Soviet experience with peaceful uses of nuclear explosions

The Soviet Union is pursuing an active program for developing peaceful uses of nuclear explosions (PNE). They have reported 16 explosions, with applications ranging from putting out oil-well fires and stimulating oil recovery to creating instant dams and canals. The data reported generally agree with U.S. experience. Seismic data collected by western sources on explosions outside the known Soviet test sites indicate that the Soviet program is at least twice as large as they have reported. The accelerated pace of these events suggests that in some applications the Soviet PNE program is approaching routine industrial technology