money doing monitoring of the radioactivity that comes out and tracking that to make sure that there are no untoward consequences from that.

Representative PRICE. What is the AEC liability in monitoring the gas from the Rulison well?

Mr. KELLY. I think our basic responsibility is to assure that the amount and nature of the release of radioactivity is not injurious to the public within the accepted standards, and that sort of thing.

It is planned that reentry drilling into the Rulison chimney will be started in April 1970-some 7 months following the detonation. The postdetonation phase of the project will include detailed evaluations concerning the chemical composition of the gas. In particular, there will be close study and control of the radioactivity content of the gas released from the well and the fate of these radionuclides, particularly tritium, as they are released to the atmosphere as a result of the gas-flow testing and flaring operations.

The flow testing will permit evaluating the stimulated reservoir production, and specific parameters, such as cavity volume, and the rate at which the natural gas flows from the low-permeability reservoir. A physical examination of the chimney itself is not planned.

It has been estimated that the Mesaverde formation in the Rulison field contains 90 to 125 billion standard cubic feet of gas-in-place in each 640 acres. The Rulison field encompasses approximately 60,000 acres, containing an estimated 8 to 10 trillion standard cubic feet of gas, and is not commercially productive using conventional wellcompletion techniques.

STATUS OF THE STUDY OF CRITERIA FOR CONDUCTING PLOWSHARE TESTS

In response to the committee's question regarding the criteria for conducting Plowshare tests, I would like to recall that following the Rulison detonation in early September, members of this committee raised some question regarding whether the criteria for such things as weather and geology which we had used for Rulison were reasonable and appropriate under the circumstances. Accordingly, the General Manager of the AEC directed that a study be done under the chairmanship of the Division of Peaceful Nuclear Explosives and with the participation of the Nevada Operations Office, the Divisions of Operational Safety and Military Application, and LASL and LRL. That study has been in progress since October, looking into the assumptions, procedures, and methods presently used for nuclear-explosive testing, and examining to what degree these appear relevant to the more deeply buried off-site, industrial-type Plowshare event.

The study is not seeking to lessen the importance of any technique or procedure that is essential to the paramount Plowshare program objective of insuring public health and safety, but rather it is looking for ways to make the safe firing of deeply buried Plowshare explosives simpler, less time consuming, and more economical. Although it would be premature at this time to predict what the findings of that study might be, I understand members of the group are optimistic from their progress thus far that their study may be helpful in these regards. I anticipate that the study report will be completed within 2 to 3 months, at which time the findings will be taken under consideration by the General Manager.

Scientific experiments are not expected to occur at as great a depth as the underground-engineering projects, but rather will occur at a convenient depth and one that insures containment. As the ease and cost of testing makes it convenient to use the Nevada Test Site for these experiments, the criteria used for underground testing at the test site will probably be appropriate. Should any scientific experiments be suggested which have special characteristics making them more similar to either the deep underground or the excavation situation, the appropriate criteria would, of course, be chosen.

Nuclear excavation projects involve the anticipated and inevitable release beyond the controlled site areas of a very small amount of radioactivity. This radioactivity consists of a limited quantity of fission products and some induced activities of concern which are made by our "cleanest" explosives.

The presently used radiation protection guides are derived assuming a 50-year constant level exposure; and are, therefore, many thousands of times higher than appropriate for the transient-that is, hours or days-exposure which would occur in some close-by areas during passage of an air mass containing very small amounts of radioactivity from an excavation project. The transient situation is so different from that of continuous exposure that it requires a new calculation to determine the specific nuclide-by-nuclide criteria. Investigators at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are developing the capability to make this new calculation.

I believe additional detail which the committee may wish to have on this subject is best obtained from a technical paper on this subject recently prepared by Dr. Edward G. Struxness at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Its title is "An Approach to the Development of Guidelines for Plowshare." A copy of this paper has been furnished the committee staff. (See App. 10, p. 1084.)

UNDERGROUND ENGINEERING EXPLOSIVE DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING

I would like to turn now to another aspect of our undergroundengineering activities that of developing and testing explosives suited for industrial projects, such as the stimulation of natural gas or the building of underground storage facilities.

This committee has shown considerable interest in our developing such explosives. During fiscal year 1971, in spite of the necessity to curtail our efforts in some other areas, this explosive-development work will receive particular emphasis. An explosive specifically designed for gas field stimulation will be fabricated and tested during fiscal year 1971, with the objective that a design or designs may subsequently be perfected and a gas-stimulation explosive made available, as needed, within the next several years.

While the first explosive that we will test may be less suitable than the gas-stimulation explosive we ultimately would like, it will reflect the best design that is available within the fiscal year 1971 technology, and it will be far superior to either of the explosives used in Gasbuggy and Rulison.

It is our longer range objective to improve upon the explosive to be tested in 1971 so as to develop and test even more suitable gas-stimulation explosives during fiscal years subsequent to fiscal year 1971. With

sufficient emphasis and success, the best gas-stimulation explosive design may be available in production quantities in about 5 years. We will seek to maintain a level of research and development sufficient to achieve this objective commencing with fiscal year 1971 and continuing

as necessary.

Both explosive-design laboratories Lawrence Radiation Laboratory and Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory-will be concentrating on designs for explosives that will be suitable for use in high-temperature/high-pressure environments, will be of small diameter, will have minimal tritium, and will have the lowest possible cost. It is our goal to have sufficient research and development experience in this area by January 1973 so that a "second generation" explosive design can be selected for production.

Although the levels of tritium radioactivity to be expected in natural gas stimulated by these improved explosives will not be known until the explosives have been fabricated and tested in gas reservoirs, the levels should be about one 1/100th of those in Gasbuggy gas. Efforts will continue to resolve regulatory questions so that natural gas stimulated by nuclear explosives can be made commercially available on the same time scale.

As interest in other specific underground-engineering techniques develop, research and development effort will be directed toward satisfying requirements for the appropriate explosives. However, since gas stimulation is the main area of today's industrial interest and since device-development funds are so limited, the gas-stimulation explosive requires programmatic emphasis for the immediate future.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

The next subject I would like to discuss is that of Plowshare research and development. It is with funds from this category of the budget that we perform the technical work in support of experimental projects in Plowshare. This work also lays the technical foundation for future experiments and applications. Accordingly, this research work is vital to the entire program. On it hinges the availability of the technology which promises so much in terms of increasing our available energy resources and minerals, and helping to fulfill President Nixon's stated objective of improving the quality of our environment. We are planning a level of funding in this category for fiscal year 1971 of $5.3 million.

With the deemphasis in fiscal year 1971 of the excavation portion of the program, this level of funding will permit a larger relative effort on underground engineering. In future years, as in the past, a somewhat larger amount of money will be needed to support adequately both underground engineering and excavation-technology development simultaneously.

There are a number of major questions we must answer and tasks we must accomplish by this research effort in fiscal year 1971. Each area of investigation requires an intensive process of theoretical development, coupled with experiments to check the theory.

The first area of effort covered by funds from this category is nuclear-explosive design. Research and development effort in fiscal year 1971 will principally relate to the underground-engineering explosive I have previously discussed.

The second major area of effort involves improvement of our understanding of the basic phenomenology of deep underground detonations, including the relationship of depth, yield, and rock type to: (a) Cavity size and fracturing and (b) the high-temperature/pressure chemistry which dictates the distribution of radionuclides, including tritium among solids, liquids, and gases. Planning of projects, discussions with industry, analyses and interpretation of data from previous experiments will be emphasized.

A third area of work is continued development of the necessary technology to enable application of the underground effects of nuclear detonations to industrial processes. By this, I mean the work needed to learn such things as how to decontaminate gas-storage caverns, and how to minimize the possibility of radioactive contaminants in copper from sloop-type applications, oil from oil shale, and how the Plowshare technology might be applied in the utilization of geothermal heat to produce electric power.

We will continue in fiscal year 1971 to improve our capability to field Plowshare industrial detonations in an economical, efficient manner. We are considering not only hardware for control and communication functions, and emplacement and stemming techniques, but management systems as well.

Some relatively low level of effort to continue development of the excavation technology will be carried on in our laboratories.

EQUIPMENT

The last major segment of the program I plan to discuss, Mr. Chairman, concerns our equipment needs.

The capital equipment authorization requested to support the Plowshare operating program in fiscal year 1971 is $800,000 and is aimed primarily at establishing an operational equipment capability independent of other programs to support Plowshare projects off the Nevada Test Site. Some new, basic laboratory equipment is also included. But no new construction projects are included for this program.

In fiscal year 1971, effort will continue on developing a simplified operational equipment system designed to reduce the number of personnel, the time, and the cost required to field Plowshare experiments and, ultimately, commercial Plowshare applications. Major portions of the system have been produced and assembled.

A microwave radio link is now used for the transmission of firing signals and receipt of explosive monitoring signals and safety related information, thus eliminating a large part of the extremely expensive firing and instrument cables. An improved system for emplacing the nuclear explosive, utilizing a single cable both for support and for communication with the explosive, was used successfully on Project Rulison.

While the system described above will continue to be used on Plowshare experiments for commercial applications, additional simplifications can be made due to the reduced need for experimental information. Concepts for a better system to be used for future commercial applications are being developed. These concepts include the delivery of a more completely assembled nuclear explosive to the project site to

reduce time and effort in the field, improved methods of handling cable, and the consolidation of measurements required for safety programs.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my oral statement.

PRIORITIES WITHIN PLOWSHARE PROGRAM

Senator GORE (presiding). Congressman Aspinall.
Representative ASPINALL. I have one additional question.

I wish to commend you and your staff, Mr. Kelly, because you have given us what appears to be a very thorough explanation of what is going on. However, all through your statement, I seem to feel that you are waiting to be prompted by civilian interests, nongovernmental interests.

What I would like to ask is whether or not the Atomic Energy Commission, itself, has a program in which it has given priorities to these activities in the Plowshare program

Mr. KELLY. For the industrial projects in the underground engineering area involving such applications as natural gas production stimulation, oil shale retorting, and others, we are awaiting the interest of either industry or of other Government agencies such as the Department of the Interior. As you are aware, Mr. Aspinall, we do work closely in each of these things with the Bureau of Mines because the assessment of the need for natural gas, oil, and copper, are things that are outside the AEC's area of competence.

So, we do rely very heavily on the industry and on other Government agencies, and particularly the Department of the Interior.

Representative ASPINALL. Everybody admits that there is a gas shortage at the present time and that it will become more serious in the immediate future. Yet we have gone ahead with Rulison and we don't know yet whether we are going to get benefits out of Rulison at all other than we know that we can shoot a device of that yield and have perhaps less than $90,000 worth of damage to the physical area surrounding the site.

RULISON COST SHARING RATIO

How much did the Federal Government have in Rulison? How much does it have in it at the present time in dollars and cents? Mr. KELLY. Our current estimate is $1.2 million.

Representative ASPINALL. Which is a rather small amount compared to what industry furnished; is that correct?

Mr. KELLY. That is correct.

Representative ASPINALL. Industry furnished, if I remember correctly, a little over $6 million to date; is that correct?

Mr. KELLY. Yes, sir, of that order. It is my understanding industry contributed about $6.5 million.

Representative ASPINALL. So we do have to wait as far as the Commission is concerned until there is certain stimulation from the business interests.

Mr. KELLY. This is the procedure we have been following; yes, sir.