Industrial applications of nuclear explosives

1958 film, with transcript

Catalog description: This semitechnical film presents potential industrial applications of nuclear explosives that require amounts of packaged energy heretofore unavailable and suggests that nuclear explosives can be used as safely as chemical explosives, and with greater effect and at less cost. Applications illustrated include harbor development, economical recovery of low-grade ore bodies, release of petroleum from oil shale, under- ground production of steam for generation of power, and development of large underground reservoirs in arid areas.

This is film 88166 in our catalog.

Show transcript
00:00 Now that man has learned to package and control a vastly greater force than chemical explosives,
00:24 his thinking has turned to methods which will make possible the effective use of this new power within industry.
00:32 The potential applications?
00:36 Consider just one.
00:38 The development of a harbor in the hard rock of a remote coastal area.
00:46 Assume a channel approximately 400 meters wide,
00:50 1500 meters long, and at least 20 meters deep.
00:54 with a turning basin of 1,000 meters diameter,
00:58 having a depth of at least 20 meters at its shallowest point.
01:02 The procedure?
01:05 Bury an inline series of four equally spaced 100 kiloton shots
01:11 at a depth of 30 meters and a terminal shot of one megaton 50 meters deep,
01:18 all shots of minimal fission yield.
01:21 Dependent on the nature of the surrounding medium, surround the devices with sufficient borated compounds
01:27 to reduce neutron activation by several orders of magnitude.
01:33 Detonate.
01:40 What is the effect upon radiological safety in the area?
01:46 Using energy releases of the order of a megaton
01:49 buried at a depth of 50 meters.
01:53 With the fireball contained, there would be minimal thermal effects above ground, and
02:03 burial of the energy source would confine the radioactivity to a smaller area than a
02:08 surface burst.
02:12 Over pressures and seismic effects would be acceptably small beyond a radius of 30 kilometers.
02:20 in the region of the crater would be washed out into the ocean rapidly and essentially
02:25 removed from the biosphere.
02:28 The activity on land near the crater would rapidly decay.
02:33 And in the matter of economics, the volume excavated would be about 100 million cubic
02:39 meters.
02:41 The estimated cost of excavation with nuclear energy releases would be significantly less
02:46 the estimated 60 million dollars that it would cost for excavation and removal by conventional means
02:54 it is interesting to note that the cost of the explosives in the nuclear energy release
02:59 would be but a small fraction of the total expenditure
03:05 in remote regions where large yields can be safely used
03:09 and where economic factors are favorable, such explosions are demonstrably feasible.
03:17 With more experience, and the extension of low-cost reduced fission design to smaller
03:23 energy releases, the method may one day be applied in more highly populated areas.
03:30 In the state of Nevada, one of the table-like mountains was the locale of the first
03:35 completely contained underground nuclear explosion.
03:39 The 1,700-ton shot was fired on September 19, 1957.
03:46 Watch for the shock waves above the arrows.
03:56 Rocks dislodged from the mesa's rim left dust trails that formed into a cloud above it.
04:02 The ground shock was so slight as to be almost imperceptible to observers four kilometers away.
04:10 The peak acceleration at this point amounted to .02 G's.
04:17 Actually, only one-half of one percent of total energy released was found to be in the seismic signal,
04:24 and no significant overpressures existed.
04:26 subsequent construction of an exploration tunnel to zero point permitted close study
04:34 of the explosions effects and provided data on the problems of mining in comparable regions
04:39 a graphic illustration of the site with a section removed permits visualization of the
04:47 physical setup at zero point the tunnel greatly enlarged for the purpose of illustration was
04:55 designed to be self-sealing to prevent the ejection of radioactive material.
05:01 The initial rectangular room which housed the nuclear device was approximately two
05:06 meters on a side. The shock from the explosion in the room collapsed the
05:12 tunnel a distance of 61 meters from the point of detonation, before the shock
05:16 could progress down the tunnel itself. A profile view of the site, a formation of
05:22 porous silicate rock known as Oak Springs tough which overlays a dense
05:27 crystalline limestone permits relation of the location of zero point 610 meters
05:35 from the tunnel entrance 244 meters from the nearest point on the slope of the
05:42 Mesa and 274 meters from the Mesa's top
05:52 When the shot was fired, the walls of the initial rectangular room were expanded by a pressure of about 6 megabars to a sphere with a 17-meter radius.
06:07 The sphere was lined by about 10 centimeters of melted rock weighing 700 tons, which reached a temperature between 1200 and 1500 degrees centigrade.
06:17 the shock continuing outward crushed the rock to sand for an additional 20 meters because the
06:27 formation contained about 15% water the melted rock cooled rapidly to form glass which contained
06:35 the radioactivity when the roof of the glass sphere gave way a collapse proceeded progressively
06:43 upward and stopped only after rising about 120 meters above zero point in the
06:50 matter of mining in comparable regions it is noted that the shot produced about
06:55 400,000 tons of sand the collapse of the initial cavity resulted in more than
07:02 200,000 tons of permeable rock and that of all this material only 700 tons
07:10 contained practically all the radioactivity.
07:13 And this in a well-defined, localized zone.
07:19 These facts immediately suggest a whole series
07:22 of possible applications in diverse areas.
07:25 For example, firing in a dry medium
07:28 could result in a high-temperature region
07:31 that would persist for an extended period.
07:34 And a controlled introduction of water would produce steam for use in generating power or for other industrial purposes.
07:43 The use of explosions deep underground beneath large low-grade ore bodies such as copper
07:50 immediately suggests more economic recovery
07:53 as the explosions would break and loosen large volumes of the ore
07:57 to permit leaching of the mineral.
08:01 The possibility of releasing petroleum from oil shale
08:05 by detonating a device beneath the shale layer
08:08 is suggested by the fact that in the shot at the Nevada
08:11 Mountain, most of the energy was released as
08:14 heat within a radius of about 30 meters of the
08:17 center of detonation, and the volume of broken
08:20 rock was considerable.
08:23 The crushing and heating would distill petroleum
08:26 through pipes to the surface.
08:30 In the area of public service,
08:32 It is suggested that explosions in dry river valleys in desert areas would provide large
08:39 underground reservoirs which would serve for flood control and for recharging underground
08:44 water supply systems.
08:50 Of course, there are problems to be solved and experiments are underway to solve them.
08:58 In sum, nuclear explosives will be used within industry for the good of man exactly as chemical
09:05 explosives are used.
09:07 But in addition, they will be used with an enormously greater effect at a substantially
09:13 lesser cost and for many industrial applications which require amounts of packaged energy heretofore
09:20 unavailable.