Nukes in the Outback: The Cape Keraudren Atomic Harbor Scheme

Under the blistering sun of Western Australia’s remote Pilbara coast, an almost unbelievable plan was once conceived. At the height of the Cold War, Australia flirted with using nuclear bombs not as weapons, but as tools to reshape its own landscape. The proposal was grand in scope and audacity: to detonate a chain of atomic explosives to blast out a new harbor at Cape Keraudren – effectively carving a port out of the earth with nuclear fire. It was a vision both awe-inspiring and unsettling, a testament to the era’s boundless technological ambition and a reminder of the fine line between bold innovation and hubris.

This documentary-style story takes us back to that time in the 1960s when atomic optimism ran high. It was an age when scientists and engineers dreamed of harnessing the destructive power of the bomb for constructive ends. Australia’s plan for an “atomic harbor” at Cape Keraudren stands out as a dramatic example of this dream – a project influenced by American ideas, championed by prominent figures like Edward Teller, weighed against environmental and political fears, and ultimately abandoned. Let us delve into this gripping chapter of history, where the fate of a quiet stretch of coastline hung on a radical nuclear gamble.

Atoms for Peace and a Grand Vision

In the post-war Atomic Age, a powerful idea took hold: perhaps nuclear explosions – the most energetic blasts known to humanity – could be repurposed for peace. The United States led the way with Project Plowshare, a program launched in the late 1950s to explore “peaceful nuclear explosives” (PNEs) for civil engineering. Enthusiasts imagined using bombs to dig canals, mine minerals, and forge harbors in a fraction of the time conventional methods would require. In 1958, Popular Science magazine gushed that A-bombs could even make deserts bloom and would render “the atom’s mighty power” as “child’s play of colossal earth-moving feats, to dig harbors, dredge channels, and build great canals”. This optimistic credo – to beat swords into plowshares – gave Project Plowshare its biblical name.

One of the most fervent apostles of this vision was physicist Edward Teller, often dubbed the “father of the hydrogen bomb.” Teller became a tireless champion of using nuclear blasts for mega-engineering projects. In 1958 he had famously proposed Project Chariot in Alaska, a plan to use six hydrogen bombs to gouge out a new harbor at Cape Thompson. That Arctic harbor scheme, part of Plowshare, was pitched as a marvel of atomic engineering for the public good. Although Project Chariot was ultimately shelved amidst local opposition and emerging ecological concerns, it set a precedent – and Teller was not deterred. A decade later, this same bold thinking would travel across the Pacific to Australia, where Teller and others hoped to realize an atomic excavation on new shores.

The Sedan crater was tangible proof of concept for nuclear excavation. A single 104-kiloton device had heaved a vast bowl out of the Nevada desert in July 1962. Such demonstrations captivated engineers: if a bomb could scoop out that crater in seconds, what could a carefully arranged series of bigger blasts achieve? By the mid-1960s, Project Plowshare had tested dozens of nuclear detonations for industrial uses. The allure was obvious – atomic charges offered energy on a titanic scale. In theory, they were also cheap relative to their yield. As Teller and his colleagues eagerly pointed out, a kilogram of nuclear explosive released millions of times more energy than a kilogram of TNT. With that promise in mind, Plowshare proponents envisioned rewriting geography itself: leveling mountains, diverting rivers, and blowing out harbors where nature hadn’t provided them. This was the optimistic spirit that Australia tapped into when it pondered a nuclear solution to its own engineering challenge.

Iron Ore and the Atomic Ambition Down Under

In the early 1960s, Australia’s remote northwest was on the brink of an mining boom. Prospectors had confirmed enormous iron ore deposits in the Pilbara region of Western Australia – a discovery set to transform the nation’s economy. One of the key figures was mining entrepreneur Lang Hancock, who tirelessly promoted the Pilbara’s riches. But extracting mountains of iron ore posed a logistical challenge: how to ship it out from a coast with few natural harbors? Hancock and others dreamed of accommodating the world’s largest ore carriers, but existing ports were shallow or distant. It was here that the atomic age imagination intersected with Australia’s development ambitions. What if, Hancock suggested, nuclear explosives could build the needed harbor in one bold stroke?

This idea was first mooted in Australia in the early 1960s by Professor J. P. Baxter, then chairman of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission (AAEC). Baxter, a fervent advocate for nuclear technology, was intrigued by the American Plowshare experiments. Hancock enthusiastically backed the concept of using nuclear “tools” for large-scale projects, seeing it as a way to fast-track infrastructure for the booming iron industry. By the late 1960s the AAEC had even established a dedicated “Plowshare Committee” to investigate peaceful nuclear explosions for civil engineering. The most ambitious plan on their agenda was indeed the Pilbara harbor idea. In this scheme, a series of nuclear detonations would blast out a port basin at Cape Keraudren, a sparsely populated coastal site about 150 km north of Port Hedland. The location was chosen for its geology and proximity to ore fields, and it offered a sheltered embayment that could be expanded into a deep harbor.

Edward Teller himself was drawn into the Australian effort. In 1968, at Hancock’s invitation, Teller visited the Pilbara to survey potential nuclear excavation sites. The Hungarian-American physicist – by then a celebrity scientist – toured the red-rock outback with characteristic zeal. While he initially looked at using a single bomb to loosen an ore deposit at Wittenoom, Teller’s “real interest was a series of nuclear blasts to create a huge crater just inland from the sea” that could be flooded to form a harbor. Cape Keraudren fit the bill perfectly. Upon windswept dunes and turquoise shallows, Teller envisioned an artificial bay large enough to berth the biggest of iron ore supertankers. The concept was no longer just theoretical musings – it was congealing into an actual project proposal. By 1969, momentum was building on both sides of the Pacific to take Australia’s atomic harbor from idea to reality.

Project Cape Keraudren: Designing a Nuclear Harbor

In January 1969, the Australian government formally reached out to Washington, seeking American expertise for a joint feasibility study on the Cape Keraudren harbor plan. The United States – specifically the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) – responded with enthusiasm. A public announcement soon followed. On February 7, 1969, Prime Minister John Gorton revealed that Australia and the U.S. would cooperate on a technical and economic study of “using nuclear explosives to blast out a new deep-water harbour” on the northwest coast. Gorton’s statement to the press made it clear that while only a study had been approved, the vision was genuinely alive. Should the plan go ahead, he declared, “it would be a historic development – the first practical application of the atom as a mighty engineering tool for civil construction, helping to open up new frontiers”. The Australian leader spoke in awe-struck terms of the project’s revolutionary potential, even musing that “all being well, it could be the forerunner of many other projects for peaceful civil engineering”. This was no clandestine idea now; it was held up as a cutting-edge endeavor in nation-building.

The proposed design was nothing short of colossal. Drawing on American Plowshare experience, scientists sketched out a plan to detonate five 200-kiloton nuclear charges simultaneously in a row beneath Cape Keraudren. Each bomb would be about ten times the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb. They would be buried deep underground (around 240 meters down, spaced a few hundred meters apart) to contain most of the fallout. When fired together, these charges would rip open an enormous crater, effectively excavating a harbor in one blow. Calculations suggested the blast could create a channel approximately 1.8 km long, 1/2 km wide and over 100 m deep – a basin large enough for giant ore ships to navigate. Seawater from the Indian Ocean would rush in to fill the crater, and with some further dredging and engineering, a fully functional port would be born. Observers noted that the five planned blasts (200 kilotons each) would dwarf prior excavation tests; in fact, their combined yield would be roughly 200 times greater than the total explosives used in the U.S. “Project Buggy” trench-digging experiment, which had tested a row of much smaller bombs.

On paper, the scheme promised to unlock the Pilbara’s mineral wealth at unprecedented speed. Conventional earthmoving to create a harbor of similar size might take years of drilling, blasting, and hauling; here it could happen in an afternoon. The U.S. AEC became a key architect of the project, assigning experts to work with the AAEC on the study. Designs were drawn up, modeling the geological strata of Cape Keraudren and predicting the shape of the blast cavity. Safety was a stated priority – the devices would be underground to minimize airborne fallout, and extensive monitoring was planned. The target date was ambitious: the mining consortium (named Sentinel Mining) hoped to have the harbor ready by 1971, to coincide with projected iron ore exports. As 1969 unfolded, it seemed that Australia might genuinely become the first nation to employ nuclear bombs for a grand civil engineering feat.

Doubts and Dilemmas: Environmental and Political Pressures

Even as the Cape Keraudren project advanced on paper, signs of unease began to surface. The late 1960s were bringing a new wave of environmental awareness around the world, and the idea of detonating H-bombs on Australian soil could not escape scrutiny. Within Prime Minister Gorton’s own government there was caution. He had emphasized that “full attention to all aspects of safety” would be paid, and that final approval to actually fire the nukes would depend on the study’s outcome and treaty considerations. The public, too, started asking questions. Memories were still fresh of earlier atomic tests in Australia – the British had tested nuclear weapons at Maralinga and Monte Bello in the 1950s, scattering radioactive fallout. Now the prospect of “peaceful” nuclear explosions on home turf prompted both curiosity and anxiety. Would they truly be safe? What of radiation in the water, or lingering contamination in fish and soil? Conservationists warned that the blasts could devastate the pristine coastal environment and marine life. It didn’t help that news from the U.S. indicated some Plowshare tests had vented radioactivity or left problematic waste. By 1969, environmentalists in many countries were pushing back against unrestrained nuclear experimentation – indeed, the aborted Alaskan Project Chariot has been called “possibly the first government project challenged on ecological grounds”. Australia’s atomic harbor was treading into this emerging environmental consciousness.

Political and legal obstacles loomed large as well. For one, Australia was a party to the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited nuclear explosions in the atmosphere or underwater. The only permissible tests were underground, and even those must not distribute fallout outside the country’s borders. The Cape Keraudren detonations were to be underground, but since the plan would blow open a crater connecting to the ocean, there were thorny questions about treaty compliance. Could radioactive debris drift beyond Australian waters, violating the treaty? U.S. and Australian officials realized they might need a special treaty amendment or interpretation to legally conduct the project. This was no small diplomatic feat, and it had to be done in a tight timeframe to meet the 1970–71 schedule. At the same time, the U.S. government grew wary because Australia had not yet signed the new Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) opened in 1968. Washington worried about sharing nuclear technology with a partner that appeared to be hedging its nuclear weapons options. (In fact, some in Canberra’s corridors privately saw PNE technology as a potential stepping stone to a weapons capability, a point not lost on the Americans.) Thus, behind the scenes, geopolitical trust issues put a damper on the harbor plan – the U.S. was reluctant to hand over nuclear know-how or devices unless confident of Australia’s non-proliferation stance.

Meanwhile, the mining companies themselves had to justify the economics of the project. As the feasibility study progressed through 1969, doubts emerged about the viability and funding of the proposed mine and port. What if the global iron ore market didn’t grow as expected? Was it sensible to invest in a nuclear harbor when conventional port expansions (like at Port Hedland or Dampier) were already underway? These pragmatic concerns added to the headwinds facing the project. Within the Australian cabinet, some ministers grew increasingly cool on the idea, especially as environmental opposition at home became more vocal. According to one account, the Gorton Government – initially intrigued – “soon lost interest due to increasing environmental pressure.” By late 1969, the bold plan for Cape Keraudren was struggling against a gathering tide of skepticism. What had begun as a moonshot vision was encountering the hard realities of politics, public opinion, and global nuclear diplomacy.

The Dream Fades: Abandonment and Aftermath

After several months of study and negotiation, the grand experiment was quietly shelved. The Australian and U.S. authorities never officially pressed the “go” button on the Cape Keraudren explosions. By early 1970, it was apparent that too many hurdles stood in the way. The PNE harbor project was abandoned after months of deliberation, with insiders citing multiple reasons: unresolved questions about who would finance it, uncertainty about the mine’s profitability, U.S. concerns over Australia’s NPT hesitance, and the daunting implications of nuclear test treaties. In March 1969 – only weeks after the fanfare of the feasibility announcement – American planners had already noted there was “insufficient economic basis” to proceed, effectively putting a stop to further work. The AAEC’s Plowshare Committee, having seen its showcase idea collapse, explored a few other minor PNE proposals in the ensuing years, but none gained traction and the committee was disbanded in the early 1970s.

The Cape Keraudren atomic harbor, for a time a serious proposition, never left the drawing board. Its legacy, however, is thought-provoking. On one hand, it highlights the awe-inspiring ambition of its era – a time when leaders and scientists were willing to contemplate literally moving earth and sea with nuclear blasts to advance economic development. The imagery remains striking: had it gone forward, one imagines a series of thunderous flashes and a mushroom cloud rising over the Indian Ocean, followed by a newly forged bay where before there was none. Such an event would have marked Australia’s landscape and history indelibly. On the other hand, the plan’s demise underscores the growing primacy of environmental stewardship and nuclear caution that emerged around 1970. Blowing up parts of the planet, even for peaceful ends, was increasingly seen as a step too far. As U.S. Project Plowshare itself learned, public opinion was turning against these wild atomic experiments; by the mid-1970s, Plowshare was terminated due to cost, lack of need, and public opposition over radiation concerns.

The key figures in the story each drew their own lessons. Edward Teller remained an advocate for PNEs a while longer, but even his formidable powers of persuasion could not overcome the shifting winds of policy and sentiment. Lang Hancock, frustrated by the collapse of the nuclear harbor scheme (and other nuclear ideas he had floated), bitterly blamed “eco-nuts” for stymieing what he saw as visionary progress. In truth, it was not only environmentalists, but a confluence of scientific prudence and geopolitical reality that halted the project. Prime Minister Gorton’s government, once cautiously supportive, let the matter drop, and Australia soon after signed the NPT and moved in more conventional directions for its infrastructure. Cape Keraudren remains today a quiet coastal reserve of dunes and mudflats – home to turtles and shorebirds, never scarred by the massive crater that was once imagined.

In the end, the saga of the Cape Keraudren atomic harbor is a fascinating “what if” of history. It captures a moment when the power of the atom inspired almost fantastical aspirations in the civilian realm. We are left to marvel at the audacity of those plans – to literally blast harbors into existence – even as we feel relief that cooler heads prevailed before detonation day. This remarkable episode, as if scripted for a gripping historical documentary, stands as both a tribute to human ingenuity and a cautionary tale. It reminds us that technological ambition, especially on the atomic scale, must be tempered with wisdom and respect for the environment. The story of Australia’s nuclear harbor that never was continues to echo through time, an awe-inspiring example of how close we came to rewriting geography in a flash of atomic light – and how wisely, in hindsight, that frontier remained unbroken.

Here's the video that we made on this subject: