Peaceful nuclear explosions (PNEs) arenuclear explosions conducted for non-military purposes. Proposed uses include excavation for the building ofcanals andharbours, electrical generation, the use of nuclear explosions to drive spacecraft, and as a form of wide-areafracking. PNEs were an area of some research from the late 1950s into the 1980s, primarily in theUnited States andSoviet Union.
In the U.S., a series of tests were carried out underProject Plowshare. Some of the ideas considered included blasting a newPanama Canal, constructing the proposedNicaragua Canal, the use of underground explosions to create electricity (Project PACER), and a variety of mining, geological, andradionuclide studies. The largest of the excavation tests was carried out in theSedan nuclear test in 1962, which released large amounts of radioactive gas into the air. By the late 1960s, public opposition to Plowshare was increasing, and a 1970s study of the economics of the concepts suggested they had no practical use. Plowshare saw decreasing interest from the 1960s, and was officially cancelled in 1977.
The Soviet program started a few years after the U.S. efforts and explored many of the same concepts under theirNuclear Explosions for the National Economy program. The program was more extensive, eventually conducting 239 nuclear explosions. Some of these tests also released radioactivity, including a significant release ofplutonium into the groundwater and the polluting of an area near theVolga River. A major part of the program in the 1970s and 80s was the use of very small bombs to produce shock waves as a seismic measuring tool, and as part of these experiments, two bombs were successfully used to seal blown-out oil wells. The program officially ended in 1988.
As part of ongoingarms control efforts, both programs came to be controlled by a variety of agreements. Most notable among these is the 1976 Treaty on Underground Nuclear Explosions for Peaceful Purposes (PNE Treaty).[1][2] TheComprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) of 1996 prohibits all nuclear explosions, regardless of whether they are for peaceful purposes, but has not entered into force. Peaceful nuclear explosions have been raised most recently as a method ofasteroid impact avoidance.
In the PNE Treaty, the signatories agreed: not to carry out any individual nuclear explosions having ayield exceeding 150 kilotonsTNT equivalent; not to carry out any group explosion (consisting of a number of individual explosions) having an aggregate yield exceeding 1,500 kilotons; and not to carry out any group explosion having an aggregate yield exceeding 150 kilotons unless the individual explosions in the group could be identified and measured by agreed verification procedures. The parties also reaffirmed their obligations to comply fully with theLimited Test Ban Treaty of 1963.
The parties reserve the right to carry out nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes in the territory of another country if requested to do so, but only in full compliance with the yield limitations and other provisions of the PNE Treaty and in accord with theNon-Proliferation Treaty.
Articles IV and V of the PNE Treaty set forth the agreed verification arrangements. In addition to the use of national technical means, the treaty states that information and access to sites of explosions will be provided by each side, and includes a commitment not to interfere with verification means and procedures.
The protocol to the PNE Treaty sets forth the specific agreed arrangements for ensuring that no weapon-related benefits precluded by theThreshold Test Ban Treaty are derived by carrying out a nuclear explosion used for peaceful purposes, including provisions for use of thehydrodynamic yield measurement method,seismic monitoring, and on-site inspection.
The agreed statement that accompanies the treaty specifies that a "peaceful application" of an underground nuclear explosion would not include the developmental testing of any nuclear explosive.[3]
Operation Plowshare was the name of the U.S. program for the development of techniques to usenuclear explosives for peaceful purposes. The name was coined in 1961, taken fromMicah 4:3 ("And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat theirswords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more"). Twenty-eight nuclear blasts were detonated between 1961 and 1973.
One of the first U.S. proposals for peaceful nuclear explosions that came close to being carried out wasProject Chariot, which would have used severalhydrogen bombs to create anartificial harbor atCape Thompson, Alaska. It was never carried out due to concerns for the native populations and the fact that there was little potential use for the harbor to justify its risk and expense. There was also talk of using nuclear explosions to excavate a secondPanama Canal,[4] as well as an alternative to theSuez Canal.[5][6]
The largest excavation experiment took place in 1962 at theDepartment of Energy'sNevada Test Site. TheSedan nuclear test carried out as part ofOperation Storax displaced 12 million tons of earth, creating the largest man-made crater in the world, generating a largenuclear fallout overNevada andUtah. Three tests were conducted in order tostimulate natural gas production, but the effort was abandoned as impractical because of cost andradioactive contamination of the gas.[7][8]
There were many negative impacts from Project Plowshare's 27 nuclear explosions. For example, theProject Gasbuggy site,[8] located 89 kilometres (55 mi) east ofFarmington, New Mexico, still contains nuclear contamination from a single subsurface blast in 1967.[9] Other consequences included blighted land, relocated communities,tritium-contaminated water, radioactivity, and fallout from debris being hurled high into the atmosphere. These were ignored and downplayed until the program was terminated in 1977, due in large part to public opposition, after $770 million had been spent on the project.[10][better source needed]
TheSoviet Union conducted a much more vigorous program of 239 nuclear tests, some with multiple devices, between 1965 and 1988 under the auspices of Program No. 6—Employment of Nuclear Explosive Technologies in the Interests of National Economy and Program No. 7—Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy.
The initial program was patterned on the U.S. version, with the same basic concepts being studied. One test,Chagan test in January 1965, has been described as a "near clone" of the U.S. Sedan shot. Like Sedan, Chagan also resulted in a massive plume of radioactive material being blown high into the atmosphere, with an estimated 20% of the fission products with it. Detection of the plume over Japan led to accusations by the U.S. that the Soviets had carried out an above-ground test in violation of thePartial Test Ban Treaty, but these charges were later dropped.
The later, and more extensive, "Deep Seismic Sounding" Program focused on the use of much smaller explosions for various geological uses. Some of these tests are considered to be operational, not purely experimental.[11] These included the use of peaceful nuclear explosions to create deepseismic profiles. Compared to the usage of conventional explosives or mechanical methods, nuclear explosions allow the collection of longer seismic profiles (up to several thousand kilometres).[12]
Alexey Yablokov has claimed that all PNE technologies have non-nuclear alternatives and that many PNEs actually caused nuclear disasters.[13]
Reports on the successful Soviet use of nuclear explosions in extinguishing out-of-control gas well fires were widely cited in United States policy discussions of options for stopping the 2010 Gulf of MexicoDeepwater Horizon oil spill.[14][15]
Germany at one time considered manufacturing nuclear explosives for civil engineering purposes. In the early 1970s a feasibility study was conducted for a project tobuild a canal from theMediterranean Sea to theQattara Depression in the Western Desert ofEgypt using nuclear demolition. This project proposed to use 213 devices, with yields of 1 to 1.5 megatons, detonated at depths of 100 to 500 m (330 to 1,640 ft) to build this canal for the purpose of producing hydroelectric power.[16][17][18]
TheSmiling Buddha,India's first explosive nuclear device, was described by theIndian Government as a peaceful nuclear explosion.[19]
InAustralia, nuclear blasting was proposed as a way of mining iron ore in thePilbara.[20]
Apart from their use as weapons,nuclear explosives have been tested and used, in a similar manner to chemicalhigh explosives, for various non-military uses. These have included large-scale earth moving,isotope production and the stimulation and closing-off of the flow ofnatural gas.
At the peak of theAtomic Age, the United States initiatedOperation Plowshare, involving "peaceful nuclear explosions". TheUnited States Atomic Energy Commission chairman announced that the Plowshare project was intended to "highlight the peaceful applications of nuclear explosive devices and thereby create a climate of world opinion that is more favorable to weapons development and tests".[25][26][need quotation to verify] The Operation Plowshare program included 27 nuclear tests designed towards investigating these non-weapon uses from 1961 through 1973. Due to the inability of the U.S. physicists to reduce the fission fraction of low-yield (approximately 1 kiloton) nuclear devices that would have been required for manycivil engineering projects, when long-term health and clean-up costs fromfission products were included in the cost, there was virtually no economic advantage over conventional explosives except for potentially the very largest projects.[27][28]
TheQattara Depression Project was developed by ProfessorFriedrich Bassler during his appointment to the West German ministry of economics in 1968. He put forth a plan to create a Saharan lake andhydroelectric power station by blasting a tunnel between theMediterranean Sea and theQattara Depression in Egypt, an area that lies below sea level. The core problem of the entire project was the water supply to the depression. Calculations by Bassler showed that digging a canal or tunnel would be too expensive, therefore Bassler determined that the use of nuclear explosive devices, to excavate the canal or tunnel, would be the most economical. The Egyptian government declined to pursue the idea.[29]
TheSoviet Union conducted a much more exhaustive program than Plowshare, with 239 nuclear tests between 1965 and 1988. Furthermore, many of the "tests" were considered economic applications, not tests, in theNuclear Explosions for the National Economy program.[30]
These included a 30-kiloton explosion being used to close theUzbekistaniUrtabulak gas well in 1966 that had been blowing since 1963, and a few months later a 47-kiloton explosive was used to seal a higher-pressure blowout at the nearbyPamuk gas field.[31] (For more details, seeBlowout (well drilling)#Use of nuclear explosions.)
Devices that produced the highest proportion of their yield via fusion-only reactions are possibly theTaiga Soviet peaceful nuclear explosions of the 1970s. Their public records indicate 98% of their 15 kiloton explosive yield was derived from fusion reactions, so only 0.3 kiloton was derived from fission.[32][33]
The repeated detonation of nuclear devices underground insalt domes, in a somewhat analogous manner to the explosions that power a car'sinternal combustion engine (in that it would be aheat engine), has also been proposed as a means offusion power in what is termedPACER.[34][35] Other investigated uses for low-yield peaceful nuclear explosions were underground detonations to stimulate, by a process analogous tofracking, the flow ofpetroleum andnatural gas intight formations; this was developed most in the Soviet Union, with an increase in the production of manywell heads being reported.[31]
In 2015, billionaire entrepreneurElon Musk popularized an approach in which the cold planetMars could beterraformed by the detonation of high-fusion-yielding thermonuclear devices over the mostlydry-ice icecaps on the planet.[36] Musk's specific plan would not be very feasible within the energy limitations of historically manufactured nuclear devices (ranging in kilotons of TNT-equivalent), therefore requiring major advancement for it to be considered. In part due to these problems, the physicistMichio Kaku (who initially put forward the concept) instead suggests usingnuclear reactors in the typical land-baseddistrict heating manner to make isolatedtropical biomes on the Martian surface.[36]
Alternatively, as nuclear detonations are presently somewhat limited in terms ofdemonstrated achievable yield, the use of an off-the-shelfnuclear explosive device could be employed to "nudge" a Martian-grazing comet toward a pole of the planet. Impact would be a much more efficient scheme to deliver the required energy, water vapor,greenhouse gases, and otherbiologically significant volatiles that could begin to quickly terraform Mars. One such opportunity for this occurred in October 2014 when a "once-in-a-million-years" comet (designated asC/2013 A1, also known as comet "Siding Spring") came within140000 km (87000 miles) of theMartian atmosphere.[37][38]
The discovery and synthesis of newchemical elements bynuclear transmutation, and their production in the necessary quantities to allow study of their properties, was carried out in nuclear explosive device testing. For example, the discovery of the short-livedeinsteinium andfermium, both created under the intenseneutron flux environment within thermonuclear explosions, followed the firstTeller–Ulam thermonuclear device test—Ivy Mike. The rapid capture of so many neutrons required in the synthesis ofeinsteinium would provide the needed direct experimental confirmation of the so-calledr-process, the multiple neutron absorptions needed to explain the cosmicnucleosynthesis (production) of all chemical elements heavier thannickel on the periodic table insupernova explosions, beforebeta decay, with the r-process explaining the existence of many stable elements in the universe.[40]
The worldwide presence of new isotopes from atmospheric testing beginning in the 1950s led to the 2008 development of a reliable way to detect art forgeries. Paintings created after that period may contain traces ofcaesium-137 andstrontium-90, isotopes that did not exist in nature before 1945.[41][42] (Fission products were produced in thenatural nuclear fission reactor atOklo about 1.7 billion years ago, but these decayed away before the earliest known human painting.)[43]
Bothclimatology and particularlyaerosol science, a subfield ofatmospheric science, were largely created to answer the question of how far and widefallout would travel. Similar toradioactive tracers used inhydrology and materials testing, fallout and theneutron activation of nitrogen gas served as a radioactive tracer that was used to measure and then help model global circulations in the atmosphere by following the movements of falloutaerosols.[44][45]
After theVan Allen Belts surrounding Earth were discovered about in 1958,James Van Allen suggested that a nuclear detonation would be one way of probing the magnetic phenomenon. Data obtained from the August 1958Project Argus test shots, ahigh-altitude nuclear explosion investigation, were vital to the early understanding of Earth'smagnetosphere.[46][47]
Soviet nuclear physicist andNobel Peace Prize recipientAndrei Sakharov also proposed the idea thatearthquakes could be mitigated andparticle accelerators could be made by utilizing nuclear explosions,[48][49] with the latter created by connecting a nuclear explosive device with another of his inventions, theexplosively pumped flux compression generator,[50] to accelerateprotons to collide with each other to probe their inner workings, an endeavor that is now done at much lower energy levels with non-explosivesuperconducting magnets inCERN. Sakharov suggested to replace the coppercoil in his MK generators by a bigsuperconductorsolenoid to magnetically compress and focusunderground nuclear explosions into ashaped charge effect. He theorized this could focus 1023 positively chargedprotons per second on a 1 mm2 surface, then envisaged making two such beams collide in the form of asupercollider.[51]
Underground nuclear explosive data from peaceful nuclear explosion test shots have been used to investigate the composition of Earth'smantle, analogous to theexploration geophysics practice of mineralprospecting with chemical explosives in "deep seismic sounding"reflection seismology.[52][53][54]
Project A119, proposed in the 1960s, which as Apollo scientist Gary Latham explained, would have been the detonating of a "smallish" nuclear device on the Moon in order to facilitate research into its geologic make-up.[55] Analogous in concept to the comparatively low yield explosion created by the waterprospecting (LCROSS)Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite mission, which launched in 2009 and released the "Centaur"kinetic energy impactor, an impactor with a mass of 2,305 kg (5,081 lb), and an impact velocity of about 9,000 km/h (5,600 mph),[56] releasing the kineticenergy equivalent of detonating approximately 2 tons ofTNT (8.86GJ).
The first preliminary examination of the effects of nuclear detonations upon various metal and non-metal materials, occurred in 1955 withOperation Teapot, were a chain of approximately basketball sized spheres of material, were arrayed at fixed aerial distances, descending from the shot tower.[57] In what was then a surprising experimental observation, all but the spheres directly within the shot tower survived, with the greatestablation noted on the aluminum sphere located 18 metres (60 ft) from the detonation point, with slightly over 25 millimetres (1 in) of surface material absent upon recovery.[57] These spheres are often referred to as "Lew Allen's balls", after the project manager during the experiments.[58]
The ablation data collected for various materials and the distances the spheres were propelled, serve as the bedrock for the nuclear pulse propulsion study,Project Orion.[58] The direct use of nuclear explosives, by using the impact of ablated propellantplasma from a nuclearshaped charge acting on the rear pusher plate of a ship, was and continues to be seriously studied as a potentialpropulsion mechanism.
Although likely never achieving orbit due toaerodynamic drag, the firstmacroscopic object to obtain Earthorbital velocity was a "900 kg (2,000 lb) manhole cover" propelled by the somewhat focused detonation of test shotPascal-B in August 1957. The use of a subterranean shaft and nuclear device to propel an object to escape velocity has since been termed a "thunder well".[59]
In the 1970sEdward Teller, in the United States, popularized the concept of using a nuclear detonation to power an explosively pumpedsoftX-ray laser as a component of aballistic missile defense shield known asProject Excalibur. This created dozens of highly focused X-ray beams that would cause the missile to break up due tolaser ablation.
Laser ablation is one of the damage mechanisms of alaser weapon, but it is also one of the researched methods behind pulsedlaser propulsion intended for spacecraft, though usually powered by means of conventionally pumped, laser arrays. For example, ground flight testing byLeik Myrabo, using a non-nuclear, conventionally powered pulsed lasertest-bed, successfully lifted alightcraft 72 meters in altitude by a method similar toablative laser propulsion in 2000.[60]
A powerful solar system basedsoft X-ray, toultraviolet, laser system has been calculated to be capable of propelling aninterstellar spacecraft, by thelight sail principle, to 11% of thespeed of light.[63] In 1972 it was also calculated that a 1 Terawatt, 1-km diameterX-ray laser with 1angstrom wavelength impinging on a 1-km diameter sail, could propel a spacecraft toAlpha Centauri in 10 years.[64]
A proposed means of averting anasteroid impacting with Earth, assuming short lead times betweendetection and Earth impact, is to detonate one, or a series, of nuclear explosive devices,on,in, or in astand-off proximity orientation with the asteroid,[65] with the latter method occurring far enough away from the incoming threat to prevent the potential fracturing of thenear-Earth object, but still close enough to generate a high thrustlaser ablation effect.[66]
A 2007NASA analysis of impact avoidance strategies using various technologies stated:[67]
Nuclearstand-off explosions are assessed to be 10–100 times more effective than the non-nuclear alternatives analyzed in this study. Other techniques involving thesurface orsubsurface use of nuclear explosives may be more efficient, but they run an increased risk of fracturing the target near-Earth object. They also carry higher development and operations risks.
The collection of data was substantially completed on Route 17 in Panama one of the routes considered for nuclear excavations... The Atomic Energy Commission has recently conducted the first two of the planned series of nuclear excavation experiments designed to determine the feasibility of nuclear excavation of a sea level canal.
It's 95 per cent safe? We worry about the other 5
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