AN EXPLORATION company has persuaded the British government to grant it licences to look for oil in the heart of the countryside, on the evidence of particles called 鈥渕icroleptons鈥�. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has given the company three oil-exploration licences for sites in rural Leicestershire, Gloucestershire and Powys. But physicists, including the Nobel prizewinner on whose work the technology is supposedly based, say that microleptons don鈥檛 exist.
According to Technology Investment and Exploration (TIEL) of Guernsey, underground oil deposits emit billions of microleptons, which leave invisible traces on conventional satellite photographs. To spot areas that might contain oil, prospectors shine a 鈥渕icrolepton generator鈥� over the photographic film, making the traces visible. Flying over the area with a hand-held 鈥渕icrolepton scanner鈥� pinpoints the deposits.
Nicholas Yellachich, TIEL鈥檚 managing director in Britain, told this month鈥檚 Physics World magazine that the technology is based on work carried out by Martin Perl of Stanford University. In 1995, Perl shared the Nobel Prize for Physics for discovering a subatomic particle called the 鈥渢au lepton鈥�. But Perl insists he has nothing to do with microleptons or the company. 鈥淭here is no valid evidence in physics or chemistry for the existence of microleptons,鈥� he says.
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Yellachich remains convinced of the validity of his technology. 鈥淲e鈥檙e about 5 years ahead of the Americans. We鈥檝e learned how to measure microlepton radiation.鈥�
Despite the objections, TIEL has secured outline planning permission from Leicestershire County Council to drill for oil at Vicary Farm near Loughborough, in an officially designated 鈥淎rea of Particularly Attractive Countryside鈥�. The company wants to sink an exploratory borehole 3200 metres underground on the 2-hectare site and to carry out work initially lasting 18 weeks. All it needs to get first is full planning permission from the council and a drilling licence from the DTI.
Local residents are outraged at the plans, concerned that the drilling will cause noise and disruption, and could damage the local environment. They have sought the help of particle physicists such as John Dowell of Birmingham University, who has written to local officials insisting that microleptons do not exist. 鈥淓ven if the particles did exist and could pass unhindered through thousands of metres of rock,鈥� he says, 鈥渉ow can they be detected so easily by a hand-held device on a helicopter?鈥�
The council has not been swayed. A spokesman says it was 鈥渁ware of the debate鈥� over microleptons when it granted planning permission. 鈥淭he decision was not based on any acceptance of the validity of microlepton technology,鈥� he says. 鈥淭here is a possibility, however slim, that there is oil beneath the site.鈥� But a report from the British Geological Survey has concluded that the area is extremely unlikely to contain commercial amounts of oil. 鈥淰icary Farm is sitting on 70 to 100 metres of Jurassic mudstone, below which is just slate,鈥� says Neil Davidson, chairman of the local residents鈥� Charnwood Forest Oil Action Group.
Some point out that a drilling licence from the British government would be a useful marketing tool, giving credibility to a company trying to sell its technology. In response to the complaints from physicists and local residents, the DTI has now asked the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council to review 鈥渕icrolepton science鈥�.