Nuclear fracking

[Marlin]

Nuclear fracking and other early nuclear projects.

http://www.physicscentral.com/buzz/blog/index.cfm?postid=3351964621314250596

Nuclear fracking:

At the sunset of the atomic age in 1969, the AEC was looking around for new uses for their huge trove of stockpiled nuclear weapons. One idea was to use atomic bombs to mine natural gas.

The NERVA program was a joint undertaking by NASA and the Atomic Energy Commission in the 1960s to develop a thermal nuclear rocket engine for use in the developing space program. The NERVA acronym stands for Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Applications. Although the resulting engines never flew on a mission, the program was successful in developing several technologies that are still used in modern rocket engines to this day. It could be said a modern liquid fuel rocket works like the NERVA engine. Thermal nuclear rocket engines come in three different core types:


- Solid-core
- Liquid-core
- Gas-core

The NERVA engine was based upon a solid-core design that emerged from the 1950s era nuclear reactors for power plants, so that type is what will be focused on. One complete test engine, the NERVA EX, can be seen in Figure 1 to the right (image credit: NASA).




Project Orion was an even more outlandish concept for atomic powered space exploration than NERVA. The design called for a giant space ship to detonate a hydrogen bomb behind it, and use the blast wave to push the craft forward. Not only that, but to repeat this process every four seconds.

Full article here;

http://www.physicscentral.com/buzz/blog/index.cfm?postid=3351964621314250596

[atomicarcheologist]

At the sunset of the atomic age in 1969, the AEC was looking around for new uses for their huge trove of stockpiled nuclear weapons. One idea was to use atomic bombs to mine natural gas.
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Oh, freaking nuclear fracking!  What a bonus for the consumers, a bit of tritium, some krypton, and a little carbon to flavor their cooking gas.

[RDTroja]

Oh, freaking nuclear fracking!  What a bonus for the consumers, a bit of tritium, some krypton, and a little carbon to flavor their cooking gas.

But it would just be a little itty-bitty nuclear bomb! Can't we try it, please?

[atomicarcheologist]

It was, they did.

[GLW]

It was, they did.

not that there's anything wrong with that,...

what good are individual dose limits for members of the general public if you don't exercise them?!?!!?

[atomicarcheologist]

I thought this exposure would more likely be incorporated into the background for the area, rather than General Public Individual Dose Limits.

[GLW]

If you put it there as a licensed activity (which it would be), the Individual Dose Limits of which we are speaking apply,...

There are also TENORM, NORM and SM changes pending and which, in the recent past (e.g. SECY 12-0099), are compelling "general industry" to be accountable for any industrial processes, means and methods which change the environmental distribution of naturally occurring isotopes, particularly when the ratios are increased above the "as found" distributions prior to permitted activities taking place,...

Some of us are already laying the foundations for the emergent jobs whenever these enhancements to environmental monitoring, preservation and remediation are effectively implemented,...

You will not likely be getting a paycheck for working in this aspect of our discipline next year, although a good number of the crowd currently in their 20s and early 30s might very well do so a couple of decades out,...

I look at it as trying to help those kids and grand kids that might just think it ain't such a bad way to make a living,...

My grandfather built piping systems at Eniwetok and watched 'em blow it up, he never had a clue that all the emanant technologies from his time in the South Pacific would result in his sons pulling stints at PHNSY Code 105, or one of his grandsons being an ELT and, later on, an at large radcon guy, but,........there you go,...

Just trying to pay the bills now and pay it forward is all we strive for in our happy little group(s),...

[atomicarcheologist]

GLW, please don't think I am argueing this subject.  I am simply trying to explore this opened genie bottle of discussion. 

I was referencing the usage of the natural gas by the public with the accompanying isotopic distribution andI  thought any applicable dose would be incorporated into background similar to that dose received by TV, smoke detectors, etc. 

That said, would communities sited above underground mining operations be able to litigate the companies for compensation of radon mitigation the commmunities have borne as a result of the mines construction and operation; that being a process which changes the distribution of NORM?

[GLW]

GLW, please don't think I am argueing this subject.  I am simply trying to explore this opened genie bottle of discussion......

Well, my tongue in cheek response to the notion of fracking with a fission or fusion nuclear device being accountable as an Individual Dose aggregate quantity was gleaned as part of the notion that fission or fusion detonation by a commercial mining company would necessarily be a licensed activity,...

........I was referencing the usage of the natural gas by the public with the accompanying isotopic distribution andI  thought any applicable dose would be incorporated into background similar to that dose received by TV, smoke detectors, etc. 

That said, would communities sited above underground mining operations be able to litigate the companies for compensation of radon mitigation the commmunities have borne as a result of the mines construction and operation; that being a process which changes the distribution of NORM?

As to that:

The regulation(s) is (are) evolving,...

The industries are resistant to get ahead of the curve so as not to establish a precedent which will become the expected standard and may be more costly over time,...

Sooooooo,....

Case law and precedent will evolve out of the first several rounds of state agencies writing citations, industry lawyers challenging the citations to administrative judges, negotiated settlements and derived precedents,....

The EPA and NRC may try to play in this arena but industry is going to point to unfunded federal mandates, some states will buttress that position others will not, and then the Congress critters will get involved and muck that whole mess up into the typical Fox News versus MSNBC harpyfest,...

I suspect it will take a couple of decades for this to all work out, which is not a bad thing in and of itself,...

As to the principle of monitoring and remediating TENORM?!?!?!?

I accept it as good stewardship, understanding that good stewardship is a comprehensive paradigm which includes capital commitment, capital conservation, capital growth, risk management, necessary environmental impact, employment growth, employment stability, et al,...

[atomicarcheologist]

Although it has been awhile since I was involved with training, I seem to remember TV and smoke detectors being used as illustrations of items contributing to the background in which individuals were exposed.  Seems like minute quantities of some fission gases in the gas fueling homes would fall into the same venue.

Regarding mines and liability... it seems that a group which must monitor it's employees for a hazard should be held liable for that which exceeds it's boundary...

[GLW]

Although it has been awhile since I was involved with training, I seem to remember TV and smoke detectors being used as illustrations of items contributing to the background in which individuals were exposed.  Seems like minute quantities of some fission gases in the gas fueling homes would fall into the same venue.....

Fission or fusion fracking should require the equivalent of an ODCM,...

But who really knows what is the norm in the bizarro alterverse of ice cream and unicorns,...

[atomicarcheologist]

One needs an ODCM to use when you aren't sending material off-site?  Makes you wonder about the formulations used in Yucca Mt. for this.

[GLW]

One needs an ODCM to use when you aren't sending material off-site?  Makes you wonder about the formulations used in Yucca Mt. for this.

Okay, I love you brother, but this thread is becoming why I dislike internet forums for technical discussions,...

• The posters begin to use so many caveats and disclaimers that the discussion becomes useless,...


• The unqualified and inexperienced have full access to the discussion and come away from it with "a little knowledge", and we are all too familiar with the repercussions of "a little knowledge",....

I'm just saying,...

[atomicarcheologist]

(*^3^)/~☆

[spentfuel]

It was, they did.

Indeed they did

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

sf

[retired nuke]

And now natural gas is fracking nuclear power...