Cape Keraudren: The Forgotten Nuclear Harbor Plan in Australia

In the early 1960s, Australia came shockingly close to becoming the testbed for one of the most radical engineering experiments in history: using nuclear explosions to blast a harbor at Cape Keraudren in remote Western Australia. Part of the U.S.-driven Project Plowshare, this proposal aimed to demonstrate peaceful uses for nuclear weapons—by literally carving infrastructure into the landscape with atomic bombs. The Cape Keraudren plan never came to fruition, but it remains a haunting "what if" scenario in both environmental and geopolitical history. This blog unpacks the science, strategy, and controversy behind one of Australia's most startling near-misses with nuclear technology.