May 12, 2010 4:30 PM

Report: Soviets "Nuked" Gas Well Fires

By
Charles Cooper
Topics
Tech Talk

Former General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev.

They've tried nearly everything else to seal the disastrous oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, so why not just nuke it?

No, that's not an original idea. In fact, you can read that suggestion on the pages of one of Russia's leading daily newspapers, Komsomoloskaya Pravda, which claims that the Soviets deployed specially-designed nuclear explosions to extinguish well fires on at least five separate occasions.

The idea was to harness the impact of the explosions that, among other things, would push tons of rocks into place and seal any leaks. The newspaper reports that authorities used a 30 ton atomic explosion triggered at an underground depth of six kilometers on Sept. 30, 1966, to extinguish burning gas wells in Urt-Bulak, an area about 80 kilometers from Bukhara.

A second 'success' made Soviet scientists confident about "the use of this new technique for rapidly and effectively controlling ran away gas and oil wells," according to a U.S. Department of Energy report on the Soviet Union's peaceful uses of nuclear explosions.

But not each use of nuclear energy did the trick. A 4 kiloton charge set off in Russia's Kharkov region failed to stop a gas blowout. "The explosion was mysteriously left on the surface, forming a mushroom cloud," the paper reported.


  • Charles Cooper is an executive editor at CNET News. He has covered technology and business for more than 25 years, working at CBSNews.com, the Associated Press, Computer & Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, and ZDNet. E-mail Charlie.

Add a Comment
by Mobredthree June 5, 2010 12:12 PM EDT
Awesome idea. So what if it violates arms treaties.
Reply to this comment
by SavageMJ May 18, 2010 5:23 PM EDT
In 1993 we invented and perfected explosive technologies using conventional explosives to ?crimp? and/or crush ?wild cat? oil wells.

To be clear there is no single ?off-the-shelf? solution.

Q. Has explosive crimping ever been used to close a well at this depth?

Quick answer ? NO
No: explosive crimping has not been used at this depth, we won?t hide fact we are in new territory.

This technology has never been proven at this depth as there has never been a blowout at this depth, before.

"Proofing shots" were conducted & carried out in water.
Water and pressure at depth are irrelevant to the technologies & process.

There is no ?off-the-shelf? solution our scientists and engineers need access to information which only BP, Transocean, Cameron and Halliburton have. Once our team has had access to intelligence, we can begin CFD modeling and proofing shots.

We have a plan of validation starting with mock-up proof-of-concept at Aberdeen SuperPond facility, (Canada DND DRES and other assets are standing-by to add to the brain trust including (Sandia Labs, NSWC and your DOD Energetics Center).

Then at depth ?proofing Shot?s? on remnant oil wells of known construction & pipe to fine-tune, additional modeling based upon after blast analysis will be done, final tweaking of the model and shot design/configuration, then and only then would we be in a position to go for the real deal.

From this Validation Plan, we would be able at any time through this process to give degrees of probabilities of effectiveness ? before any ?real shot? was done.

The more time we have tweaking the model(s), proofing shots and performing after blast analysis, the tighter our shot predictability becomes and our success rate increases exponentially.
Reply to this comment
by Geezer1984 May 28, 2010 4:45 AM EDT
SavageMJ -- in your post, who is "we?" Also, would much appreciate some ref's/documentation as to where, when and by whom the work to which you allude was done. Also, you might want to consider posting your info to "The Oil Drum" (<http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6489#more> might be a good place to start) - there are some people posting to that site who actually seem to be technically competent at "oil stuff." Some of them MAY be able to put you/your "team" in touch with influential industry insiders, thus short-circuiting the bureaucratic morass we seem to have become mired in.

As you describe it, I gather we're looking at months to a year or more of careful work, even at max effort; your option may not apply for the present situation, but it sure as hell is needed AHEAD of the next one!

Regards and good luck -- The Geezer
by rf35 May 13, 2010 4:38 AM EDT
Well, why not? The question we need to ask is what will cause the greater harm to the environment...a nuke or letting the gusher continue for months?
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