Digging Harbors with Nuclear Bombs: Project Plowshare
In 1957, the U.S. government launched Project Plowshare under the Atoms for Peace banner, betting that nuclear explosions could dig canals, carve highways, and unlock natural gas. Thirty-five devices and twenty-seven tests later, the program was quietly dead. This episode traces the optimism, the actual detonations — Sedan, Gnome, Gasbuggy, Rulison, Rio Blanco — and the human ledger of exposure that the program never escaped. Why did a program named after Isaiah's swords-into-plowshares prophecy fail? Not for one reason, but three: contamination, economics, and a better, boring alternative…
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