China has a plan to pump shale gas using explosives. The headline grabs attention by suggesting they might be nuclear weapons, but in reality they are using the tape of explosion that sets off a nuclear weapon, which is a conventional charge directed in a very precise direction.

The problem is that 80 per cent of its deposits are located more than 3,500 metres (11,500 feet) below sea level, which is far beyond the range of hydraulic fracturing, the standard method for extraction.

But all that could be about to change, after a team of nuclear weapons scientists led by Professor Zhang Yongming from the State Key Laboratory of Controlled Shock Waves at Xian Jiaotong University in Shaanxi province, released details of a new “energy rod” that has the power to plumb depths never before thought possible.