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Civil Engineering with Atomic Detonations
ThesQuid writes "I just caught
this article about China possibly using nuclear blasts to help build a hydro project in Tibet. I've always wondered why nobody has ever actually used nuclear explosives in civil engineering projects, if (and this is a BIG if) the blasts can be made reasonably radiologically clean." Several U.S. nuclear tests were devoted to exploring the feasibility of this; obviously we decided it wasn't such a great idea.
If IIRC it wasn't a resevior that the Russians made it was a natural gas storage facility. One of the very first issues of Discover Magazine had an article on this back in 81 I think complete with a picture of an engineer standing inside of one. I believe that the article also pointed out that the US had done the same back in the late 60's or early 70's. The nuke made for an ideal underground excavator: the cavern created would have walls several feet thick of rock that was made molten for a few seconds and therefore could be airtight (a huge glass bowl so to speak). What I wonder is why noone has done this on the moon yet. After venting the space it would make an ideal sealed container for colonization projects. If we had done this during some of the Apollo missions (or at least during that era) the caverns created would have had 30+ years to vent already. I know there would be some issues regarding the radioactivity afterwards but I believe that the use of a Hydrogen bomb (vs regular A bomb) would considerable bring down the level of radiation afterwards. This could be done with asteroids as well using small devices. Some scifi author had a few stories about this but I can't remember who. This could be a useful way of bringing down the quantity of nukes that had been stockpiled during the cold war but that is totally a subject for debate in and of itself.
Prospecting Stinks. Stop Wasting Time on Cold Calling.
Obviusly, the Chinese aren't completely sure it's a good idea either... Otherwise, why would they do it in Tibet instead of their... umm... "mainland"?
I wonder what international "free Tibet" movement will say to this.
I gave up sigs almost a year ago.
Once again I note:
"there are no radiological clean _blasts_ in nature"
A: Nuclear fission in an explosive device ALWAYS creates byproducts
B: Do not compare controlled energy event with UNCONTROLLED one. An explosion, even from a petard is ALWAYS UNCONTROLLED within the radius of the event. You may try to control the limits of the explosion not the explosion itself. and on what concerns nuclear devices this becames more problematic, due to the fact you are dealing with atoms and making a large blow of energy.
C: Nuclear blasts also IRRADIATE the environment through the whole spectre of light. So there can be several consequences, ranging from heat burns on living beings to formation of short-living isotopes. You may try to reach an "optimal" burn of the nuclear device. But what about the rest? Anyway you can't get rid off the gamma, alpha & beta rays.
D: A nuclear device creates isotopes. Several of them. They will live a N time. This N time ranges from hours to thousands of years. They are not only dangerous because they irradiate soemthing. They are also dangerous because they decay and are consequently the ground for mutations. Mutations that may not happen with you or your children but which will appear on your granson or grandchild.
E: Don't mess things between a controlled irradiation of humans/animals and such things as atomic weapons for military/engineering purposes. You stopped short here on claiming on small amounts are beneficial. Even some of the harshest levels of gamma rays are used to cure people with cancer. Levels that, if produced over the whole body, would give a few minutes/hours of life. Nearly enough to ask for the coffin, kiss your wife, and say bye to your kids...
There would be some practical problems, too. The most important is that in order to get one of these nice deep bubbles, you need to get the nuclear explosive deep enough under ground that it won't blow the top off your new chamber. That means a moderately large drilling project; at the very least you're going to have to make a hole 100+ meters deep to put the nuke in. There was no way that the Appolo missions could have brought along enough equipment to do that kind of drilling. The were just barely able to get to the Moon and back, so dragging along a few tons of drilling equipment was pretty much out of the question.
There were obviously some political issues, too. For one thing, even if they could get by the issue of detonating a nuke in space, this would have looked like an American declaration of interest in colonizing the Moon. That's understandable because it would have been. That probably wouldn't have sat well during the depths of the cold war. Possibly more important, as you correctly point out this is a long term project; you aren't just going to do your nuclear excavation one day and move in the next. It's going to take a decade or two for the radiation to fall to acceptable levels, and I've never particularly noticed the U.S. government to be particularly competent at planning beyond the next presidential election, much less the next decade.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
i suggest Redmond, WA. ;)
Aside from all the water and associated political issues, which are not exactly small, just how big of a tunnel are they wanting to burrow through the mountain? Does anyone know what the geological strata are, ie. is the mountain made of granite?
From my understanding nuclear explosions such as that used by Project Plowshare are great at moving earth but even better at fracturing rock. So when they cutting that tunnel, just how are they going to avoid creating a huge fault line right through the mountain, let alone the possibility of enlarging any existing faults? And I also not that it sounds like this tunnel is going to be slanted... just where is the mountain going to slide to? (Hmmm, does this count as increasing the boundaries of Tibet? ;*} When they excavated Cheyenne mountain for NORAD with regular explosives they had to bolt the core of the mountain back together. Just how much of Mount Namcha Barwa are they going to have to bolt back together?
And they're talking about building a 10 mile long tunnel with nukes? Which means that they're going to have to light off, say 10 small nukes to excavate the tunnel? And just how are they going to secure already excavated tunnel sections against the next, and all the subsequent nuclear blasts and how many million degree plasma? Don't forget that the explosion is going follow the path of least resistance, which is going to be straight out the already bored tunnel. So doesn't that mean that you're going to have how many metric tonnes of rock forcing their way down the already bored tunnel sections, at how many kilo's an second, neatly scouring off any anchoring bolts, shotcrete or ferrocement reinforcing that you've got...? So each time they light one off, they're going to have to re-inspect or resecure how much of the already bored tunnel?
If they want any precision, they're probablly going to have to go to smaller devices, which usually means that they're going to be dirtier(in the nuclear sense), especially in closed confines. Think of the neutron pulse that the surrounding rock is going to recieve. Wanna bet that there's going to be increased radioactivity? Sure you do...
And just who are they going to convince to go work in the radioactive, dangerously fractured tunnels? Gee, I sure wouldn't want to be the ones drafted to go down there, not for several thousand years. But then of course they could always just grab a few thousand Tibetans or radiation ignorant Chinese villagers and get them to do the dirty work, after all it wouldn't out of line with their human rights policies...After all wasn't this the same government that after lighting off a test nuke, had troops go charging into the test area with only gas masks? What's a few thousand dead or dying when you've got how many billion to water?
This whole idea of theirs is foolish from several dozen angles, I sure hope it doesn't go through. If they start this I wouldn't be surprised to see another war start... between China and India, not that China wouldn't mind the additional territory.
The international community should have stopped them from invading Tibet a long time ago, now they're just paying the piper..
The basic idea was that the radiation would mostly be contained inside the debris cone. Previous nuclear tests indicated that would happen. By modern standards, the release of radiation would have been unacceptable, but in the era of above-ground nuclear testing, this would have been considered a modest level of contamination.
Ref: 1964, "Engineering with Nuclear Explosives", Proceedings of the Third Plowshare Symposium, TID-7695, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Division of Technical Information. (Available from NTIS)
The U.S. gave up on a project to blast a harbor into park of Alaska using nuclear explosives.
a riot/chariotindex4.html
http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/VirtualClassroom/Ch
That would be news, to the rest of the world, who believe that the U.S. only had nukes after ~1943, not back in 1904 when the Panama Canal was built.
IIRC, it's been used by the USSR to help make a reservoir.
It's use has been explored by the U.S., but, obviously, they decided against it.
There are some concerns about radioactive fallout, but I believe they are overblown -- the risks would be overshadowed by the rewards.
The problem is, limits for radiation exposure are too low. Coincidentally, there is a new book out on the history of radiation limits: Permissible Dose: A History of Radiation Protection in the Twentieth Century, by J. Samuel Walker. I haven't read it, but I know Walker is an outspoken critic of current radiation policy and I know he knows his stuff.
Unbiased it won't be, but this book is almost guaranteed to give you an education.
We note with great interest that you have revived your program to divert waters from the Brahmaputra River. We note with similar interest that your Three Gorges Dam is nearing completion. You may care to note our recent success in joining the nuclear club. Allow me to explain how these are related:
Assuming your diversion project even works without a hitch, we have grave reasons to be displeased with it. Although Assam and Bangladesh usually do not lack for water, they will suffer several adverse consequences: you plan to retain these waters during dry spells and let them spill in their original course during we spells. This lets you stabilize your water supply. But it gravely destabilize ours, and we have enough trouble with flooding in the region as it is. Furthermore, your foolish idea will cause Bangladeshis to be increasingly reliant on their artesian waters, which are contaminated with arsenic. I'm sure that your PR flaks will bombard the Western media with promises that China would never, ever, use her dams in a way that would adversely affect India or Bangladesh. However, we note that your dams on the Mekong River have been quite the curse for Vietnam.
We don't need this. We're an emerging economic power, and after a long struggle for this we just this year became a net exporter of cereals. Now, the world is a little upset that we just developed a nuclear capacity. But the world will forgive us, especially the West, because we just had an orderly transfer of power from the Congress Party to the BJP, and the BJP has just made fools of many Chicken Littles who described India's new rulers as being to the right of Atilla the Hun. The world will note that an orderly transfer of power has not happened in your country's entire history.
Back to nukes. Wouldn't it suck if one of those things fell near the Three Gorges Dam? We think it would.
Call me up, Zhang, and we'll discuss better ways we can cooperate over water issues. We know how bad the water situation is in northwestern China, we know that people there have such salty water that they don't bother with table salt. We sympathise, we are not heartless. But don't be a fool.
Regards,
Vajpayee.
This isn't quite true about the radiation. I am not quite sure about the byproducts of the fusion itself (to generate a stable helium atom it would appear that it must be a dueterium dueterium fusion and I am not sure what type of hydrogen is used) however regardless of this question fusion bombs are always ignited with a fission primer (the x-rays from this primer bomb ignite the hydrogen) this bomb will certainly have radioactive leftovers. How much is another matter
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
I'm not a weapons designer, but to my knowledge, all current thermonuclear packages require an initiator stage consisting of 1+ "ordinary" nuclear devices (U-235 or plutonium squeeze devices). So while the main stage may not kick out a lot of (long-term) radiation, you can bet your bottom dollar the initiator device(s) will. Further more, the earth around the device will become irradiated and amplify the fallout effect of the original device (and contaminate rain on its way to the water table). This is why the fallout from a military target like missle silos was always assumed to be much worse because the device would have to detonate at or near ground level as opposed to miles up for a "soft" civilian target like a city.
The United States looked into using nuclear devices for civil engineering in the 1950s and 1960s. For example, string a line of devices and you can make an instant shipping canal. The only problem is that the environmental side effects would be extreme. A rough rule of thumb I've heard quoted is that the amount of earth eliminated by the detonation in cubic meters was equal to the yield of the device assuming it was placed properly (100kT device = 100,000 m^3 earth gone). The devices used for this sort of thing were not in the thermonuclear yield range (megaton TNT equivalent or above). If the Chinese are thinking along the lines of the earlier plans, I'd guess their charges will be
As a side bit of trivial, you'd be amazed at the number of things we (US) thought of using "small" devices for during the 50's and 60's: civil engineering, fighter-deployed anti-aircraft missles (sure, 1 missle = a squadron of Russian bombers, but I'm sure the folks down wind of that will be _real_ happy...), anti-tank mines, and Jeep-mounted nuke rockets where the range of the missle was less that the lethal radius of the device (I think weapon system was refered to as the Patriot or the Bowie or something like that).
Random rambling at 3am...
--
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
"I've always wondered why nobody has ever actually used nuclear explosives in civil engineering projects, if (and this is a BIG if) the blasts can be made reasonably radiologically clean."
First - the article mentions Soviet Union as the only country who used nuclear devices for civil pruposes.
Second - Yes USSR did it. And the consequences have shown that it is not worth to do it again. Radiaton and several other factors make the use of nuclear devices a big problem. Until now there are a few places on the Urals and Ukraine that give trouble due to the levels of radiation. One of them is located right on one of the biggest coal basins of the world where population density is quite high.
Third - curiously, during this year, I have noted several references on the net related to civil use of nuclear explosives. So it amazes me a little that someone talks about "radiological clean" blasts. There are no radiological clean nuclear blasts in nature and it is stupid to claim such thing.
Fourth - Some people may not be aware of this. The problem with nuclear explosions is not only related to radiation but also to how you can control it. Nuclear blasts cannot be fully predictable. Sometimes calculations make errors of of 2-3 times or even more. Second the blasting of a device and the failure of the fission/fusion process can be of unpredictable consequences. Imagine if such situation happens in this dam(n) project. You risk to poison the entire Eastern Asia, the most populated place on Earth.
Fifth - If you know History than you may see that China's government has a harsh dossier on what relates to use of nuclear devices. During Cold War they made an experiment where they dropped thousands of soldiers near an atmospheric nuclear blast. If we compare the pictures to American and Russian military "rabbits", these guys were completely naked to radiation effects. Now I know what radiation may cause to someone. I had a neighbor who slowly died from radiation from exactly one of these military "experiments". He was equipped according to all standards and still radiation caught him. The picture is horrible. Think about a guy that pushes one leg while walking, lost nearly all teeth, nearly cannot speak, his skin completely burned and having cancer slooooooowly eating his bones. The most horrible is that he is living 20 YEARS with this.
Radiation is a snipper you see only two late. Myself I got burned from a radiation "hot spot" near Kiev, less then two years after Chernobyl. I never guessed what was happening on my right limb until one friend told me they had found the spot in that place (I got the equivalent of a 1 degree burn that took just 6 monthes to heal).
Sometimes I wonder if people do read the articles before posting here. Sincerly the average IQ, quality and quantity of Slashdot articles have downgraded drastically for the last time. Time for you people to seriously think about this or soon this will be News for Gooks. Stuff that mutters.
Well, sorta...
This Report states that in Colorado, during the years 1969-1971, Project Rulison, tried to stimulate natural gas production. In 1969, a 43 kiloton fission-type nuclear device was detonated at a depth of 8,426 feet, on Colorado's western slope.
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."