by Russel Norman
Here’s one that I was not aware of. According to today’s Denver Post the US govt in 1969 decided to demonstrate the peaceful uses of nuclear energy by letting off a bomb near Rulison Colorado to loosen up natural gas – part of the Plowshares Program.
It was a 43 kiloton device set off at 8000 feet undergound designed to fracture rock and release natural gas. It worked, 455 million cubic feet of gas was released.
But sadly it was so radioactive it was unmarketable. And the govt instituted a no-drill zone in the area so that radioactive gas wouldn’t be extracted.
So now they’ve decided to slowly shrink the no-drill zone so they can access gas that hopefully won’t be full of tritium.
Disclosure: I’m in the US as a guest of the US Govt, as part of the International Visitor Leadership Program.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Russel Norman on Fri, July 3rd, 2009
More posts by Russel Norman | more about Russel Norman
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
A quick google search came up with a half-life for tritium of 12.3 years, so any tritium produced then would have decayed by about a factor of 10 since.
It is a beta emitter so it is only dangerous if it gets into you, through absorbtion, injestion or inhalation, and has a short biological half-life, i.e. it doesn’t spend long in a living organism.
Trevor.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Well, holy crap.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Brings a new meaning to central heating!
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
radiant heating
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
I admit to having a facination with nuclear weapons, probably due to growing up in the cold war era, scary NZ labour party election adds, and made for TV drama’s like “the day after tomorrow”. As a kid I was quite concerned we would all end up in some nuclear holocaust, hey I wonder whether I could get compensation
.
I think they are a shocking invention, but once the cat’s out of the bag its only a matter of time before they are used.
Equally shocking was the way scientists were funded to look for every conceivable use, and delivery method for these weapons.
They made nuclear mortars and nuclear artillery (the problem was getting out of the way quick enough).
The explosion below (part of operation plowshare) spead radioactive iodine and other nasties across much of central and eastern USA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssLZ4bUTDYM
I would suggest there are cleaner ways of digging holes!!!
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
I think that it would be most fitting to quote Ian Drury; -
“There aint arf been some clever bastards”
Cheers
Drakula
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)