ome of the best ways to increase oil production from a well are to reduce viscosity via heating and increase solvation. Hard gamma rays are an excellent way to do both, since they could penetrate deeply into the rock, which would act like shielding and would be heated. Plus the heavy hydrocarbons would be made lighter by the ionization. The problem is getting gamma rays, since they are produced only in particle accelerators or via nuclear reactions. I would love to be able to say that we can shove radioactive waste underground and increase oil production, since we could, but I can’t. Yes, the heat and massive qualities of ionizing radiation of all types would free up oil and gas from the surrounding rock, but the neutron radiation would make everything else radioactive too… Plus the possibility of leakage, or theft of spent fuel...
We’ve already learned this lesson from Teller’s Project Ploughshare. Yes, he was able to get a nuclear bomb to fracture rock and release trapped natural gas, but the gas is radioactive and unusable… (He did show that if we could accept a bit of fall out, he could dig a new Panama Canal in a couple weeks...)
So until we can make particle accelerators that can go down a well, we will have to consider radiological sources. While Cobalt 60, would be the best source it is dangerous and since it has to be “made” by neutron bombardment of Co59 so it is costly. However, Cesium 137 which is a direct byproduct of fission could work too. Cs137 decays to Barium 137* via a Beta decay, then the Ba137* decays to stable Ba137 via a high energy gamma decay. The Beta/Gamma decay chain makes Ce137 the “prefect” down well gamma source for improving the yield of an oil well. Better still if the Cs container leaks as long as it is Cs and Ba sulfate the low solubility of the sulfate salts will largely immobile any leaked material in the reservoir. Even if the Cs or Ba did come up the well it would be separated out long before it could be made into plastic or fuel.
By mixing Cs137 and Sr90, and using a Lead (Pb) shield the effect could be increased due to the contributions of hard X-rays from Beta decay Bremsstrahlung, and the significant heating from the Sr90. Sr90 decays to stable Zr90 via two Beta decays, with the Y90 to Zr90 decay productive >2 MeV beta particle. I also suggest this since Cs137 and Sr90 have about the same half life, require thick shielding and can be separated together via solvent extraction of spent fuel.
While I wouldn’t put it past the Russian’s to increase well production using waste from spent fuel reprocessing I don’t see the US doing that. The next best thing would be to use electron guns to create X-rays via Bremsstrahlung. However, it might be a little too expensive to cram an X-ray machine down a deep deep hole. Now what could be put down a deep hole to produce heat, is a dielectric heater, aka a microwave. Yes, the lack of ionizing radiation would prevent a microwave or RF based systems from truly achieving maximum effects, be the oil and surrounding matter could be heated significantly. I will explore this further in a later post but the advent of microwave-based chemistry could allow down well catalytic cracking to lighten heavy crude so it could better solvate additional oil.
Where my radioactive well tool could be useful would be in securing the Strategic Oil Reserve. As I am sure everyone knows the US government has millions of barrels of oil stored in salt domes all over the Southeastern US, in case our oil supply is cut off, I won't go into detail. What you might not know is during the Cold War the Soviets weaponized microorganisms that eat oil with the intention of destroying the SOR, and starving the US for oil. Even without bioterrorism there are bacteria munching on our oil and turning it into more bacteria and sludge. By running a Cs137 containing “pig” down the borehole, and passing the incoming oil through a massively over-engineered irradiation chamber the gamma radiation could sterilize the oil and pipes. Plus, the SOR could keep magnetic pellets containing Cs137 on hand. In the event excessive bacteria activity was detected, they could put the pellets into the contaminated reserve and sterilize it in situ. Then if necessary they could use an electromagnet or large permanent magnets to recover the pellets. Since the SOR is tightly controlled, its security is a matter of national security, and since there is minimal lingering radiation after gamma exposure, deployment of Cs137-based systems are likely to be acceptable.
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