. Geothermal program funds have been made available on the grounds that geothermal drilling research is relevant to a host of other applications, and in the expectation that, once underway, the NADET cooperative program will support additional research that is in turn similarly relevant to geothermal drilling. It is clear that neither the broad NADET goals and benefits nor the geothermal drilling program itself can be achieved on the basis of single-interest funding. It is essential, then, that NADET Institute substantially broaden its support base among both industrial participants and government agencies and programs.
With a year of workshops, planning, and establishing contacts completed, NADET Institute is poised to broaden its support. It is encouraged that many industrial firms are now beginning to look with favor on cooperative programs to revitalize their lagging research efforts. In the coming year the NADET Institute seeks to:
- Obtain formal endorsement in support of its interdisciplinary, interindustry, cooperative structure from industry executives and professional societies and trade associations.
- Raise operating funds from a dues-paying industrial support community.
- Initiate industry-funded research projects.
- Continue and expand its outreach program of workshops and publications.
- Obtain executive assistance in the establishment of an inter-agency, federally supported national program, as for example, through the National Science and Technology Council.
- Expand federal research support in advanced R&D areas of common interest to multiple federal agencies.
- Begin the structuring of a Greater NADET coordinated program of projects relevant to NADET and
- national goals, though not necessarily all funded through the NADET Institute.
With guidance from workshops and its 17 member Operating Committee, NADET Institute R&D programs will focus initially on:
- Advanced Drilling and Excavation Systems
- advanced and revolutionary penetration technologies
- continuous line-while-advancing systems
- Smart Drilling and Excavation Systems
- sensing and decision making systems
- high temperature components