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Nuclear Dynamite
Arthur Stamoulis
Nuclear Dynamite
Produced by Gary Marcuse and Betsy Carson
Face to Face Media, 2000
The Panama Canal took more than three decades to build, at a cost of over half a billion dollars and 30,000 lives. What if I told you it was possible to build an even bigger canal — only a lot faster, for a fraction of the money and with no lives lost? Impossible, you say? Well, my friend, perhaps you should consider the amazing excavating power of the atom bomb.
It's true. From the 1950s well into the '70s, the United States and Soviet Union put considerable effort into harnessing the power of nuclear explosions to dig tunnels, mine copper, melt oil from tar, disperse smog, send rocket ships to the moons of Saturn, and more. The notion was summed up by Edward Teller, one of the world's leading nuclear physicists, who boasted in 1959, "If your mountain is not in the right place, just drop us a card."
The 72-minute production Nuclear Dynamite takes an in-depth
look at these ambitious programs, especially America's smartly named
"Project Plowshare," and its Soviet counterpart, "Peaceful Nuclear
Explosions for the National Economy." As the film documents, the amount
of brainpower that went into Plowshare and similar programs was impressive.
Some of the best and brightest scientists the world has ever seen
comment in Nuclear Dynamite about their mission to uncover
the best ways of using nuclear explosions — what they called
"the power of the sun" — for productive ends. And they did have
some initial successes.
Victor Mikailov relays the story of how researchers in the USSR were able to dig a functioning reservoir with just one bomb. Enamored by their success, the Soviet team then moved on to putting out a gas-well fire that had been burning for almost three years. Within forty days of being called to work on the project, they set off a small, underground nuclear explosion that capped the well and put out the fire in a matter of minutes. The American scientists, too, were becoming increasingly successful at digging giant holes with nuclear bombs, which they demonstrated through a number of test detonations.
According to the film, politicians in the US, like President John F. Kennedy, began pressing scientists to deliver on the concept of building a new, deeper canal through Panama. The leaders of Project Plowshare decided to test their capabilities by first digging a new harbor in the pristine, but remote Cape Thompson area of Alaska, just north of the Arctic Circle. They made technological progress with nuclear excavation for a number of years, but then hit a snag they weren't expecting. People began asking questions about radioactive fallout.
Scientists had been trying to find ways to make their bombs less radioactive
and to control the spread of fallout through various blast patterns
and a keen eye on the weather, but public involvement in the issue
meant something more. It forced scientists to investigate the effects
of fallout much more thoroughly, and prevented the experts themselves
from defining "acceptable" levels of risk. As Nuclear Dynamite
illustrates, people wanted to know exactly what price in health they'd
have to pay for a harbor in Alaska or a canal in Panama.
 It's almost hard to imagine today, but there was a time when ordinary Americans actually helped participate in finding the answers to scientific questions like these. In the 1950s and '60s, tens of thousands of parents mailed their children's baby teeth to a nonprofit group that studied them for the presence of strontium-90, an indicator of how much radioactive fallout from nuclear testing was being absorbed into people's bodies. The parents did not get any specific information about their individual child back. Rather, they got involved because they know they were contributing to science and helping solve an important political debate.
Eventually it was discovered that the more nuclear explosions took place in the open air, the more people around the world were exposed to significant levels of radioactivity. While the exact risk of cancer from X amount of fallout could not be determined conclusively, people realized that the more fallout there was, the greater the risks. Most parents decided that they didn't want to expose their children to any risk — especially considering all the alternatives to nuclear explosions that are available for moving earth.
This upset more than a number of scientists, many of whom felt, "If you really don't know that something is harmful, then you don't stand in the way of progress." The hubris of the top dogs in Washington was demonstrated by their pushing forward with Plowshare despite popular opinion. Insiders made comments amongst themselves like, "If Lyndon Johnson wants to dig a canal in Panama, Lyndon Johnson is going to dig a canal in Panama," according to one scientist quoted in the film.
One thing the documentary does not really focus on is how much the
US government and industry tried to control public opinion through
propaganda. Throughout the period, the American public was bombarded
with wondrous tales about "our friend the atom." (For the history
of this disinformation campaign, see John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton's
superb book on the public relations industry, Toxic Sludge Is
Good For You.) The fact that public opinion about Plowshare,
atmospheric tests and nuclear energy went against this current is
a testament to just how committed to protecting the environment Americans
really were.
A movement built up in Alaska and throughout much of the world to
place restrictions on nuclear tests in the atmosphere and to end the
use of atom-splitting technology in general. One reason for this incredible
amount of resistance may have been the outspokenness of the scientists
of the era. Nuclear Dynamite tells how, in opposition to
their bosses' wishes, researchers from Plowshare began leaking truthful
information about how far fallout spreads and its effects on entire
ecosystems. The film interviews other scientists who became out-and-out
activists, mobilizing people to pressure Washington to stop what they
called "biological insanity."
Nuclear Dynamite makes clear that it was only the forceful
will of the American public that was able to put the breaks on Plowshare.
If not for ordinary citizens reading studies, writing letters, signing
petitions and organizing pickets, it's unlikely that leaders caught
up in the excitement and momentum of their scientific advances and
political scheming could have ever stopped themselves without some
major disaster. In fact, in the Soviet Union, where people were not
as free to petition their government so vigorously, the "Peaceful
Nuclear Explosions" program was not finally laid to rest until after
the catastrophe at Chernobyl.
In addition to being a thrilling historical gem for science nerds
and those interested in our nuclear culture, Nuclear Dynamite
provides numerous lessons for people concerned about today's most
pressing environmental issues. The reckless arrogance demonstrated
by politicians and "experts" backing Plowshare in the '50s and '60s
is not dissimilar to that of politicians and "experts" who balk at
global warming today. The calls for "sound science" at the expense
of "sound judgment" remain exactly the same, and so does the solution:
whistleblowers, grassroots organizers and an informed and outraged
citizenry.
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