[A Formerly Proud Canadian]

In 1959-60, Alberta Premier Ernest Manning seriously considered using a nuke, part of Project Ploughshares, to see if it could free up oil from the Athabasca Tar Sands. The plan did not go through.

[VanShuyten]

I remember something about a nuke being used to frack for natural gas. It worked, but the gas was too radioactive to use.

Here’s a good article about it:

http://aoghs.org/technology/project-gasbuggy/