36

I remember reading a story once about a plan to build a seaport and modify a significant amount of the coastline at once by using a nuclear explosion. I can't find anything about it now when I try Googling. Does anybody know what I am referring to and how I can find more information about it?

What I do remember: it was an Arctic Community in Canada (either in the Yukon or the N.W.T.). It was early on in the development of nuclear technology, so maybe around the 1960s, and it was ultimately cancelled when they realized that radiation would be a significant and long-lasting consequence. I did read the article online originally.

Tim B
  • 117
  • 3
Octopus
  • 423
  • 4
  • 8
  • There were also plans to use nuclear blasts to widen either the Suez or Panama canal. – GaryBW Jan 15 '16 at 18:13
  • 9
    This is NOT what the word "terraform" means. To terraform is "to alter the environment of (a celestial body) in order to make capable of supporting terrestrial life forms". See any online dictionary, e.g. here: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/terraform – jamesqf Jan 16 '16 at 08:06
  • 2
    @jamesqf. is there a better word to use? Though technically you are correct, I think it is understood why terraforming is an appropriate word here. It literally translates to "world shaping" so I think it works well. Language is really cool that way. – Octopus Jan 16 '16 at 09:54
  • 2
    @Octopus: It's just earthmoving on a large scale, no different in principle than using dynamite and bulldozers - see e.g. any large open-pit mine. It's just faster and perhaps more economic: you get a big hole in a few seconds, rather than working at it for a couple of decades. – jamesqf Jan 16 '16 at 19:45
  • @Octopus Regrading might be an appropriate word for it. – Slipp D. Thompson Jan 17 '16 at 01:24
  • Also, "proposal" might be a better term than "plan". – jamesqf Jan 18 '16 at 20:09

3 Answers3

56

It was Project Chariot, in Alaska. A good book about it is the Firecracker Boys, I recommend you read it if you are interested in the subject. I think it was cancelled because conservationists and Alaska Natives brought it to the attention of the general public, and it would have been a disaster. The proponents were perfectly willing to try it (they had their own reasons, related to the "Atoms for Peace project"/Operation Ploughshare) and did not really care much about the long-term consequences.

AlaskaRon
  • 1,764
  • 18
  • 10
  • 5
    I think it might be debatable about the long-term consequences and whether they cared or not or were just naive. Even after all the testing that went on in Nevada and New Mexico I don't think it was completely apparent what the long term affects of radiation were actually all about until a decent amount of time passed thus presenting actual cases of long-term exposure. – Octopus Jan 15 '16 at 06:07
  • 13
    Right, exactly, which is why Hiroshima and Nagasaki are radiation-poisoned wastelands today. – Tyler Durden Jan 15 '16 at 20:28
  • 9
    @TylerDurden No they're not... Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been rebuilt. They built Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park near where Little Boy detonated. – CoilKid Jan 16 '16 at 00:31
  • 4
    @RussellBorogove https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law – El'endia Starman Jan 16 '16 at 06:39
  • 2
    http://www.xkcd.com/301/ – Russell Borogove Jan 16 '16 at 06:51
  • @RussellBorogove Sarcasm is fine, but shouldn't it be made clear that he intended to be sarcastic? You know, this is supposed to be historically accurate... – CoilKid Jan 16 '16 at 13:25
  • @TylerDurden Air explosions (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) are more effective as weapon because initial front wave and reflected wave strengthen each other. The extremely hot air rises fast and its content is distributed over a very big area as comparatively small fallout. In contrast ground explosions (Plowshare) are mixing dust with radioactive and are making the area uninhabitable for longer exposure. Chernobyl's inner zone which is a big as the land area of Rhode Island (2600 km^2) is still uninhabitable after 30 years. Forests and farmland as big as Maryland (6400 km^2) was given up. – Thorsten S. Jan 17 '16 at 03:40
  • 1
    @Thorsten S: Yet people do live in that supposedly uninhabitable area, and by report do better than their neighbors who were resettled: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/9646437/The-women-living-in-Chernobyls-toxic-wasteland.html – jamesqf Jan 17 '16 at 06:03
  • @jamesqf If you have read the article, you must have recognized that 1200 settlers came back, most of them over 48, and only 230 are still living, most of them very old. If you are old, the rate of cell division slows down, so if you were healthy, a cancer in creation grows much slower. The article itself gives away the information that the purposed health benefit is "anecdotal evidence suggested" which means translated "We have no clue if it is actually true". What really counts are the rates of e.g. thyroid cancer and the numbers are grim. – Thorsten S. Jan 18 '16 at 04:31
  • 6
    @Thorsten S.: No, my point is that it is incorrect to claim that an area is uninhabitable when people are actually living there. Beyond that, are there really any accurate, unbiased figures for things like cancer rates or differential survival rates between the displaced and those who stayed? – jamesqf Jan 18 '16 at 05:42
  • 2
    @TylerDurden: In case it was sarcasm, please clarify why you think this is approiate to post such kind of statement in an confusing and inccorect facts expressing way! – Zaibis Jan 18 '16 at 11:39
  • @RussellBorogove: I wasn't aware of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are habitable without any effects allready again. So if you claim Tylers comment is sarcasm, express it please in a more clear way. If you weren't... don't just spam random links around. Reading this Posts comments now just confused me about history without any help of insight... – Zaibis Jan 18 '16 at 11:42
  • @jamesqf Really ? Well, then I am really interested what your definition of "uninhabitable" exactly is. Must people die immediately when they enter the area ? May they live for some time (days, weeks, months, years) even if irreparable bodily damage occurs ? One reason our ancestors lived not very long on average was that they lived years in houses with carpets of copper arsenite (green) and white lead (white). People now freak out and call them extraordinarily poisonous, but hey, people lived in them in former times for years, so we cannot call these houses uninhabitable, right ? – Thorsten S. Jan 18 '16 at 14:05
  • 2
    @Thorsten S.: Is there any actual evidence that those carpets &c caused a significant number of deaths? Or is it, as you say, just modern people freaking out? For another instance, tens or hundreds of thousands of people die from the effects of urban air pollution (e.g. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/world/asia/air-pollution-linked-to-1-2-million-deaths-in-china.html ) Do we claim major urban areas are uninhabitable? – jamesqf Jan 18 '16 at 20:07
  • @jamesqf: Yep exactly for that reason we do ;) – Zaibis Jan 19 '16 at 10:06
  • 3
    @Zaibis: Well, some of us :-) I mean if my only choices were living in Bejing or the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, I'd start learning Ukranian. – jamesqf Jan 19 '16 at 18:49
  • @jamesqf: ok, that point is to you xD – Zaibis Jan 19 '16 at 22:20
28

Not Canada, but Alaska. In 1958 "Project Chariot" was the idea to use several nuclear explosions to build a harbour at Cape Thompson, Alaska. It was part of a series of ideas to use nuclear explosions for non-military, commercial purposes. The series was called "Operation Plowshare".

Wikipedia:

Project Chariot

Operation Plowshare

gdir
  • 783
  • 1
  • 6
  • 9
5

Many similar bad ideas are discussed in this article: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/the-u-s-s-insane-attempt-to-build-a-harbor-with-a-two-megaton-nuclear-bomb

Atomics to dredge harbors, release natural gas from underground reservoirs, generate steam. So many ill-conceived plans.

Michael Stern
  • 332
  • 1
  • 6