In all of these activities, substantial technological advances are essential if we are to restore and maintain our competitive position in the industrial world economy, revitalize our cities, and afford the massive environmental remediation programs already planned. Both public and private sectors have essential roles in a substantial long-term program to develop and apply the necessary advanced drilling and excavation technologies. In the face of limited federal budgets and major cutbacks in industrial R&D, however, the only viable option is to proceed in an interdisciplinary, interindustry, cooperative program that can amplify the impact of limited funds.
The National Advanced Drilling and Excavation Technologies (NADET) program is intended to provide that option, pooling scientific disciplines and industrial talents as well as funding. Further, though these basic industries are themselves worthy of assistance in the national interest, many of the government's own programs will benefit substantially and directly from the NADET program, as will the taxpayers who support those programs.
Our industrial economy and the major facilities of the world are built on just four basic industries: mining, which produces metals, minerals, and energy materials; the oil and gas industry, which produces energy materials and essential chemicals; the construction industry, which produces and maintains our structures and infrastructures; and agriculture, which sustains and nourishes the world's population. We are, as a nation and as individuals, fundamentally dependent on the continuing success of these basic industries to sustain our economy and to maintain and improve our way of life.
The first three basic industries are depend critically on drilling and excavation technologies. Their future health in the face of severe international competition, declining domestic raw material reserves, and increasing environmental concerns depends on establishing and maintaining a lead in these technologies. Thus, while seldom considered explicitly, we must be concerned, again as a nation and as individuals, with the state of these technologies. And for very real reasons: there are simply no alternatives to economic and reliable supplies of raw materials and to workable civil facilities.
While we will quote impressive figures to confirm the economic impact of the mining, oil and gas, and construction industries, common sense and personal experience provide a sound basis for judging their impact. How could our industries produce anything if important materials--steel, copper, concrete, etc.--were not economically and reliably available? Where would we be (Where have we been?) if energy materials were curtailed? How can we afford the massive environmental cleanup now expected? Where will we be in the not-too-distant future if we cannot relieve urban congestion and center city strangulation with economically feasible underground infrastructure? The list goes on and on, with topics familiar to all of us. These industries are indeed the foundation of our economy and our individual lifestyles.
While these questions suggest opportunities that should be pursued in the private sector's own best interest, their answers increasingly lie beyond the capabilities and motivations of individual corporations. The questions also identify major and direct challenges to important, long-term social and environmental programs. Exploitation of alternative energy sources such as geothermal energy and oil shale await major reductions in drilling and mining costs (or, alternatively, unacceptably high energy prices). Remediation of a wide variety of hazardous waste sites will be difficult or impossible without advanced technology that substantially reduces costs, is "smart" in the sense of seeking and extracting or isolating hazardous materials, and remotely controlled or automated to avoid human exposure. Economic, safe, long-term underground storage of hazardous materials demands better technologies. Restoration of urban vitality, and indeed support of the entire trend toward massive urbanization, will require substantially better transportation, water, sewer, and other utility distribution systems, all of which will require far more economic underground construction technologies. But the necessary developments are beyond the capabilities of even these programs and certainly outside their primary focus. Progress in all of these areas will provide jobs throughout the economic spectrum and across the country, from scientist to engineer to laborer. Benefits will extend to ordinary consumers and to everyday users of the infrastructure as well as to those engaged in the development and application of advanced technologies. The NADET Program and the NADET Institute are positioned to bring these needs, opportunities, and programs together with the necessary talent in a coordinated effort that can succeed even in the face of reduced private and federal R&D budgets.
It is true that available R&D funds are declining. Some oil industry observers say that corporate research has dropped to such a level that management no longer even thinks about it (or the consequences of its demise)(1). As in virtually all areas, federal money for drilling and excavation R&D has declined and is expected to decline further. In some areas--mining and tunneling in particular--there is essentially no support. Unfortunately, other things are declining as well: our energy and mineral reserves; our share of worldwide equipment and construction markets; farm acreage in production; the health of the environment; and the condition of our infrastructure. At the same time, related things are rising: world population; food, energy, and material consumption; standard of living expectations; urban congestion; environmental concerns; and world competition. Clearly, the only way to close the widening gap between R&D funds and R&D needs is to find a way to apply the available funds more effectively. The coordinated NADET Program is designed to do just that.
In the coming decades, all of those markets will expand substantially as world population increases, urban areas become more congested, and improved standards of living push up demand for minerals and energy. In addition, worldwide environmental protection and restoration activities associated with drilling and excavation activities are growing rapidly, with over $12 billion spent annually in the U.S. alone.
In the exploitation of domestic resources we developed leadership in drilling and excavation technologies that extended our products and operations to projects around the world. But conditions are changing. Domestic resources inevitably shrink as they are consumed, though economic operations can be extended by better technology (or higher prices). Rising environmental concerns either prohibit or increase the cost of many operations in this country. By the mid-1980's, US competitiveness in global and domestic drilling and excavation markets had deteriorated. Increasing market shares were captured by superior foreign technologies--technologies that were often the result of programs involving government-assisted consortia. On the construction front, the cost of underground facilities has risen sharply; and without the technological leadership we once enjoyed we have lost construction work even on projects in this country. Much needed underground facilities are often simply not affordable in any case at today's prices. All of these changes can be offset by the development of advanced technologies that reduce costs, restore our technological leadership, and/or permit environmentally acceptable operations.
These are not glamorous industries in this era of popular high-tech fascination, but they do present difficult challenges demanding sophisticated technological solutions. At the same time, the health of these basic industries is without question essential to our continued prosperity and comfort in today's world market.
The NADET Institute, located at MIT, is governed by a Board of Directors. Because all of the technologies of interest must ultimately find application in commercial practice, the Board is dominated and chaired by industry leaders. This arrangement assures the relevance of selected programs and provides for an effective review to maintain timely and well-focused progress. At the same time, the charter of the program and careful selection of Board personnel maintain the long-range outlook necessary for substantial advances. The Board is assisted by an Industry Advisory Board consisting of industry executives who provide both advice and assistance in promoting NADET's cooperative structure throughout the industries. A Government Executive Advisory Board, consisting of high-level federal officials, provides guidance on federal program needs and directions, and promotes cooperation and coordination among relevant programs.
Day-to-day operations are managed by the Institute Director and staff at MIT. The Institute staff is supported as necessary by volunteer peer review committees for proposal reviews and by individual industry advisory committees to define relevant program needs for each industry.
The NADET Institute seeks funds, both from government and industry, in support of its interdisciplinary, interindustry cooperative program and in support of the key R&D projects necessary to bring together, connect, and extend numerous programs in drilling and excavation R&D. Only in this cooperative way can we economically achieve the major advances needed.
Cooperative programs are not new, though broad cooperation within an industry is certainly not common in US industrial practice (to say nothing of interdisciplinary, interindustry cooperation, as proposed here). Prominent cooperative institutes have been in place for some time in two industries: the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), and the Gas Research Institute (GRI). These regulated industries have enjoyed special funding arrangements, but their R&D funding has also declined. However, there is a difference. These single industry-focused programs are obliged to spread their funding over a wide range of sometimes quite unrelated technologies. NADET, in contrast, proposes to concentrate the resources of multiple industries on a narrow range of closely related technologies. Surely the latter is the best arrangement to maintain a focused and productive R&D effort.
While seeking essential industrial support and participation, the NADET Institute and the NADET program require federal funding for at least three reasons:
The payoff in the third category alone will be very large compared to the cost of a properly structured, coordinated, and sustained national R&D program. Beyond that purely government payoff, however, the technological advances sought are essential to our nation's continued economic growth in a competitive world economy.
Given the fundamental national stake in maintaining leadership in drilling and excavation technologies, the U.S. can ill afford a further decline in this area. Given in addition limited R&D funding from all sources, a cooperative program that promises also to build multi-industry-government partnerships seems the best, if not the only, response.
1 There is other evidence that the "beyond the point of no return" connotation of this comment is not everywhere true in that industry.
2 Estimated 1991 world crude mineral production provided by U.S. Bureau of Mines in 1994.
3 Estimate compiled by Prof. H. Einstein at MIT and Prof. R. Sterling at U. of Minnesota, 1994.
4 Based on estimates provided by Prof. M. Adelman at MIT incorporating Chase Manhattan Bank compilations of US drilling costs and API data of worldwide drilling activities.
Last modified: 1/22/97