The Alberta Oilsands: forget nuclear power, give us nuclear weapons!

Wired recently ran an article about how the U.S. government sponsored Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory at one time was researching all sorts of ways to use nuclear weapons in a civilian capacity. One of the methods they had come up with was using nuclear weapons to aid in the extraction of hydrocarbons from oil shales (and oil sands, based on the chart presented). While their plans never actually resulted in any testing, the laboratory did inn fact test a similar line whereby they used a nuclear blast to create fissures in rocks underground to aid in the release of natural gas. The only major problem with it? It turned the gas radioactive (although apparently not that badly, they claimed). Red Deer, Alberta’s city motto (“A Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone!”)