# Downhole Drillbit

## (1990’s)

We were told by some Livermore engineers in November 1992 that Bill Wattenburg has been working on a device for drilling oil wells that could save enormous amounts of money and improve the safety of drilling if he is successful. Neither he nor they would tell us what it was. They would only tell us that everyone else has failed for fifty years to achieve this “driller’s dream”. They said that some company with a lot of money bet Wattenburg that it couldn’t be done. They said that his first experiment failed. Because of that alone, they figured he would have it solved before long. That’s how he gets warmed up.

[Note: Bill did succeed in this task, and has since received two patents on the resulting invention—PKS]