Project Rio Blanco Nuclear Test Site in Rio Blanco County, Colorado

According to Atlas Obscura, in nineteen seventy-three, the U.S. Department of Energy conducted an unusual experiment called Project Plowshare: they detonated three nuclear bombs down a natural gas well in Rio Blanco County, Colorado, near Rifle. The goal was to prove nuclear weapons could be used peacefully to extract natural gas. Each thirty-three kiloton bomb was less than eight inches wide—compact enough to fit down a standard well—but stretched over thirty feet long. The bombs were placed thousands of feet below ground. The experiment is widely considered a failure. Decades of monitoring have found no elevated radiation at the surface, and it never became a viable way to extract gas.

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