Use of Nuclear Explosives for Excavation of a Sea-Level Canal Across the Negev Desert

TL;DR — A short 1965 Livermore memo sketching a 160-mile sea-level canal across Israel’s Negev, from the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Aqaba, dug with nuclear explosives.

An informal internal memo from the Lawrence Livermore laboratory (report UCRL-ID-124767, from the “Canal Studies Filefolder”), dated July 1965 in the OSTI record and later declassified. It proposes a sea-level canal about 160 miles long from Eilat north and west to the Mediterranean, pitched as a strategic alternative to the Suez Canal and a spur to regional development, with the drop to the Dead Sea floated as a possible source of hydroelectric power.

The argument is that a cut up to roughly 1,500 feet deep would be too expensive to dig by conventional means but might be done with buried nuclear devices. It sketches a route on a map and gives rough channel dimensions. It belongs to the era of the Atomic Energy Commission’s Plowshare programme, which studied peaceful uses of nuclear explosions, including canal digging.

What it is: a declassified US national-laboratory working memo, not a feasibility study or policy. It is a period piece from the 1960s enthusiasm for nuclear excavation, and the scan is partly hard to read.

Where this came from

• A copy saved in October 2026.
• Public copy on OSTI.GOV, the US Department of Energy’s research archive.

6 pages. A copy is archived locally against link rot; the header links the original source.