Saturday, April 6, 2019


Nuclear Bomb explodes  in Colorado

Technically, it wasn’t a bomb, just a nuclear device.

It wasn’t terrorism or war. In fact, it was a peacetime explosion.

The test was part of “Project Plowshare", an attempt to turn nuclear “swords”  into plows.  Once nuclear bombs were perfected and stockpiled, the realities of economics triggered a hunt for the peacetime use of the power of atoms.  Project Plowshare partnered the US Government with various private industries to use the tremendous power of nuclear explosions in construction and mining operations.

Nuclear is much cheaper and smaller than an equivalent explosive force of dynamite, TNT, or nitroglycerin. Proposals included using nuclear to excavate a harbor in Alaska, carve a sea-level passage across Panama,  build various water canals around the West, and make road-building easier.  Project Rulison was an attempt to break up underground rock to allow movement of natural gas deposits to enter a well.

Yes, you read that right.  Nuclear Fracking. 

A Texas oil company bought up many Colorado mineral rights and set about pumping natural gas. In 1969, they decided to increase their output by finding a better, faster, cheaper way to break up the rocks 1.5 miles below the surface. The test site was above the town of Rulison, on Battlement Mesa. Battlement Creek and the other nearby streams all flow into the Colorado River. 

On September 10, 1969, the consortium detonated a 40-kiloton ton fission bomb. The geologist predicted that the center of the explosion would vaporize and, the surrounding earth would melt. When it re- solidified, all the radiation would be trapped in the new glass at the bottom of a 160’ cavern.  The cavern ceiling would collapse. The rock would fracture in all directions. And all the nearby natural gas would flow to the new well.  Voila – a cheap, safe, easy method to capture American fuel.

Except for one tiny detail:  the radiation was not trapped in the melted rock. It spread out. Into the natural gas itself. Which made it unsuitable for public consumption.

They got their gas. But they couldn’t sell it.

Project Rulicon was actually the second attempt.  The process was field tested in north-west New Mexico in 1967 as Project Gasbuggy.

But two failures weren’t enough.  In 1973, a different gas company tried again northwest of Rifle.  This time, they used three 33-ton nuclear devices.   Because surely, if they more than doubled the explosive force, the radiation would all be trapped. Except, it wasn’t. 

Also, the public was getting more vocal about their distrust of nuclear power.   

The nuclear solution was shelved and gas companies focused on hydraulic fracturing instead, using water, solvents and sand instead of nuclear bombs. 



Bibliography:

http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM9ZRR_Project_Rulison_Parachute_CO
­Owen, David.  Where the Water Goes .  Riverhead Books, New York. 2017


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