A few weeks ago, a reader wrote to me asking how we can be sure the government isn't slyly getting rid of nuclear waste by injecting it into shale rock that's been fracked for oil or gas. Jon Abel's questions will seem far-fetched to some of you, worrisome to others, depending on how much you trust government and the energy industry:
I wanted to mention something that might be getting missed with the whole radioactivity issue surrounding fracking waste water," my reader wrote. "Has anyone tested for other radioactive metals – such as cesium or plutonium (not just NORM elements)? And, has anyone tested the frack water for radioactivity BEFORE it goes down the frack production wells? Is it possible that the government is getting rid of nuclear waste in this manner?"
Far-fetched or not, no sooner had Jon posed the question than someone proposed it.
At the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, Leonid Germanovich of the Georgia Institute of Technology suggested that nuclear wastes deposited in shale rock would never return to the surface.
"It's basic physics here — if it's heavier than rock, the fracture will propagate down," said the physicist and civil and environmental engineer.
Jens Birkholzer, head of the Nuclear Energy and Waste Program at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, told Livescience the idea is impractical, largely for safety reasons, but in fact, the government has already disposed of nuclear wastes this way, as you'll read below.
Jon Abel's questions had me wondering whether these two explosive forms of energy extraction had ever been combined.
And indeed they have.
In December, 1967, scientists from the Atomic Energy Commission and officials from the U.S. Bureau of Mines and El Paso Natural Gas Company gathered at a gas well in northern New Mexico, near Farmington. They lowered a 29-kiloton nuclear device more than 4,000 feet down the shaft and set it off.
It worked.
"The 4,042-foot-deep detonation created a molten glass-lined cavern about 160 feet in diameter and 333 feet tall," according to the American Oil and Gas Historical Society. "It collapsed within seconds. Subsequent measurements indicated fractures extended more than 200 feet in all directions – and significantly increased natural gas production."
The Atomic Energy Commission tried twice more. In 1969 they set off a 43-kiloton nuclear bomb in an 8,500-foot deep well near Rulison, Colorado. In 1973 they set off three 33-kiloton bombs in a single well near Rifle, Colorado. In all three tests, they collaborated with the local gas utilities.
The tests were part of the Plowshare Program—a government initiative to find peaceful uses for nuclear explosions—which was discontinued in 1975. Nuclear fracking never became a common practice because of safety concerns, public opposition and the growth of hydraulic fracturing, according to a report from the Department of Energy's Office of Scientific and Technical Information:
Although the technology was demonstrated to be technically feasible, it could not be proved that national energy needs justified the elaborate procedures that would be required. Concerns about the potential of the tritium contamination of the gas that would result from nuclear explosive stimulation were raised by Colorado and western alliance agencies. These concerns and the lack of public support for the program made it unlikely that Congress would ever approve a commercial joint government-industry venture.
By 1974, approximately 82 million dollars had been invested in the nuclear gas stimulation technology program …. It was estimated that even after 25 years of gas production of all the natural gas deemed recoverable, that only 15 to 40 percent of the investment could be recovered. At the same time, alternative, non-nuclear technologies were being developed, such as hydrofracturing. Consequently, under the pressure of economic and environmental concerns, the Plowshare Program was discontinued at the end of FY 1975.
The three sites—the Gasbuggy site in New Mexico and the Rulison and Rio Blanco sites in Colorado—remain under the watch of DOE's Office of Legacy Management.
When DOE cleaned up the Gasbuggy site in 2004, it used the well just as Jon Abel suggested it might: "liquid radioactive waste was injected into the cavity formed by the nuclear explosion; solid radioactive waste was removed to the Nevada Test Site," according to a DOE fact sheet (pdf).
When Rio Blanco was cleaned up, radioactive materials were injected into the earth using one of the test wells.
DOE and EPA officials conduct regular tests to determine whether radioactive liquids are migrating from these sites into adjacent groundwater. So far, they say, no leaks.
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