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The USSR used a nuclear charge to stop a gas well fire in 1966

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Re: The USSR used a nuclear charge to stop a gas well fire in 1966

#111

Post by personZ »

suprgeek wrote: post #49

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.

Nuclear energy is hugely susceptible to black swan events, with very serious environmental and monetary consequences. Even the best, safest run facility, in an instance of sabotage, terrorism, conflict, or simple unexpected event (seismic, extreme weather), can turn into a maelstrom of troubles that will endure for thousands of years.

Further the nuclear industry is one with a very poor track record of promises versus delivery. The cheap power, for instance, tends to turn into expensive power when plants need to be refurbished at mind-boggling costs (such as here in Ontario where we've gone from the cheapest power in North America, courtesy of huge hydroelectric benefits, to one of the most expensive because of our nuclear legacy). And the waste issue remains a significant issue.

Nuclear was a great alternative to fossil fuels. It is a very poor alternative to alternatives (wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, etc), and simply increasing energy efficiency.

Re: The USSR used a nuclear charge to stop a gas well fire in 1966

#112

Post by rsync »

personZ wrote: post #111
suprgeek wrote: post #49

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.

Nuclear energy is hugely susceptible to black swan events, with very serious environmental and monetary consequences. Even the best, safest run facility, in an instance of sabotage, terrorism, conflict, or simple unexpected event (seismic, extreme weather), can turn into a maelstrom of troubles that will endure for thousands of years. Further the nuclear industry is one with a very poor track record of promises versu…

What you describe is true of the old style nuclear reactors (which, unfortunately, is all of them). I completely agree.

But new reactor designs (thorium, etc.) avoid the black swans and all of the interdependent complexity. We should be deploying them.

Re: The USSR used a nuclear charge to stop a gas well fire in 1966

#113

Post by ahi »

Bluestrike2 wrote: post #108
iSnow wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot simply brush aside this issue. Even if we have 100% safe reactors, generating waste that is deadly in a thousand years is simply not a good idea, no paranoia involved. Besides: nuclear had its chance - they blew it because of greed and sloppiness, the usual thing that happens when large organizations deal with complex issues. I am 100% sure that even with novel reactor designs the same "human factor" would…

Greed and sloppiness? Everyone will grant you that in the case of the Soviet nuclear energy program and the result with Chernobyl, but beyond that, there's nothing to support your argument. If anything, the fact that the only significant accident was the result of human error magnified by institutional decision-making is a remarkably positive argument. Modern reactor designs and procedures are radically different tha…

Here is some support for that argument: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site

A lot of smart people being very very sloppy.

Re: The USSR used a nuclear charge to stop a gas well fire in 1966

#114

Post by arethuza »

yardie wrote: post #104
arethuza wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of people on both sides were prepared to use them. Fortunately only a very small number of people wanted to use them and were in any position to actually do so.

Pres. Nixon wanted to use them. And you can't get much more capable than the CIC. Luckily, his advisers talked him out of it.

I thought Nixon just wanted to appear mad enough to use nuclear weapons rather than actually being that daft...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory

Re: The USSR used a nuclear charge to stop a gas well fire in 1966

#115

Post by 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.)

Re: The USSR used a nuclear charge to stop a gas well fire in 1966

#116

Post by chadgeidel »

kalms wrote: post #88
girvo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

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 81 launches and 3 failures. I don't particularly like those odds.

Re: The USSR used a nuclear charge to stop a gas well fire in 1966

#117

Post by Bluestrike2 »

ahi wrote: post #113
Bluestrike2 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greed and sloppiness? Everyone will grant you that in the case of the Soviet nuclear energy program and the result with Chernobyl, but beyond that, there's nothing to support your argument. If anything, the fact that the only significant accident was the result of human error magnified by institutional decision-making is a remarkably positive argument. Modern reactor designs and procedures are radically different tha…

Here is some support for that argument: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site A lot of smart people being very very sloppy.

There's a huge difference between any nuclear power plant and the Hanford Site, which was setup as a wartime production facility. The majority of the river contamination took place in the early years, from 1945 to 1951 when knowledge, technology, and experience was extremely limited at the time compared to today. At the time, they sacrificed environmental concerns for expediency because they had a war to win. Even if they knew exactly what would happen in the years and decades afterwards, I'm fairly certain that the same decision would be made. We're stuck with the cleanup, but there's nothing about the situation that would suggest the possibility of a repeat.

Re: The USSR used a nuclear charge to stop a gas well fire in 1966

#118

Post by Confusion »

logicallee wrote: post #51
iaw wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other way around. We had the Trinity test, Hiroshima & Nagasaki, and then we set off the rest. Unless you meant "preparations" for killing more people with our nuclear weapons, in which case you may be correct.

(It's completely obvious that's what he meant.)

It's completely obvious that it's not completely obvious, as someone honestly misunderstood.

Re: The USSR used a nuclear charge to stop a gas well fire in 1966

#119

Post by noahhs »

kalms wrote: post #88
girvo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

Aside from safety, there's another insurmountable obstacle to space disposal: cost. You may not appreciate just how much spent fuel there is. I did the math once. Launch cost per pound, times number of pounds of waste, came out to over $1 trillion. Orders of magnitude away from feasibility, even with advancements in launch technology.

Re: The USSR used a nuclear charge to stop a gas well fire in 1966

#120

Post by nz8877 »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #20
BrandonMarc wrote: post #3

... 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]…

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

I wonder if it will help us communicating with possible extra terrestrial intelligence. If there is some kind of SETI in other world then I guess it would be easier for them to detect nukes explosions than 1936 olympics.

Maybe we'll end up using nukes as kind-of-morse code communication? ;>

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