Oil and Urban Fires

As an example of how very few weapons could be used to release large quantities of natural gas, consider the gas fields of the Netherlands. The 1980 production of 7.9 X 10 m of natural gas in Groningen amounted to 38 % of that for all of Western Europe and 5 % of that for the entire world [24]. Most of the gas 

Offshore oil and gas platforms might also be targets of a nuclear war. For example, in 1980 the United Kingdom and Norway produced 2.1 x 10 barrels of oil per day from a total of 390 wells (about 40 platforms) in the North Sea [24]. Considering that a 100-kt weapon would be more than sufficient to destroy an offshore platform, only 4 Mt of explosive yield need be used to uncap these wells, which produce 3.5 % of the world s petroleum. 

One can point out many other regions of the world where gas and oil production is particularly concentrated. Production in the US is considerably more dispersed than in other countries, however. For comparison, in 1980 the US produced an average of 8.6 x 10 barrels of oil per day from about 530,000 wells whereas the USSR production was 12.1 x 10 barrels per day from only 80,000 wells [24]. The oil and gas fields of the Soviet Union, particularly the oil producing Volga-Ural region and the gas and oil fields of the Ob region, are highly localized and particularly vulnerable to nuclear attack. 

Much of the gas and oil released as a result of nuclear attacks will bum. This is another source of copious amounts of particulate matter in the atmosphere. However, it is also likely that a fraction of the gas would escape unbumed to the atmosphere where it would be gradually broken down by photochemical reactions. Much of the escaping oil may likewise bum, but an appreciable portion of it may volatilize as in the Ixtoc 1 blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, which resulted in the world s largest oilspill. In this case it is estimated that only 1 % of the oil burned, while 50-70 % evaporated [27]. We next consider the influence of these emissions on the gaseous composition of the atmosphere. 

Natural gas consists usually of a mixture of 80-95 % (by volume) methane (CH4) and the remaining 5-20 % heavier hydrocarbons, mainly ethane (C2H6) and propane (C3H6), and varying amounts of carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Current global consumption of natural gas amounts to about 10 g of carbon per year, which is 20 % of the total fossil fuel consumption rate [29]. The current atmospheric content of ethane is equal to about 6 x 10 g of carbon, based on observations indicating amounts of 1 ppbv (1 ppbv = 10 by volume) in the Southern 

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