Back in the late 50’s and early 60’s the government thought nukes were “the bomb” and began to try and find other peaceful uses for them. More than half of the Atomic Energy Commission’s budget was spent on nonmilitary uses for nuclear. Obviously, nuclear powered power plants were beginning to expand, and For even had the idea of a nuclear powered car, “The Nucleon”. One idea that they came up with around 1965, was using a hydrogen bomb to help dig out the Panama Canal. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and instead the focus turned to a different task, fracking natural gas out of the Rockies. Already back in 1966, there was concern for the excessive use of fossil fuel provoking climate change. (Back then we were pumping 6 billion tons of CO2 in the air). They thought that cleaner burning natural gas was the ticket, but how to extract it? The ide they came up with was not small. They initially planned to have 13,000 detonations of fifty-kiloton nuclear bombs. Radiation and its effect from the bomb or mixed with the gas they were going to pull out wasn’t really understood. In the end, on September 10,th of 1969, “Project Rulson” was born and they detonated one bomb 8,436 feet underground. The experiment worked in that they pulled out in 108 days, ten years of gas production from a conventional field. But there were two problems, one was “mildly” radioactive gas and the other was the cost, for as they excavated they realized they were going to need bigger bombs. In 1973, they tried again with “Project Rio Blanco”. This time they used three three-kiloton bombs. The cost was $82 million, way too costly given the price of gas in those days. So in the end they ended their attempt at nuclear bomb fracking.
Fracking With Nukes
