CANADA: A-Bombing for Oil

Can a good, solid nuclear explosion separate imprisoned oil from the tight clutch of tar sand? If it can, the world's oil reserves may soon be doubled. The geological proving ground is the 30,000 sq. mi. of tar sands underlying northern Alberta and Saskatchewan in the vicinity of Lake Athabaska. The company that thinks it can turn the trick is California's Richfield Oil Corp., which last week formally asked permission of the Canadian government to set off a nuclear charge just under the Athabaska sands.

Richfield's big atomic bet is based on a chemical peculiarity: the molecular structure of Athabaska...