In late spring 2010, the world watched, often in real time, as a new kind of environmental disaster unfolded: an explosion occurred on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, followed by an oil spill. The depth of the well (10,680 m) was the biggest obstacle to eliminating the accident. In fact, it made it impossible to seal the damaged pipe (the damage occurred at a depth of 1500 meters). This accident was the largest offshore oil spill in history.
While BP tried unsuccessfully to clean up the disaster, some observers calmly discussed a rather unconventional approach: launching an underground nuclear bomb to seal the damage. "Nuclear detonation on the seabed is beginning to sound, oddly enough, like something doable and appropriate … I never thought I'd say that," wrote University of Texas engineer Stephen Webber. But the nuclear option was rejected, since the explosion could destroy the well altogether. A task force assembled by Energy Secretary Stephen Chu ruled out this possibility; a senior official said, "This is crazy."
The idea may not have been as crazy as it seemed - or at least its madness was not entirely unprecedented. The Soviet Union successfully used underground nuclear explosions to put out fires in out-of-control gas wells four times in the 60s and 70s. This was only part of a major Soviet program to use nuclear explosions for various peaceful purposes. The US had a similar but smaller program. Much of the information about these Cold War-era efforts was kept secret until 1998, when Milo Nordike, former director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, published an authoritative report on the topic.
It seems strange now to think of nuclear bombs as just another tool that shapes our environment. We should be reminded of the post-war times, full of enthusiasm for everything related to the nuclear industry. Back then, people on both sides of the Iron Curtain thought that our cities, cars, and lives would soon be powered by the fission or fusion of atoms. The Soviet representative to the UN said: “The Soviet Union did not use atomic energy to build up its nuclear potential; he used atomic energy for the benefit of the domestic economy: blowing up mountains, changing the course of rivers, irrigating deserts, blazing new ways of life in regions where no human has ever set foot. " President Dwight D. Eisenhower voiced something similar in his Atoms for Peace speech, also at the UN conference:“It is not enough to simply take these weapons out of the hands of their soldiers. It should be passed on to those who will know how to remove the military shell from it and adapt it to the art of peace. " Of course, at that time, the United States and the USSR were actively building up their nuclear capabilities, which were large enough to destroy humanity many times.
The first concrete step towards using peaceful nuclear explosions was taken in 1957, when the United States carried out the world's first underground nuclear explosion at a depth of 270 meters under the Nevada desert. The test went exactly as planned, without causing significant damage or causing a burst of radioactivity on the surface of the earth. This has generated "a tremendous surge of enthusiasm and confidence that the peaceful use of nuclear explosions is possible and can be done safely." Over the next 16 years, twelve more explosions were carried out as part of the American Plowcher program, most of which were aimed at testing nuclear weapons in order to extract natural gas or excavate the earth's surface. One of the plans involved using a series of bombs to create a replacement for the Panama Canal.
The Soviet Union entered the game later, but with great enthusiasm. In 1965, he carried out his first peaceful nuclear explosion to create a crater near a river in Kazakhstan. The idea was to channel water into the crater to create a reservoir that could be used to irrigate land during dry seasons. The test was successful, and project director Yefim Slavsky reportedly jumped into the newly formed lake, proudly becoming the first person to bathe in it.
A year later, Soviet engineers found another use for a nuclear explosion. At that time, there was an out-of-control gas well in Uzbekistan that burned for almost three years, spewing 12 million cubic meters of gas a day, enough to supply all of St. Petersburg. To make matters worse, the gas had a high concentration of toxic hydrogen sulfide, making it dangerous for workers trying to clean up the accident and residents of nearby communities. After conventional approaches failed, the decision was made to use a nuclear bomb. A new one was drilled near the old well; a specially designed bomb was placed in it; the hole was filled with concrete. Twenty-three seconds after the bomb explosion, the accident was liquidated - thirty-three months after the fire started.
These early successes marked the beginning of an active program that included 122 nuclear explosions and continued until late 1988, when the USSR began to disintegrate. Nuclear bombs were used by engineers not only to extinguish gas fires and create lakes, canals and dams, but also to increase oil production and search for geological resources. Perhaps most surprising was the creation of large underground spaces isolated from the biosphere and water sources: especially toxic waste was dumped there. In the post-Soviet years, Russian scientists suggested getting rid of nuclear waste by placing it in a chamber deep underground and detonating a bomb there; thus, the waste would be fused with the rocks and its radioactivity would be safely dispersed over the millennia. It's funny to thinkthat nuclear bombs may be the most effective way to dispose of nuclear waste.
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In the 70s and 80s, nuclear power made a dramatic revolution in the public consciousness, turning from a futuristic miracle into an ecological disaster. The USA and the USSR curtailed their programs, which came to be regarded as "politically radioactive". This explains the internal resistance to even the peaceful use of nuclear bombs. An invention that once symbolized humankind's amazing ingenuity has become the emblem of our enduring pride.