Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy
Encyclopedia
Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy (sometimes referred to as Program #7), was a Soviet
program to investigate peaceful nuclear explosions
(PNEs). It was analogous to the US
program Operation Plowshare
.
One of the better-known tests was Chagan
of January 15, 1965. Radioactivity from the Chagan test was detected over Japan
by both the U.S. and Japan in apparent violation of the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty
(PTBT). The United States complained to the Soviets, but the matter was dropped.
, the Soviet representative to the United Nations
, delivered a statement justifying their efforts to develop their own nuclear weapons capability. He said:
However the USSR did not immediately follow the U.S. lead in 1958 in establishing a program. Presumably, their position in support of a comprehensive nuclear testing
ban stalled any efforts to establish such a program until the mid-1960s.
When Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy was finally formally established, Alexander D. Zakharenkov, a chief weapons designer, was appointed head of the program. Initially, the Soviet program was focused on two applications, nuclear excavation
and petroleum
stimulation, similarly to the U.S. program. However, interest in other applications quickly developed, and within five years the Soviet program was actively exploring six or seven applications involving participation by some ten government departments.
Once underway the Soviets conducted a much more vigorous program than the Americans' Operation Plowshare
, consisting of some 156 nuclear tests, some with multiple devices, between 1965 and 1989. These tests were similar in aims to the American effort, with the exception that six of the shots were considered of an applied nature, that is they were not tests per se, but were used to put out runaway gas well fires and a methane blow out
.
There were in fact two programs:
All together, the Program 7 conducted 115 nuclear explosions. Among them:
These explosions were financed by various ministries: 51 explosions were financed by the Ministry for Geology, 26 explosions were financed by the Ministry for Natural Gas, 13 explosions were financed by the Ministry for Oil, 19 explosions were financed by the MinSredMash itself (the predecessor of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency
). There were two large explosions of 140 kilotons and 105 kilotons; all others were relatively small with an average yield of 12.5 kilotons. For example, one 30 kiloton explosion was used to close the Uzbekistan
Urtabulak 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 nearby Pamuk gas field, successful experiments later cited as possible precedents for stopping the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
.
The last nuclear explosion by the Program 7, codenamed Rubin-1 was performed in Arkhangelsk
oblast
on September 6, 1988. The explosion was a part of a seismic program for geological exploration. The Soviets agreed to stop their PNE program at the end of 1988 as a result of then president Mikhail Gorbachev
's disarmament initiative.
There are proponents for continuing the PNE programs in modern Russia
. They (e.g. A. Koldobsky) state that the program has already paid for itself and saved the USSR billions of rubles and can save even more if it would continue. They also allege that the PNE is the only feasible way to put out large fountains and fires on natural gas deposits, and it is the safest and most economically viable way to destroy chemical weapons.
Their opponents (including the academician A.V. Yablokov) state that all PNE technologies have non-nuclear alternatives and that many PNEs actually caused nuclear disasters.
, Yakutia in 1978, that was supposed to unearth diamond
-rich ores. Instead, the amount of diamonds was insignificant but the plutonium
pollution of water was much higher than predicted. According to Yablokov, the level of plutonium in the drinking water of Vilyuy region 20 years after the explosion is ten thousand times higher than the maximal sanitary norm.
Another catastrophe resulted from the Globus-1 explosion near the village of Galkino, 40 kilometers from Kineshma
city on September 19, 1971. It was a small underground explosion of 2.5 kilotons that was a part of the seismological program for oil and gas exploration. Unexpectedly a large amount of radioactive gases escaped through cracks in the ground, creating a significant radioactive spot two kilometers in diameter in the relatively densely populated area of European Russia. A small tributary of the Volga
, the Shacha, changed its location and threatened to flood the explosion site. This could have led to nuclear pollution
of the entire Volga region. Some engineers suggested building a sarcophagus
(similar to the Chernobyl's
"Object Shelter") covering the site, and excavating a 12 km channel to shift the Shacha river away from the place of the explosion, but the plans appeared prohibitively expensive.
The experiments ended with the adoption of a unilateral moratorium on nuclear weapons testing at Soviet sites in 1989. Although this primarily was designed to support Mikhail Gorbachev
's call for a worldwide ban on nuclear weapons tests, the Russians apparently applied the moratorium to peaceful nuclear explosions as well.
in terms of both the number of applications explored with field experiments and the extent to which they were introduced into industrial use. Several PNE applications, such as deep seismic sounding and oil stimulation, were explored in depth and appeared to have had a positive cost benefit at minimal public risk. Several others, such as deep void storage, developed significant technical problems that cast a shadow on their general applicability. Some, such as closure of runaway gas wells, demonstrated a unique technology that may yet find application as a last resort. Still others were the subject of one or two tests but were not explored further for reasons that have never been explained. Overall, the program represented a significant technical effort to explore what was seen at the time to be a promising new technology, and it generated a large body of data, although only a small fraction of it has been made public.
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
program to investigate peaceful nuclear explosions
Peaceful nuclear explosions
Peaceful nuclear explosions are nuclear explosions conducted for non-military purposes, such as activities related to economic development including the creation of canals...
(PNEs). It was analogous to the US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
program Operation Plowshare
Operation Plowshare
Project Plowshare was the overall United States term for the development of techniques to use nuclear explosives for peaceful construction purposes...
.
One of the better-known tests was Chagan
Chagan (nuclear test)
Chagan was a Soviet underground nuclear test conducted at the Semipalatinsk Test Site on January 15, 1965.Chagan was the first and largest of the 124 detonations in the Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy program, designed to produce peaceful nuclear explosions for earth-moving purposes...
of January 15, 1965. Radioactivity from the Chagan test was detected over Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
by both the U.S. and Japan in apparent violation of the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty
Partial Test Ban Treaty
The treaty banning nuclear weapon tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water, often abbreviated as the Partial Test Ban Treaty , Limited Test Ban Treaty , or Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is a treaty prohibiting all test detonations of nuclear weapons...
(PTBT). The United States complained to the Soviets, but the matter was dropped.
History
In November 1949, shortly after the test of their first nuclear device on September 23, 1949, Andrey VyshinskyAndrey Vyshinsky
Andrey Januaryevich Vyshinsky – 22 November 1954) was a Soviet politician, jurist and diplomat.He is known as a state prosecutor of Joseph Stalin's Moscow trials and in the Nuremberg trials. He was the Soviet Foreign Minister from 1949 to 1953, after having served as Deputy Foreign...
, the Soviet representative to the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, delivered a statement justifying their efforts to develop their own nuclear weapons capability. He said:
However the USSR did not immediately follow the U.S. lead in 1958 in establishing a program. Presumably, their position in support of a comprehensive nuclear testing
Nuclear testing
Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the effectiveness, yield and explosive capability of nuclear weapons. Throughout the twentieth century, most nations that have developed nuclear weapons have tested them...
ban stalled any efforts to establish such a program until the mid-1960s.
When Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy was finally formally established, Alexander D. Zakharenkov, a chief weapons designer, was appointed head of the program. Initially, the Soviet program was focused on two applications, nuclear excavation
Earthworks (engineering)
Earthworks are engineering works created through the moving or processing of quantities of soil or unformed rock.- Civil engineering use :Typical earthworks include roads, railway beds, causeways, dams, levees, canals, and berms...
and petroleum
Petroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...
stimulation, similarly to the U.S. program. However, interest in other applications quickly developed, and within five years the Soviet program was actively exploring six or seven applications involving participation by some ten government departments.
Once underway the Soviets conducted a much more vigorous program than the Americans' Operation Plowshare
Operation Plowshare
Project Plowshare was the overall United States term for the development of techniques to use nuclear explosives for peaceful construction purposes...
, consisting of some 156 nuclear tests, some with multiple devices, between 1965 and 1989. These tests were similar in aims to the American effort, with the exception that six of the shots were considered of an applied nature, that is they were not tests per se, but were used to put out runaway gas well fires and a methane blow out
Blowout (well drilling)
A blowout is the uncontrolled release of crude oil and/or natural gas from an oil well or gas well after pressure control systems have failed....
.
There were in fact two programs:
- "Employment of Nuclear Explosive Technologies in the Interests of National Economy," also referred to as "Program 6," involved industrial underground PNEs and testing of new PNE technologies. As part of the program, 124 tests with 135 devices were conducted. Primary objectives of the program were water reservoir development, damDamA dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. Hydropower and pumped-storage hydroelectricity are...
and canalCanalCanals are man-made channels for water. There are two types of canal:#Waterways: navigable transportation canals used for carrying ships and boats shipping goods and conveying people, further subdivided into two kinds:...
construction, and creation of underground cavities for toxic wasteToxic wasteToxic waste is waste material that can cause death or injury to living creatures. It spreads quite easily and can contaminate lakes and rivers. The term is often used interchangeably with “hazardous waste”, or discarded material that can pose a long-term risk to health or environment.Toxic waste...
storage. - "Peaceful Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy," also referred to as "Program 7," involved testing of industrial nuclear charges for use in peaceful activities. Nuclear detonations were conducted with the stated purpose of searching for useful mineral resources with reflection seismologyReflection seismologyReflection seismology is a method of exploration geophysics that uses the principles of seismology to estimate the properties of the Earth's subsurface from reflected seismic waves. The method requires a controlled seismic source of energy, such as dynamite/Tovex, a specialized air gun or a...
, breaking up ore bodies, stimulating the production of oil and gas, and forming underground cavities for storing the recovered oil and gas. The "Program" numbers come from the USSR's classification system of nuclear explosions, the first five programs designating various phases of nuclear weaponNuclear weaponA nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
development.
All together, the Program 7 conducted 115 nuclear explosions. Among them:
- 39 explosions for the purpose of geological exploration (trying to find new natural gasNatural gasNatural gas is a naturally occurring gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, typically with 0–20% higher hydrocarbons . It is found associated with other hydrocarbon fuel, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is an important fuel source and a major feedstock for fertilizers.Most natural...
deposits by studying seismic waveSeismic waveSeismic waves are waves of energy that travel through the earth, and are a result of an earthquake, explosion, or a volcano that imparts low-frequency acoustic energy. Many other natural and anthropogenic sources create low amplitude waves commonly referred to as ambient vibrations. Seismic waves...
s produced by small nuclear explosions) - 25 explosions for intensification of oil and gas debits
- 22 explosions for creating underground storage for natural gas
- 5 explosions for extinguishing large natural gas fountains
- 4 explosions for creating channels and dams (including the ChaganChagan (nuclear test)Chagan was a Soviet underground nuclear test conducted at the Semipalatinsk Test Site on January 15, 1965.Chagan was the first and largest of the 124 detonations in the Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy program, designed to produce peaceful nuclear explosions for earth-moving purposes...
test in Kazakhstan, and the Taiga test on the potential route of the Pechora-Kama CanalPechora-Kama CanalPechora–Kama Canal , or sometimes Kama–Pechora Canal was a proposed canal intended to link up the basin of the Pechora River in the north of European Russia with the basin of the Kama, a tributary of the Volga...
) - 2 explosions for crushing oreOreAn ore is a type of rock that contains minerals with important elements including metals. The ores are extracted through mining; these are then refined to extract the valuable element....
in open-pit mineOpen-pit miningOpen-pit mining or opencast mining refers to a method of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit or borrow....
s - 2 explosions for creating underground storage for toxic wastes
- 1 explosion to facilitate coalCoalCoal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
mining in an underground mine - 19 explosions were performed for research purposes (studying possible migration of the radioactivity from the place of the explosions).
These explosions were financed by various ministries: 51 explosions were financed by the Ministry for Geology, 26 explosions were financed by the Ministry for Natural Gas, 13 explosions were financed by the Ministry for Oil, 19 explosions were financed by the MinSredMash itself (the predecessor of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency
Federal Atomic Energy Agency
Rosatom Nuclear Energy State Corporation , is a State Corporation in Russia, the regulatory body of the Russian nuclear complex. It is headquartered in Moscow.- History :...
). There were two large explosions of 140 kilotons and 105 kilotons; all others were relatively small with an average yield of 12.5 kilotons. For example, one 30 kiloton explosion was used to close the Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....
Urtabulak 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 nearby Pamuk gas field, successful experiments later cited as possible precedents for stopping the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
Deepwater Horizon oil spill
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico which flowed unabated for three months in 2010, and continues to leak fresh oil. It is the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry...
.
The last nuclear explosion by the Program 7, codenamed Rubin-1 was performed in Arkhangelsk
Arkhangelsk
Arkhangelsk , formerly known as Archangel in English, is a city and the administrative center of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. It lies on both banks of the Northern Dvina River near its exit into the White Sea in the north of European Russia. The city spreads for over along the banks of the river...
oblast
Oblast
Oblast is a type of administrative division in Slavic countries, including some countries of the former Soviet Union. The word "oblast" is a loanword in English, but it is nevertheless often translated as "area", "zone", "province", or "region"...
on September 6, 1988. The explosion was a part of a seismic program for geological exploration. The Soviets agreed to stop their PNE program at the end of 1988 as a result of then president Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
's disarmament initiative.
There are proponents for continuing the PNE programs in modern Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. They (e.g. A. Koldobsky) state that the program has already paid for itself and saved the USSR billions of rubles and can save even more if it would continue. They also allege that the PNE is the only feasible way to put out large fountains and fires on natural gas deposits, and it is the safest and most economically viable way to destroy chemical weapons.
Their opponents (including the academician A.V. Yablokov) state that all PNE technologies have non-nuclear alternatives and that many PNEs actually caused nuclear disasters.
Problems
Among the catastrophes was the Kraton-3 explosion in VilyuyVilyuy
The Vilyuy River is river of the Central Siberian Plateau, longest tributary of the Lena River.At a length of approximately 2,650 km long, it is mostly within the Sakha Republic...
, Yakutia in 1978, that was supposed to unearth diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
-rich ores. Instead, the amount of diamonds was insignificant but the plutonium
Plutonium
Plutonium is a transuranic radioactive chemical element with the chemical symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, forming a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four oxidation...
pollution of water was much higher than predicted. According to Yablokov, the level of plutonium in the drinking water of Vilyuy region 20 years after the explosion is ten thousand times higher than the maximal sanitary norm.
Another catastrophe resulted from the Globus-1 explosion near the village of Galkino, 40 kilometers from Kineshma
Kineshma
Kineshma is the second largest town in Ivanovo Oblast, Russia, which sprawls for along the Volga River. Population: -History:Kineshma was first noticed as a posad in 1429. In 1504, Ivan III gave it to Prince Feodor Belsky, who escaped to Moscow from Lithuania and married Ivan's niece...
city on September 19, 1971. It was a small underground explosion of 2.5 kilotons that was a part of the seismological program for oil and gas exploration. Unexpectedly a large amount of radioactive gases escaped through cracks in the ground, creating a significant radioactive spot two kilometers in diameter in the relatively densely populated area of European Russia. A small tributary of the Volga
Volga River
The Volga is the largest river in Europe in terms of length, discharge, and watershed. It flows through central Russia, and is widely viewed as the national river of Russia. Out of the twenty largest cities of Russia, eleven, including the capital Moscow, are situated in the Volga's drainage...
, the Shacha, changed its location and threatened to flood the explosion site. This could have led to nuclear pollution
Radioactive waste
Radioactive wastes are wastes that contain radioactive material. Radioactive wastes are usually by-products of nuclear power generation and other applications of nuclear fission or nuclear technology, such as research and medicine...
of the entire Volga region. Some engineers suggested building a sarcophagus
Sarcophagus
A sarcophagus is a funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved or cut from stone. The word "sarcophagus" comes from the Greek σαρξ sarx meaning "flesh", and φαγειν phagein meaning "to eat", hence sarkophagus means "flesh-eating"; from the phrase lithos sarkophagos...
(similar to the Chernobyl's
Chernobyl disaster
The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine , which was under the direct jurisdiction of the central authorities in Moscow...
"Object Shelter") covering the site, and excavating a 12 km channel to shift the Shacha river away from the place of the explosion, but the plans appeared prohibitively expensive.
The experiments ended with the adoption of a unilateral moratorium on nuclear weapons testing at Soviet sites in 1989. Although this primarily was designed to support Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
's call for a worldwide ban on nuclear weapons tests, the Russians apparently applied the moratorium to peaceful nuclear explosions as well.
Conclusion
As noted, the Soviet PNE program was many times larger than the U.S. Plowshare programOperation Plowshare
Project Plowshare was the overall United States term for the development of techniques to use nuclear explosives for peaceful construction purposes...
in terms of both the number of applications explored with field experiments and the extent to which they were introduced into industrial use. Several PNE applications, such as deep seismic sounding and oil stimulation, were explored in depth and appeared to have had a positive cost benefit at minimal public risk. Several others, such as deep void storage, developed significant technical problems that cast a shadow on their general applicability. Some, such as closure of runaway gas wells, demonstrated a unique technology that may yet find application as a last resort. Still others were the subject of one or two tests but were not explored further for reasons that have never been explained. Overall, the program represented a significant technical effort to explore what was seen at the time to be a promising new technology, and it generated a large body of data, although only a small fraction of it has been made public.
See also
- Peaceful nuclear explosionsPeaceful nuclear explosionsPeaceful nuclear explosions are nuclear explosions conducted for non-military purposes, such as activities related to economic development including the creation of canals...
- Soviet atomic bomb projectSoviet atomic bomb projectThe Soviet project to develop an atomic bomb , was a clandestine research and development program began during and post-World War II, in the wake of the Soviet Union's discovery of the United States' nuclear project...
- Operation PlowshareOperation PlowshareProject Plowshare was the overall United States term for the development of techniques to use nuclear explosives for peaceful construction purposes...
- Категория:Мирные ядерные взрывы на территории СССР (Articles on individual explosions in Russian Wikipedia)
- Soviet nuclear well collapsesSoviet nuclear well collapsesDuring the 1960s, the Soviet Union developed and employed buried nuclear weapons to collapse wells which were leaking valuable natural gas.These blasts were all used to contain surface leaks, and were dug deep such as to fully contain the blast. Leaks had been caused by failures of...
External links
- USSR Nuclear Weapons Tests and Peaceful Nuclear Explosions. 1949 through 1990, an official publication of Federal Atomic Energy AgencyFederal Atomic Energy AgencyRosatom Nuclear Energy State Corporation , is a State Corporation in Russia, the regulatory body of the Russian nuclear complex. It is headquartered in Moscow.- History :...
. - The Soviet Program for Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Explosions (PDF), a United States Department of EnergyUnited States Department of EnergyThe United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
publication.