60 m below sealevel. It would take a total of 10 years to fill to that level. After that the incoming flow would balance out against the outgoing evaporation and the lake level would stop changing. In the first phase of the project the Qattara 1 station was to generate 670 Megawatt. The second phase was to generate an additional 1.200 Megawatt. A pumped-storage hydroelectricity facility would increase the peak production capacity with another 4.000 Megawatts, totalling about 6.800 Megawatts. The core problem of the entire project was the water supply to the depression. Calculations showed that digging a canal or tunnel would be too expensive. Bassler decided to use peaceful nuclear explosions to excavate the canal. Exactly 213 boreholes would each have a nuclear explosive charge of 1,5 Megatons. Everyone of these bombs would have an explosive yield fifty times that of the atomic bomb of Hiroshima. Evacuation plans cited numbers of at least 25,000 evacuees. Further problems arose with the tectonically unstable Red Sea Rift located just 450 km away from the blast site on which the shockwaves of the explosions would not have remained without result. Also salinization or outright contamination of groundwater had to be counted among the problems because of the salt water Qattara sea. This groundwater is vital to the oases of Bahariya and Siwa. Another danger was increased coast erosion because sea currents could change in such a way that even very remote coast started to erode. Also a massive demining operation would have to be executed to remove millions of mines and UXOs left from the Second World War. All this convinced the stakeholders of the project to give up the project especially as the atomic dug canal-idea had to be abandoned because of ecological reasons. Present day scientists still explore the viability of such a project, as a key to resolving economic, population, and ecological stresses in the area. However interest in the project has waned and as of 2011 has not been undertaken. References Further reading Roland Börner: Friedrich Bassler 70 Jahre: Ansprachen und Aufsätze zu seiner Emeritierung. Institut für Wasserbau und Wasserwirtschaft, Darmstadt 1979 Publications Die Energiequellen Fluss- und Meerwasser. Institut für Wasserbau und Wasserwirtschaft der Technischen Hochschule Darmstadt, 1977 „Wasserbaumitteilungen der TH Darmstadt“ 1966–1979 External links Mascolo Antonio: Die Kattara-Utopie (PDF; 926 kB) 2005 Engineers from Karlsruhe Hydraulic engineers Luftwaffe personnel of World War II 1909 births 1992