Rio Blanco: nuclear operations and chimney reentry

Rio Blanco was the third experiment in the AEC's Plowshare Program to develop technology to stimulate gas production from geologic formations not conducive to production by conventional means.The project was sponsored by CER Geonuclear Corp with the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory providing the explosives and several technical programs, such as spall measurement.Three nuclear explosives, specifically designed for this application, were detonated simultaneously in a minimumdiameter emplacement well using many commercially available, but established-reliability components.The explosive system performed properly under ex treme temperature and pressure condi tions.Emplacement and stemming operations were designed with the aim of simplifying both the emplacement and reentry and fully containing the detona tion products.An integrated command and control system was used with com munication to all three explosives through a single coaxial cable.Reentry and the initial production testing have been completed.To date 98 million 3 standard ft of chimney gas have been produced.