Download or read book Project Plowshare written by Scott Kaufman and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-20 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inspired by President Dwight D. Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" speech, scientists at the Atomic Energy Commission and the University of California's Radiation Laboratory began in 1957 a program they called Plowshare. Joined by like-minded government officials, scientists, and business leaders, champions of "peaceful nuclear explosions" maintained that they could create new elements and isotopes for general use, build storage facilities for water or fuel, mine ores, increase oil and natural gas production, generate heat for power production, and construct roads, harbors, and canals. By harnessing the power of the atom for nonmilitary purposes, Plowshare backers expected to protect American security, defend U.S. legitimacy and prestige, and ensure access to energy resources. Scott Kaufman's extensive research in nearly two dozen archives in three nations shows how science, politics, and environmentalism converged to shape the lasting conflict over the use of nuclear technology. Indeed, despite technological and strategic promise, Plowshare's early champions soon found themselves facing a vocal and powerful coalition of federal and state officials, scientists, industrialists, environmentalists, and average citizens. Skeptical politicians, domestic and international pressure to stop nuclear testing, and a lack of government funding severely restricted the program. By the mid-1970s, Plowshare was, in the words of one government official, "dead as a doornail." However, the thought of using the atom for peaceful purposes remains alive.
Download or read book Proving Grounds written by Scott Kirsch and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Proving Grounds, Scott Kirsch traces the rise and fall of this astonishing cold war initiative. He examines the work that went into making "geographical engineering" or "earthmoving" an imminent possibility as well as the public controversy, scientific uncertainty, and political opposition that kept it--with the exception of several massive craters in the Nevada desert--out of the landscape.
Download or read book Plowshares written by Kristen Tobey and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2016-09-01 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In September 1980, eight Catholic activists made their way into a Pennsylvania General Electric plant housing parts for nuclear missiles. Evading security guards, these activists pounded on missile nose cones with hammers and then covered the cones in their own blood. This act of nonviolent resistance was their answer to calls for prophetic witness in the Old Testament: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not take up sword against nation; they shall never again know war.” Plowshares explores the closely interwoven religious and social significance of the group’s use of performance to achieve its goals. It looks at the group’s acts of civil disobedience, such as that undertaken at the GE plant in 1980, and the Plowshares’ behavior at the legal trials that result from these protests. Interpreting the Bible as a mandate to enact God’s kingdom through political resistance, the Plowshares work toward “symbolic disarmament,” with the aim of eradicating nuclear weapons. Plowshares activists continue to carry out such “divine obediences” against facilities where equipment used in the production or deployment of nuclear weapons is manufactured or stored. Whether one agrees or disagrees with their actions, this volume helps us better understand their motivations, logic, identity, and ultimate goal.
Download or read book Project Plowshare written by Scott Kaufman and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2012-12-15 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inspired by President Dwight D. Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" speech, scientists at the Atomic Energy Commission and the University of California's Radiation Laboratory began in 1957 a program they called Plowshare. Joined by like-minded government officials, scientists, and business leaders, champions of "peaceful nuclear explosions" maintained that they could create new elements and isotopes for general use, build storage facilities for water or fuel, mine ores, increase oil and natural gas production, generate heat for power production, and construct roads, harbors, and canals. By harnessing the power of the atom for nonmilitary purposes, Plowshare backers expected to protect American security, defend U.S. legitimacy and prestige, and ensure access to energy resources. Scott Kaufman’s extensive research in nearly two dozen archives in three nations shows how science, politics, and environmentalism converged to shape the lasting conflict over the use of nuclear technology. Indeed, despite technological and strategic promise, Plowshare’s early champions soon found themselves facing a vocal and powerful coalition of federal and state officials, scientists, industrialists, environmentalists, and average citizens. Skeptical politicians, domestic and international pressure to stop nuclear testing, and a lack of government funding severely restricted the program. By the mid-1970s, Plowshare was, in the words of one government official, "dead as a doornail." However, the thought of using the atom for peaceful purposes remains alive.
Download or read book Project Plowshare written by Ralph Sanders and published by Washington : Public Affairs Press. This book was released on 1962 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Plowshare written by Carl R. Gerber and published by . This book was released on 1967 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Essential Guide to Project Plowshare written by U. S. Military and published by . This book was released on 2019-08-29 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Three official government reports about the Plowshare peaceful nuclear explosion program are reproduced in this unique compilation: Plowshare Program Summary Report, Plowshare AEC Document, and Projects Gnome and Sedan Defense Department report.The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), now the Department of Energy (DOE), established the Plowshare Program as a research and development activity to explore the technical and economic feasibility of using nuclear explosives for industrial applications. The reasoning was that the relatively inexpensive energy available from nuclear explosions could prove useful for a wide variety of peaceful purposes. The Plowshare Program began in 1958 and continued through 1975. Between December 1961 and May 1973, the United States conducted 27 Plowshare nuclear explosive tests comprising 35 individual detonations. Conceptually, industrial applications resulting from the use of nuclear explosives could be divided into two broad categories: 1) large-scale excavation and quarrying, where the energy from the explosion was used to break up and/or move rock; and 2) underground engineering, where the energy released from deeply buried nuclear explosives increased the permeability and porosity of the rock by massive breaking and fracturing. Possible excavation applications included: canals, harbors, highway and railroad cuts through mountains, open pit mining, construction of dams, and other quarry and construction-related projects. Underground nuclear explosion applications included: stimulation of natural gas production, preparation of leachable ore bodies for in situ leaching, creation of underground zones of fractured oil shale for in situ retorting, and formation of underground natural gas and petroleum storage reservoirs.On June 6, 1958, the Atomic Energy Commission publicly announced the establishment of the Plowshare Program, named for the biblical injunction to ensure peace by beating swords into plowshares. "And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." The Program objective was to use nuclear explosives for civilian as opposed to military purposes. The AEC San Francisco Operations Office (SAN) Special Projects Group provided the oversight management for Plowshare with support efforts from the AEC Albuquerque and Oak Ridge Offices, Sandia, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the U.S. Bureau of Mines. On October 31, 1958, the U.S. and the Soviet Union entered into a nuclear weapons testing moratorium. No nuclear tests were conducted for almost three years. During that time, Plowshare planning studies and high explosive tests would be conducted to evaluate excavation techniques. By the end of 1958, DMA had established the Peaceful Nuclear Explosives (PNE) Branch to manage the Plowshare Program. Dr. Edward Teller, then the director of the Livermore Laboratory, had outlined an ambitious Plowshare Program for fiscal years (FY) 1959-60 in his October 7, 1958, letter to Dr. H. Fiedler, AEC/SAN. The LRL-L program proposed studies in these areas: for FY 1959 - constructing a channel through the reef at Kapingamarangi in the Marshall Islands; harbors at both Cape Thompson and Katalla, Alaska; a canal across the Alaskan peninsula at Port Moller; oil extraction from tar sands and from oil shale; creating artificial aquifers; and mining by leaching; for FY 1960 - in addition to continuing the above-mentioned projects, testing a new nuclear explosive design, and using a nuclear detonation for physics experiments.
Download or read book Plowshare written by Carl R. Gerber and published by . This book was released on 1966 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Plowshares Into Swords written by David Ekbladh and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2022-09-30 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction: Knowledge in Exile -- The League Is the Thing: International Society's Super-University -- Plowshares into Swords: Knowledge, Weaponized -- Internationalist Dunkirk: International Society in Exile -- The Rover Boys of Reconstruction: International Society in the American World -- Coda: Great Leaps Forward.
Download or read book The Firecracker Boys written by Dan O'Neill and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2015-06-23 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1958, Edward Teller, father of the H-bomb, unveiled his plan to detonate six nuclear bombs off the Alaskan coast to create a new harbor. However, the plan was blocked by a handful of Eskimos and biologists who succeeded in preventing massive nuclear devastation potentially far greater than that of the Chernobyl blast. The Firecracker Boys is a story of the U.S. government's arrogance and deception, and the brave people who fought against it-launching America's environmental movement. As one of Alaska's most prominent authors, Dan O'Neill brings to these pages his love of Alaska's landscape, his skill as a nature and science writer, and his determination to expose one of the most shocking chapters of the Nuclear Age.
Download or read book Project Plowshare written by Jack W. Reed and published by . This book was released on 1963 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Engineering Applications of Nuclear Explosives written by Gerald W. Johnson and published by . This book was released on 1964 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Monsters written by Edward Regis and published by . This book was released on 2015-09-08 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Examines the perils of what the author calls pathological technologies, inventions whose sizeable risks are routinely minimized as a result of their almost mystical allure, "--Novelist.
Download or read book The Plowshare Program written by Stephen Skartvedt and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis is a technical analysis of Project Plowshare (also known as Operation Plowshare) which was a plan for the development of techniques to use nuclear explosives for peaceful construction purposes, much of it in Western states including Nevada and Idaho. It was active between about 1961 and 1977. The thesis also includes information about antinuclear groups which protested these plans, including environmental and Indian rights activists.
Download or read book Ploughshares and Swords written by Jayita Sarkar and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2022-07-15 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: India's nuclear program is often misunderstood as an inward-looking endeavor of secretive technocrats. In Ploughshares and Swords, Jayita Sarkar challenges this received wisdom, narrating a global story of India's nuclear program during its first forty years. The book foregrounds the program's civilian and military features by probing its close relationship with the space program. Through nuclear and space technologies, India's leaders served the technopolitical aims of economic modernity and the geopolitical goals of deterring adversaries. The politically savvy, transnationally connected scientists and engineers who steered the program obtained technologies, materials, and information through a variety of state and nonstate actors from Europe and North America, including both superpowers. They thus maneuvered around Cold War politics and the choke points of the nonproliferation regime. Hyperdiversification increased choices for the leaders of the nuclear program but reduced democratic accountability at home. The nuclear program became a consensus-enforcing device in the name of the nation. Ploughshares and Swords is a provocative new history with global implications. It shows how geopolitical and technopolitical visions influence decisions about the nation after decolonization. Thanks to generous funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.
Download or read book Plowshares into Swords written by Arno J. Mayer and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2021-01-05 with total page 597 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A critical history of Israel and the Arab–Israeli conflict Eminent historian Arno J. Mayer traces the thinkers, leaders, and shifting geopolitical contexts that shaped the founding and development of the Israeli state. He recovers for posterity internal critics such as the philosopher Martin Buber, who argued for peaceful coexistence with the Palestinian Arabs. “A sense of limits is the better part of valour,” Mayer insists. Plowshares into Swords explores Israel’s indefinite deferral of the “Arab Question,” the strategic thinking behind the building of settlements and border walls, and the endurance of Palestinian resistance.
Download or read book Plowshare Program written by U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and published by . This book was released on 1961 with total page 10 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
