
The USSR used a nuclear charge to stop a gas well fire in 1966 - kapranoff
http://www.coal-seam-gas.com/accidents/ussr.htm
======
BrandonMarc
... as well as once in 1968, twice in 1972, and once in 1981. 0.o

The USSR had a whole program to investigate peaceful nuclear explosions
(PNEs), called Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy. [1] Sadly, some of
these experiments went rather wrong, unexpectedly releasing lots of
radioactive nasty near populated areas. The US also did this sort of thing
from 1961 to 1973, and the program was cancelled in '77\. [2]

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Explosions_for_the_Nati...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Explosions_for_the_National_Economy)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare)

~~~
sillysaurus3
Here's a timelapse of every nuclear explosion since 1945. It really puts into
perspective just how many nukes have gone off for purposes other than to kill
people. It's amazing that only two were used for violence.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY)

According to the video, people have detonated 2053 nukes, and America has the
dubious distinction of having detonated over 1000.

~~~
sigterm
Only two were actually used to kill people. Most of the rest were preparations
for it.

~~~
Houshalter
Arguably most of the nuclear tests were done to prevent war. Each side wanted
to show the other they could match and one-up them in nuclear tech. Neither
really wanted to ever actually use them to kill people.

~~~
yardie
Plenty of people on both sides really wanted to use them. Nobel Peace Prize
winner, Kissinger, being one of them. Fortunately, cooler heads held the
launch codes and we all prevailed.

~~~
gdy
Is this what you are referring to?
[http://archive.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/16-03/ff...](http://archive.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/16-03/ff_nuclearwar?currentPage=all)

~~~
yardie
This and a few others. Going through the wired archives you'll find many
examples of nuclear false alarms and brinkmanship where the only thing
stopping annihilation is an officer ignoring or delaying the order to launch
[1][2].

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov)
[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov)

------
aganders3
The US proposed many peaceful uses of nuclear explosives, mostly in the 60s.
The catchall term for these proposals was "Project Plowshare" or "Operation
Plowshare" [0].

 _> And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and
they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning
hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn
war any more_ \- Isaiah 2:3-5

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare)

------
jfb
This puts me mind of Herzog's fantastic documentary, _Lessons Of Darkness_
[1], about the crews putting out the oil well fires in Kuwait. Also, the Door
To Hell [2] in Turkmenistan.

[1]
[http://www.fandor.com/films/lessons_of_darkness](http://www.fandor.com/films/lessons_of_darkness)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door_to_Hell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door_to_Hell)

~~~
abruzzi
the odd thing about the Herzog film though is that it includes a narration
that casts the images into a kind of scifi story unrelated to Kuwait/Iraq,
rather than a documentary. The filming is amazing though.

~~~
jfb
Herzog has this concept of the ecstatic truth, which means his documentaries
are rarely as simple as they can seem; it's almost a third form of film.

I'm an unabashed fanboy, but in any event, _Lessons Of Darkness_ is highly,
highly recommended.

~~~
ggchappell
> ... it's almost a third form of film.

What are the other two?

~~~
tptacek
I'm presuming "documentary" and "narrative".

~~~
jfb
Yes, exactly. I'm sure that there are more forms, but those are the two that
Herzog traffics in.

------
gcb0
> "no radioactivity above background levels was detected at the surface of the
> ground during post-shot surveys."

the wording on that makes me very suspicious of what was found "under surface
of the ground" after they resumed drilling the gas/oil...

Edit: yep. apparently this is Public Relations Speak. The wikipedia for the US
plowshare tests do mention that all gas they extracted after using nukes to
open way had very high levels of radiation and they could only be used in a
few industrial places.

------
tptacek
Eric Schlosser's _Command and Control_ is an eye-opening read on this subject.
It's hard to fathom how seemingly cavalier the US and USSR were about nuclear
explosions in the decades after their invention. Nuclear landmines! Nuclear
rifles!

------
suprgeek
Unfortunately the mere mention of "Nuclear" is a trigger word for most people,
which is a tragedy considering that due to all the mistakes that were made in
the past we have started to (finally) move to safer ways of using Nuclear
Power.

If we were realists about Nuclear energy like other forms of energy, we should
have been entering a golden age of Nuclear right about now.

~~~
sjtrny
A golden age of nuclear waste? It's not a silver bullet.

~~~
girvo
Honestly, I'd rather deal with nuclear waste than I would what we're currently
doing to our environment.

~~~
kalms
Fire that crap into the sun and be done with it.

~~~
chadgeidel
You are getting downvoted without explanation here. It's a reasonable thought
except for a few things. First of which is our space launch and delivery
systems aren't 100% reliable. Even one failure means nuclear debris spread
over a wide distance - something that would be very difficult to recover from.

I couldn't find a good document from a quick googling, but this was high on
the list:
[http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2013.html](http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2013.html)
81 launches and 3 failures. I don't particularly like those odds.

------
photorized
This reminds me of my visit to Centralia, PA, where the underground fire has
been burning since 1962. Took lots of interesting pictures.

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania)

~~~
justincormack
Burning mountain has been on fire for 6,000 years...
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Mountain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Mountain)

------
enlightenedfool
The big countries had their way with peaceful nuclear technology. Now, the
smaller/weak ones are denied their own nuclear research and tech. forced to
buy tech from the rich or get sanctioned to oblivion.

~~~
venomsnake
Yep. Life isn't fair.

------
PhantomGremlin
I'm surprised nobody has yet mentioned Project Orion[1] which involved using
atomic bombs to propel a spacecraft.

Seems a little hare-brained to me, but they took it pretty seriously back
then. Of course, it was all just theoretical, which might be the reason nobody
brought it up in this discussion.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propul...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29)

------
whyenot
The US also had several plans for using nuclear explosions for non-military
purposes:

 _The project team wanted to blow a path for a railway line through
California’s Bristol Mountains; they wanted to use nukes to expand the Panama
Canal; and they wanted to use underwater explosions to carve out a harbor in
Alaska._

[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-us-once-
wanted-...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-us-once-wanted-to-
use-nuclear-bombs-as-a-construction-tool-1957380/)

------
matthiasb
I believe nuclear charges are not only used to stop spill but also to release
natural resources. However I did not find a reputable source of information to
confirm that.

~~~
FreakyT
You might be thinking of the natural gas stimulation experiments performed by
the US in the 70s[1]. From that article, "it was found that the three blast
cavities had not connected as hoped, and the resulting gas still contained
unacceptable levels of radionuclides" so it never went past the
experimentation phase.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare#Natural_ga...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare#Natural_gas_stimulation_experiment)

------
legohead
They've also used them to stop underwater oil leaks. If we had done that with
the last BP spill things would have been solved a lot quicker!

~~~
unclebunkers
We quickly realized that bacteria have evolved to eat oil, so it wasn't quite
as big of an environmental disaster as first expected. I would not expect
radiation to improve the situation at all.

~~~
frontline
i suggest you investigate the side effects of corexit that have emerged since
the incident

~~~
ChuckMcM
I note that the FDA didn't find a problem with food safety
([http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/RecallsOutbreaksEmergencie...](http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/RecallsOutbreaksEmergencies/UCM250307.pdf))
the Wikipedia page references an unreliable Vice/MotherJones article. Not
finding much on its side effects from research though. Do you have some
additional pointers?

these guys
[http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=24108904](http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=24108904)
suggest that it doesn't help the bacteria work, but doesn't suggest any
enhanced toxicity.

~~~
thenmar
Here's the wikipedia page for anyone curious:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corexit#Toxicity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corexit#Toxicity)

There are plenty of links to reliable sources there. Which page were you
looking at?

~~~
ChuckMcM
I was mostly using Google Scholar to look for peer reviewed work with the
keywords 'corexit toxicity' There are a about a dozen papers on the first
page, of the ones I could read without jumping various firewalls the
conclusions tended toward 'less toxic' than 'more toxic'. Would love to see a
meta analysis too but didn't dig one up.

------
antimora
When I saw the date and the location of Uzbekistan, I thought it was related
to the huge earthquake (7.5) of 1966 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. But it looks
like the bomb was exploded in September but the earthquake was in April.

More about this earthquake: [http://www.tashkent-
info.narod.ru/en/e_ze.htm](http://www.tashkent-info.narod.ru/en/e_ze.htm)

------
wahern
Suddenly the scenes in the movie Hellfighters (1968) (starring John Wayne)
don't seem so dangerous or exciting. Somebody should do a reboot, but using a
nuclear bomb instead of TNT.

(Although in terms of safety I suppose I'd much rather be on team nuclear than
team TNT. But Hollywood can add the requisite tension and danger.)

------
RoryH
Reminded me of this cool invention..
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E16g1_ibpBM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E16g1_ibpBM)

------
forrestthewoods
Video says no radiation detected at surface. What is the effect of the
radiation underground? How long until the gas is harvestable from a new well?

~~~
robotresearcher
> Video says no radiation detected at surface.

Soviet Russia was not big on detecting radiation in public.

------
AbraKdabra
Actually, controlled explosions are the best strategy against big fires.

~~~
johnnygasgoine
What do you mean "actually"?

This whole article is about how a controlled explosion was the best strategy
against a big fire, and then you rock up and chime in with "actually
controlled explosions are the best strategy against big fires".

Duh! That's what the article was talking about!

It's like everyone was talking about how the sky is blue, and you come along
as say "actually the sky is blue".

------
zincoontrin
Putting out a gas fire with a nuclear explosion... what can go wrong?

~~~
sliverstorm
Well, it's got the word "nuclear" in it, so obviously doomsday is the only
possible result.

~~~
baddox
I know some nuclear families that are disasters waiting to happen.

------
source99
The US and Russia cooperated on a program to do this in space in order to stop
a asteroid from destroying the planet. Bruce Willis led the mission.

~~~
source99
Wow. That's a lot of down votes for a joke/movie reference that shouldn't have
offended anyone. Maybe this community isn't for me!

~~~
fmstephe
I doubt that anyone was offended. But you will find a very strong negative
reaction to jokes in the comments. I think there is a (very wise) desire to
avoid a reddit type culture that rewards extended jokes and similar things.

This may well be the community for you, but just be aware that a lot of people
are justifiably frightened of what can happen to online communities.

I think a good rule of thumb would be 'would be a waste of someone's time to
read this comment'. People value the possibility that we can learn valuable
things on Hacker News, but that becomes impossible if you have to wade through
layers and layers of pointless jokes.

Not intending to be unwelcoming, but I think it can be a surprise.

~~~
MichaelApproved
> _' would be a waste of someone's time to read this comment'_

That's not a good example to use for jokes because people can justify
lighthearted humor as an improvement to their day. Having fun is healthy for
you, and whatnot.

I think a better way to deal with it is to say that there's a time and place
for comedy and HN is not usually that place.

~~~
johnnygasgoine
"Having fun is healthy for you"

The problem is that some vague reference to a shitty movie isn't fun. There's
no witticism in his comment is there? He's effectively saying "this situation
can be related to one in a movie".

Not exactly hilarious, is it?

~~~
source99
Not exactly hilarious. For sure.

But I viewed the parallels as interesting and thought others might be
interested as well. In the future I'll be sure to make my comments dead pan
serious without any humor.

