Nuclear Explosions For The National Economy - Conclusion

Conclusion

As noted, the Soviet PNE program was many times larger than the U.S. Plowshare program in terms of both the number of applications explored with field experiments and the extent to which they were introduced into industrial use. Several PNE applications, such as deep seismic sounding and oil stimulation, were explored in depth and appeared to have had a positive cost benefit at minimal public risk. Several others, such as deep void storage, developed significant technical problems that cast a shadow on their general applicability. Some, such as closure of runaway gas wells, demonstrated a unique technology that may yet find application as a last resort. Still others were the subject of one or two tests but were not explored further for reasons that have never been explained. Overall, the program represented a significant technical effort to explore what was seen at the time to be a promising new technology, and it generated a large body of data, although only a small fraction of it has been made public.