In 1960, engineers recommended detonating over 200 nuclear devices in Panama to excavate a sea-level canal. Ten years later, they abandoned the plan, deeming it technologically infeasible. The chief obstacle to the implementation of nuclear excavation in Panama was the region’s proclivity for entropy. Without regular injections of energy, infrastructural networks created in the region fell victim to the fluidity and disorder that defined Isthmian landscapes. The steep slopes created by nuclear excavation exacerbated this issue. While nuclear excavation could create a canal, it relied on an uncontrollable energy, one effective at reshaping landscapes, but incapable of maintaining them.