WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

1
00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:03.200
A few weeks ago, I was looking through records
in the British National Archives

2
00:00:03.200 --> 00:00:05.600
for a separate video idea that
didn't end up going anywhere,

3
00:00:05.600 --> 00:00:08.960
but while I was researching I found
a completely different report,

4
00:00:08.960 --> 00:00:12.160
secret and restricted when it was written
but now unclassified,

5
00:00:12.160 --> 00:00:15.840
and it's the first time in a long while
that I've read some old archive file

6
00:00:15.840 --> 00:00:19.200
and my jaw has literally dropped.
It was called:

7
00:00:19.200 --> 00:00:24.400
"Possible Sites for Completely Contained
Nuclear Explosions in North Yorkshire."

8
00:00:25.120 --> 00:00:28.080
North Yorkshire is a beautiful area
that includes two national parks.

9
00:00:28.080 --> 00:00:29.440
This is the middle of one of them.

10
00:00:29.440 --> 00:00:32.640
It is stunning, it is historic,
it is not somewhere that I'd

11
00:00:32.640 --> 00:00:35.840
expect anyone to try and
set off a nuclear explosion.

12
00:00:35.840 --> 00:00:39.280
The report was written in June 1969,
so just for context,

13
00:00:39.280 --> 00:00:42.720
we're talking full Space Race,
white-heat-of-technology era.

14
00:00:42.720 --> 00:00:46.240
Neil Armstrong would set foot on the moon
only about a month after that report was written.

15
00:00:46.240 --> 00:00:50.080
And the report is talking about
Peaceful Nuclear Explosions.

16
00:00:50.080 --> 00:00:51.440
Which was an idea that was in fashion

17
00:00:51.440 --> 00:00:54.240
among some nuclear scientists
and policy makers at the time.

18
00:00:54.240 --> 00:00:57.840
Maybe, the theory went, we could create
artificial harbours and canals

19
00:00:57.840 --> 00:00:58.880
using nuclear bombs.

20
00:00:58.880 --> 00:01:00.400
No more years of mechanical digging,

21
00:01:00.400 --> 00:01:03.840
just put a few well-placed nukes
in the ground and, boom, boom, boom,

22
00:01:03.840 --> 00:01:05.040
there's your new canal.

23
00:01:05.040 --> 00:01:07.760
Or maybe we could help stimulate
production in gas wells,

24
00:01:07.760 --> 00:01:09.760
basically nuclear fracking.

25
00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:12.720
Or, and this was charitably
the most practical idea,

26
00:01:12.720 --> 00:01:15.920
create enormous underground cavities
for gas storage,

27
00:01:15.920 --> 00:01:18.560
instead of having to use
big above-ground tanks.

28
00:01:18.560 --> 00:01:21.600
The US did run a couple of dozen
nuclear tests like that

29
00:01:21.600 --> 00:01:24.720
under the rather Biblical title
"Operation Plowshare".

30
00:01:24.720 --> 00:01:27.360
The Soviet Union eventually
ran more than 200.

31
00:01:27.360 --> 00:01:30.560
But those are stories that have already
been told by a lot of other people.

32
00:01:30.560 --> 00:01:35.520
By the 1970s, the US and the Soviets
would work out that it was a bad idea:

33
00:01:35.520 --> 00:01:39.040
if you use a nuke, either for fracking,
or to create underground gas storage,

34
00:01:39.040 --> 00:01:41.440
the radiation ends up
contaminating the gas.

35
00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:45.280
But until that was figured out...
well, I don't think many people

36
00:01:45.280 --> 00:01:47.840
have actually noticed the records about it
since it was declassified,

37
00:01:47.840 --> 00:01:51.920
but it turns out at least some people
in the UK were interested as well.

38
00:01:51.920 --> 00:01:56.160
Those people worked at the Gas Council,
and the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment,

39
00:01:56.160 --> 00:01:58.800
and the report shows that they were
seriously trying to work out

40
00:01:58.800 --> 00:02:02.400
if nuclear bomb gas storage caverns
were a good idea.

41
00:02:02.400 --> 00:02:04.800
I kept researching, and found they'd
commissioned a full study,

42
00:02:04.800 --> 00:02:07.840
laying out the pros and cons, comparing
the cost to other methods of storage.

43
00:02:08.400 --> 00:02:10.560
They had picked a site.

44
00:02:10.560 --> 00:02:12.240
Which was here.

45
00:02:12.240 --> 00:02:15.280
Actually, literally, exactly there,
bottom of that ravine.

46
00:02:15.280 --> 00:02:18.240
Wheeldale, in the middle of the
North Yorkshire Moors National Park.

47
00:02:18.240 --> 00:02:21.280
The plan was: buy all the land
for about a mile around.

48
00:02:21.280 --> 00:02:24.000
Drill down 2,000 feet,
about 600 metres,

49
00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:25.920
with a special extra-wide drill bit,

50
00:02:25.920 --> 00:02:29.360
big enough so they could drop a
25 kiloton nuclear bomb

51
00:02:29.360 --> 00:02:30.320
down to the bottom of the hole.

52
00:02:30.320 --> 00:02:31.600
I say "drop". Lower.

53
00:02:31.600 --> 00:02:34.240
That's a big enough bomb to
annihiliate a city in the open air.

54
00:02:34.240 --> 00:02:37.120
Plug up the hole, cover the top so
nothing comes out, hopefully.

55
00:02:37.120 --> 00:02:40.400
Evacuate the thousand or so people
who live nearby, just in case.

56
00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:42.960
And then... boom.

57
00:02:42.960 --> 00:02:44.320
Not much would happen on the surface.

58
00:02:44.320 --> 00:02:47.200
There'd be a bit of a jolt and a rumble,
a few birds startled into the air.

59
00:02:47.200 --> 00:02:50.080
The local towns of Pickering and Whitby,
about ten miles away each,

60
00:02:50.080 --> 00:02:51.280
they'd feel a minor earthquake,

61
00:02:51.280 --> 00:02:54.080
and maybe a couple of buildings would
get a few small cracks in them.

62
00:02:54.080 --> 00:02:56.000
I'm not kidding, that's what the report
actually says,

63
00:02:56.000 --> 00:02:59.040
it just phrases it a little
bit more delicately than that.

64
00:02:59.040 --> 00:03:03.040
It's not clear whether the locals would
actually have been told what was going on,

65
00:03:03.040 --> 00:03:05.642
but I think it would have
been impossible to hide.

66
00:03:05.642 --> 00:03:11.120
After that, they would let the giant cavern
that had been created 600 metres down

67
00:03:11.120 --> 00:03:13.680
cool for a few months, and then
flush out and remove

68
00:03:13.680 --> 00:03:15.520
most of the radioactive stuff
that was left behind,

69
00:03:15.520 --> 00:03:18.000
which it turns out would have been
a lot more difficult than

70
00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:18.960
they thought at the time.

71
00:03:18.960 --> 00:03:22.400
Finally, they'd put some pumping equipment
in here at the top, and presto,

72
00:03:22.400 --> 00:03:26.880
giant underground high-pressure gas
storage tank for relatively not much money.

73
00:03:26.880 --> 00:03:29.680
And after a couple of years, they can
sell most of this land back.

74
00:03:29.680 --> 00:03:34.000
Cost of the explosion, in today's money,
adjusted for inflation: about nine million pounds.

75
00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:37.360
Which is... not actually bad for a
giant gas storage tank?

76
00:03:37.360 --> 00:03:39.680
I suspect that was a very
optimistic estimate, though.

77
00:03:39.680 --> 00:03:43.040
Even that was more expensive than setting up
liquid natural gas storage above ground,

78
00:03:43.040 --> 00:03:46.880
but once you've the made the cavern,
it's much cheaper to run this way.

79
00:03:47.600 --> 00:03:52.560
If, that is the explosion works as predicted.
And if there's really no radiation left over.

80
00:03:52.560 --> 00:03:54.560
There were a lot of risks.

81
00:03:54.560 --> 00:03:55.520
Now, as far as I can tell,

82
00:03:55.520 --> 00:03:57.520
this never got anywhere near
the Prime Minister's desk,

83
00:03:57.520 --> 00:04:01.680
there was never some high-up government meeting
trying to work out whether they should

84
00:04:01.680 --> 00:04:03.280
nuke a bit of a national park.

85
00:04:03.840 --> 00:04:06.480
I suspect it would have been
a very bad political decision.

86
00:04:06.480 --> 00:04:10.400
And a very bad environmental decision.
And a very bad financial decision.

87
00:04:10.400 --> 00:04:14.800
And... look, I'm sure there is some
possible alternate history where this happened,

88
00:04:14.800 --> 00:04:17.440
but things would need to
have been very different.

89
00:04:17.440 --> 00:04:20.080
The last reference I could find
is from November 1969.

90
00:04:20.080 --> 00:04:22.960
The plan was worked out in theory,
and the minutes of the meeting from then

91
00:04:22.960 --> 00:04:26.800
say that "further thought would be given
to what action should follow".

92
00:04:26.800 --> 00:04:28.880
And at some point, in some other
record that I missed,

93
00:04:28.880 --> 00:04:30.560
or maybe that is still restricted,

94
00:04:30.560 --> 00:04:33.600
I'm sure there'll be a note that says
they decided not to pursue the idea.

95
00:04:33.600 --> 00:04:36.880
Peaceful nuclear explosions would
eventually be banned by treaty,

96
00:04:36.880 --> 00:04:39.440
conveniently just after the point
at which the US and Russia

97
00:04:39.440 --> 00:04:40.880
found out they weren't a great idea.

98
00:04:41.440 --> 00:04:45.902
And the North Yorkshire Moors,
thankfully, were never nuked.