Would crude oil be usable after a nuclear explosion?
439540
Yes, the stuff is far far deeper in the earth than any nuclear device could penetrate.
771006
It gets hotter, expands, and thins.  Eventually the radiation gets past it.  \n\nIf there is enough buildup of radiation from the core, you can have explosive effects.
379648
crude oil is the oil as it is when it comes out of the grond.  Comes from decomposing organic matter.  such as dead dinosours.
773021
I think the processing of crude oil into so many products is really interesting. The "Heart" of a refinery would be the  crude unit that  heats and fractionates the oil, setting into motion the production of gas, oils, napthas, and byproducts that were once discarded, but have been found useful in other industries. Research is showing there's more coming.
782204
Try to watch here:http://www.google.it/search?hl=it&q=nstrumentation+as+regards+oil+well+head&btnG=Cerca+con+Google&meta=
411815
No.If there was we would use nuclear energy.It is not and never was a workable energy source because of the hazards and waste.
1035178
If I'm not mistaken, we've tested a number of 20-megaton nukes before, and the fact that you're able to ask this question means that we've survived that first test. :-)  \n\nAs for how big of a nuke it would take to blow up Earth, a couple of issues you'll have to deal with first is what to do about all of the debris that will settle after the nuke goes off, because as it floats back down because of gravity, then gravity itself will hold down all of the matter upon Earth. As to what it would take to cause the most damage, I've gotten to thinking since the 2004 tsunami that if a well-placed nuke was right on major fault lines either in the ocean or possibly on land (like maybe on the New Madrid fault), the tectonic action resulting from the force of the nuclear blast would be much more destructive than the bomb itself, because the shifting of tectonic plates would then cause damage at a much greater radius from ground zero in the resulting earthquake than would just blast waves in an atmospheric explosion.\n\nMaybe that doesn't answer your question, but it's the best I can figure as I am neither a physicist nor a geologist. :-)
515070
Not soon enough. We have the technology to build extremely safe nuclear plants. And if they are standardized would be even more cost efficient. What to do with the waste? Launch it into the Sun. It won't even be noticed there.\n\nSave the oil that is in the ground for things which can't be made from anything else. (which means Iraq, Iran, and everyone else can keep their oil)
193951
Oil officials 10, 20, 30, and 40 years ago said AT THAT TIME that we were going to use up what was known to be total global "proven oil reserves." We keep finding more total oil reserves every few years than was thought to exist worldwide a few years previous - kind of funny logic, isn't it? If we keep finding more oil that exceeded known reserves just a few years back, then what are we so concerned about? Interestingly enough, at the same time we keep finding more proven oil reserves, people keep screaming more and more that we are running out of oil - who is right? History says we can keep finding oil, so maybe there is a regenerative process unknown to the scientific community - they can't possibly know everything about everything. \n\nOnly one thing is certain in SCIENCE: it IS ALWAYS CHANGING. Geologists have been getting better year after year at locating oil reserves, and yet so little is known about oil reserves other than location. What is understood to be fact now will be ridiculed in the future by new theories - which have already happened. They thought we couldn't use most crude oil in the early 20th century because nobody knew about cracking or synthesis of crude products, so they just dumped unusable crude products that were not immediately usable as gasoline or diesel. We have come very far since that time in chemistry alone. \n\nIsn't it interesting that what is vaguely understood by a few scientists is continuously spouted as "truth" by those who know far less. SCIENTIFIC FACT IS CHANGEABLE, meaning it can be tested, and if a different result occurs, then the theory changes, resetting what is known as "fact." Oil may be replenishable, and may not necessarily only come from prehistoric plants and animals as current thought suggests. You raise an interesting argument about oil resources, and only the future will let us know for sure - but there will be a definitive answer. Now, who is ready for the truth?
1000020
As with any thermonuclear explosion, you obtain a huge amount of radiated energy in a very small location in a very small amount of time.  This radiated energy would be absorbed by the surrounding ocean water very quickly.  This would cause a HUGE amount of water around the detonation site to flash-boil and expand rapidly.  This would create a propagating hydrostatic shock wave that would be felt all throughout the Pacific, mostly in the form of tidal waves.  These tidal waves will likely be fairly small, however depending upon the composition of the ocean floor, it may also let loose alot of rock and cause some underwater avalanches (another common source of tidal waves, esp. the bigger ones).\n\nDepending upon the depth of the detonation, very few of the radiated photons may actually reach the surface, and thus almost all of the energy will be consumed by water.  Besides no "blinding flash", this would also mean that the visible "water explosion" made up of mostly vapor would be larger than the equivalent land- or airburst vapor cloud.  If close enough to the surface, the flash-boiled water would quickly rise and break the surface with a large gaseous explosion, and the vapor would climb into the air and spread once it achieves altitude, so yes the "mushroom cloud" will still form.  If it were very deep, though, the gasses would eventually spread and, to some extent, dissipate, resulting in just a lot of surface turbulence and foamed gasses.\n\nDo some research on "Operation Crossroads", which were two U.S. nuclear detonation tests in 1946.  ABLE was an airburst at 158m, and BAKER was 27m underwater (yes, super-shallow, but it gives you a fair starting point).  There have been other underwater nuclear test detonations by various countries, but their speifics escape my memory at the moment.  :p
46832
This is too hypothetical to be a real problem.  The heat generated would also deform the steel.  For the current largest Thermonuclear bomb you would be looking at something approaching distances in the wall of the container approaching a mile.  Even this depends upon the volume contained within.\n\nFrom a practical aspect, if one took all of the world's current steel production for one year, you might have enough steel to construct such a device (about 5 million metric tons).  If you miscalculated, you would get an even larger boom (like putting a cherry bomb in a sealed pipe).\n\nA bomb is not a nuclear generator.  Read at the site below for information on a Soviet 100 megaton bomb:
92262
Using a hypothetical crude oil at a hypothetical boiling point, yes it is likely to increase in density. For example, pentane boils at 36.1 C and has a density of 0.629. Hexadecane boils at 288 C and has a density of 0.775. \n\nHowever, consider that crude oil is a mixture of organic compounds and varies greatly depending on the source. In a few uncommon cases, crude oil is solid at room temperature (I actually have a collection of crude oil) and contains so many longer alkanes that it may not change density on boiling. To answer your question hypothetically, yes it will increase the density, but it might not always, depending on the content of the crude.
864225
As other people have pointed out, the oil is converted into combustion products (carbon dioxide, water, and assorted partial combustion products), all of which stick around in the atmosphere and therefore remain part of the Earth's mass. The energy comes from the binding energy of the hydrocarbon molecules. There is some mass associated with this energy, but it's minuscule.\n\nSecondly, even if the mass all that oil were destroyed, the change in Earth's overall mass would be insignificant.
24274
Yes, actually it will. well, not really run out of oil but obtainable oil.  It is estimated that drillable oil reserves could be extinguished within 50 years given present usage and the estimation of future usage.
548164
Your question is a very good one and everyone here is trying to help. Let me wade in with what I hope is a clear answer or two.\n\nCommercial reactors do not have the configuration to do what a nuclear bomb does: go promptly critical and thus have a large-scale supercritical nuclear explosion. Even Chernobyl (may the 40 or so people who died from it rest in peace) was mostly a steam explosion with a burning of the graphite core. The RBMK reactors like Chernobyl have mostly been shut down now - folks in the former Soviet Union may chime in now as to their status. \n\nModern commercial nuclear reactors (unlike the RBMK design) have large concrete domes called containments over them. The containment structures are designed to hold large amounts of pressure to guard against an accidental release of radiation. Even if the reactor core (part with the nuclear fuel) should become uncovered and thus lose its cooling, the containment will hold most of the radioactive material inside. That is precisely what happened at Three Mile Island. Most of the fuel and fission products were in the containment basement and plated out on the walls.\n\nThe most credible accidents are practiced for often at every power plant. Drills exercise the staff from the control room to the folks who go out into the field to survey for radiation. Those drills are graded not just by the plant, not just by the NRC, but by the county and state. \n\nNuclear reactors do not become nuclear bombs. If you were to take used fuel from nuclear reactors and chemically reprocess it - separating out the plutonium that is made in small amounts in the fuel - you could eventually make a bomb. We do not do reprocessing of commercial nuclear fuel in the US. There is a worry that some countries may do that. Of course, that is precisely what the military does do.\n\nMy job? I am a Health Physicist. I teach radiation protection, nuclear physics, and radiation chemistry. In the event of an accident, I read remote monitors and figure out what the pathway the radionuclides are taking out, how much, and what dose might be delivered to the population downwind. My predictions are used to advise the county about evacuation of persons living in a 20 mile radius of the power plant. I have a Bachelors of Science in biology from Baylor University, Masters in Applied Nuclear Science from Georgia Tech, and my PhD work was in leukemia research at Baylor Col. of Medicine. I was part of the Three Mile Island Recovery Team.
878404
As a matter of fact, nuclear explosions occur in space all the time, the sun and billions of other stars in the universe are fuelled by the nuclear fusion of hydrogen atoms into helium as we speak. The light  we see from the sun and stars are a result of this nuclear fusion. So  the energy from a man made nuclear bomb would be neglitable
293938
well depending on how well it's built, the same thing that would happen to any reactor hear in the US if it core was breached. You would have a radiation leak