United States’ Operation Plowshare
- The Sedan explosion, 6 July 1962 in Nevada, USA, was carried out as part of Operation Storax - a PNE project.
Not to be confused with the anti-nuclear Plowshares Movement, Operation Plowshare was the term for the United States’ portion of the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions project. Twenty-seven nuclear tests for peaceful purposes were conducted between 1961 and 1973. One of the first proposals that came close to being carried out was Project Chariot, which would have used several hydrogen bombs to create an artificial harbor at Cape Thompson, Alaska. It never came to fruition due to concerns for the native populations and the fact that potential uses for the harbor were inadequate to justify the risks and expense involved. There was also talk of using nuclear explosions to excavate a second Panama Canal.
- The Sedan explosion displaced 12 million tons of earth and created the largest man-made crater in the world.
The largest excavation experiment took place in 1962 at the Nevada Test Site. The Sedan nuclear test carried out as part of Operation Storax displaced 12 million tons of earth, creating the largest man-made crater in the world. It also generated a large amount of fallout that drifted beyond Nevada and over Utah. Other nuclear explosions in oil and gas fields did indeed stimulate production, but in some cases also made the fuel so radioactive that it could not be used. After spending more than US$ 770 million, funding for Operation Plowshare ended in 1977. No nuclear explosion has been used for a commercial purpose in the United States to date.
Provisions banning PNE's
The 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty banned PNE’s in the atmosphere, outer space and under water.
The 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (Article V) urged States Parties to ensure that “potential benefits from any peaceful applications of nuclear explosions … be made available to non-nuclear weapon States Parties … on a non-discriminatory basis”, at modest cost and possibly on a bilateral basis.
