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The Russians were keen to use Nukes for "construction" too, and actually went ahead with "building" a lake [1] This [2] Document goes into all the details of w

• sudosysgen 6y ago
  Maybe if pure-fusion weapons become a thing it could be reality.
  • catalogia 6y ago
    I don't think so. Nuclear fusion releases tons of neutron radiation; neutron radiation induces radioactivity in things it hits. It's a common misconception that a fusion power plant wouldn't create radioactive waste; in truth the neutron radiation would turn the reactor itself into radioactive waste. One of the hard engineering problems of fusion power is creating a reactor that can be serviced using robotics since it would be too dangerous for humans technicians. If you used a pure fusion bomb to dig out a harbor, much of the the rock and soil the bomb threw into the air would be radioactive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_activation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_activation
    • garmaine 6y ago
      Note that there are some fusion designs that do not result in radioactive waste. They're not the easiest to build though, so are unlikely to be what we use for first or second generation plants. For example, neutrons hitting lithium shielding produce tritium and helium, which can be fed back into the fusion reaction as fuel.
    • sudosysgen 6y ago
      Of course. However neutron activation of soil is generally much smaller compared to radioactive fallout. Indeed, even fallout of nuclear weapons of the scale required for engineering project is overstated. Hiroshima, despite receiving much more fallout that a pure-fusion weapon of the same yield, became habitable quite rapidly thereafter. Another possible design could be to encase the pure fusion weapon in water, absorbing most of the neutrons and turning them into pressure and heat.
• krasin 6y ago
  Thank you for giving the link. Never knew about Lake Chagan, and it was very interesting to dive into stories about it. Apparently, they intended to use such nuclear explosions across the whole country, but they learned quickly. What's even more interesting, they had a bio lab that would add new aquatic species into the atomic lake (as Lake Chagan is known to locals) and see what happens. Most of them died, some of them had mutated across several generations, including "positive" mutations, like increased size. Source (in Russian): https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%82_%C2%AB%D0%A7%D0%B0%D0%B3%D0%B0%D0%BD%C2%BB#%D0%91%D0%B8%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D1%8D%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%82%D1%8B https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B5%D0%BA...
  • bawolff 6y ago
    People did similar things with land plants https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening
• catalogia 6y ago
  Lake Chagan: 400 m (1,300 ft) across and 100 m (330 ft) deep Sedan Crater: 390 m (1,280 ft) across an 98 m (320 ft) deep I was under the impression the Sedan Crater was the largest manmade crater, but Lake Chagan seems to win by a hair. I'm surprised I never heard of Lake Chagan before.
• xkcd-sucks 6y ago
  To what degree is mining limited by explosive power?