Is it conceivable to nuke a usable canal into existence?

[eburacum45]

This PDF file is a very interesting summary of the various sub-projects in Operation Plowshare, few of which were ever put into practice.

The Off-Site Plowshare and Vela Uniform Programs: Assessing Potential...

Only today I found out about a similar project in the UK, about 40 miles from where I live. Kudos to Tom Scott for his detective work.

The secret plot to blow up a nuclear bomb in North Yorkshire Moors

[dtilque]

@Chronos

Even aside from the radiation and the geopolitical implications, most canals connect points with different water levels, and therefore need at least one lock. Even ocean-to-ocean canals, like Panama or Suez, can have several meters difference, due to tides and currents

Not necessarily. There are, as far as I know, only 5 ocean-to-ocean canals in use for freight traffic. Two of them do not have locks: Suez and Cape Cod. The Panama Canal has locks, of course, although that’s mainly because it’s not a sea-level canal. But if it were a sea-level canal it would likely need locks anyway. The Kiel Canal has locks for the reason you state. The White Sea-Baltic Canal is not a sea-level canal, so it also has locks.

[Sam_Stone]

That ship has sailed, so to speak. The U.S. detonated 1,021 nuclear bombs in Nevada in the 50’s and early 60’s. 100 of them were air bursts.

You can see why people thought they could be used for other purposes, with an average of 100 nukes per year being detonated in the U.S. already during that time.

It also shows that a nuclear detonation does not have to be as devastating as people think. Still, digging canals with nukes is a bad idea.

Nevada Test Site - Nuclear Museum

[TokyoBayer]

@DCnDC

Just to throw some numbers around, the Hiroshima bomb “Little Boy,” 15 kilotons, was detonated 600 meters above the ground and created a crater 150 feet wide and 35 feet deep.

Do you have a cite for this? Having lived within a kilometer of the Nagasaki bomb site, and having visited Hiroshima Peace Park with the Atomic Bomb Dome which was about 150 m horizontially from center of the blast, as well as having read extensively about the bombing, I’ve never read about a crater.

Because the explosion was almost directly overhead, the building was able to retain its shape.[7] The building’s vertical columns were able to resist the nearly vertical downward force of the blast, and parts of the concrete and brick outer walls remained intact.

The center of the blast occurred 150 m (490 ft) horizontally and 600 m (2,000 ft) vertically from the Dome. Everyone inside the building was killed instantly.[8][9] The building’s durability can also be attributed to its earthquake-resistant design; it has held up to earthquakes before and since the bombing.

Numerous cites say that there was no crater.

Because Little Boy was an air burst 580 metres (1,900 ft) above the ground, there was no bomb crater and no local radioactive fallout.[60]

Trinity was conducted on a 100-foot tower and did create a crater.

The explosion created a crater approximately 4.7 feet (1.4 m) deep and 88 yards (80 m) wide.[98]

I’ve read various numbers for the size of that crater, but there doesn’t seem to be any doubts that there was one. However, I haven’t seen any numbers that are anywhere as deep as you suggest for the Hiroshima bomb.