Earth Science: Plowshares, or Getting the Gas Out

A-Bombs for Peace.

Throughout the 1960s, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) pursued a series of projects called the Plowshares Program, an attempt to find peaceful uses for atomic bombs. In 1961 the first peaceful nuclear blast occurred. It was detonated underground twenty-five miles from New Mexico's Carlsbad caverns. The purpose of Project Gnome was to conduct various scientific experiments; the explosion was expected to supply a vast underground salt cavern and to produce steam for generating electricity. The blast occurred prematurely, and the explosion knocked the top off the underground chamber, ruining the steam "teakettle" and letting clouds of radioactive waste into the atmosphere. Gophers chewed through cables connecting some of the scientific instruments. Nonetheless, the scientists present declared Project Gnome a great success.

Project Sloop.

Project Sloop, a government and industry partnership, took...

[The entire page is 464 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass