Symposium on Engineering with Nuclear Explosives January 14-16, 1970 Las Vegas, Nevada; Summaries CONF-700101
Washington DC? American Nuclear Society, and United States Atomic Energy Commission, 1970. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Wraps. [4], 106 pages. Front cover missing. Contents include: Plenary Session, Nuclear Excavation, Nuclear Excavation Effects, Underground Nuclear Effects, Radioactivity, Oil and Gas, Mineral Recovery, Nuclear Operations, Seismic Effects, Water Resources Development, Scientific Applications, Underground Engineering Applications, Closing Plenary Session and Index to Authors. This symposium on 'Engineering with Nuclear Explosives' reports to the Plowshare community, both national and international, the progress achieved since April 1964, the date of the Third Plowshare Symposium. In structuring the technical presentations, contributions of broadest interest were placed at the beginning, thus forming a common base of current information and applied science understanding developed in support of Plowshare technology. Sessions of specialty or pertaining to specific areas of application and engineering follow logically in the program. The Plenary Session reviewed the current status of the Plowshare Program from the technical, government, and industrial points of view. The 112 papers presented at 15 technical sessions covered all technical aspects of the Plowshare Program. The conference summary reviewed principal themes, areas of significant advance, and subjects requiring further attention that emerged during the technical conference. The full proceedings were issued in two volumes, the fuller volume was reportedly approximately 850 pages. This volume consists of presentation summaries. Peaceful nuclear explosions (PNEs) are nuclear explosions conducted for non-military purposes. Proposed uses include excavation for the building of canals and harbors, electrical generation, the use of nuclear explosions to drive spacecraft, and as a form of wide-area fracking. PNEs were an area of some research from the late 1950s into the 1980s, primarily in the United States and Soviet Union. In the U.S., a series of tests were carried out under Project Plowshare. Some of the ideas considered included blasting a new Panama Canal, constructing the proposed Nicaragua Canal, the use of underground explosions to create electricity (project PACER), and a variety of mining, geological, and radionuclide studies. The largest of the excavation tests was carried out in the Sedan 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 canceled in 1977. The Soviet program started a few years after the U.S. efforts and explored many of the same concepts under their Nuclear 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 of plutonium into the groundwater and the polluting of an area near the Volga 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 ongoing arms 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). The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty of 1996 prohibits all nuclear explosions, regardless of whether they are for peaceful purposes or not. Since that time the topic has been raised several times, often as a method of asteroid impact avoidance. Condition: Fair.
Keywords: Plowshare, Nuclear Explosives, Underground Nuclear Explosions, Emplacement Engineering, Cratering, Schooner Excavation, Interoceanic Canal, Peaceful Nuclear, Torres Strait, Airblast Effects, Project Rulison, Gasbuggy, Geohydrolic
[Book #83909]
Price: $125.00