Nuclear Option For Plugging Oil Well Gains Support, But U.S. Not On Board

New York Times:

The chatter began weeks ago as armchair engineers brainstormed for ways to stop the torrent of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico: What about nuking the well?

Decades ago, the Soviet Union reportedly used nuclear blasts to successfully seal off runaway gas wells, inserting a bomb deep underground and letting its fiery heat melt the surrounding rock to shut off the flow. Why not try it here?

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[Neets101]

12:39 PM on 06/03/2010

Sad to say, but it may become a more serious consideration if the relief well fix doesn't work out....

By then, it will be a serious consideration because of the extreme environmental damage the gusher is creating.

Can you imagine all the gulf coasts being forced to evacuate because of the poisonous gasses being released into the air?

I hope this mess can be fixed soon, but in light of the most recent failures, it's going to take a miracle.

[myth buster]

11:34 PM on 06/07/2010

The only poisonous gasses being released into the air under this or any scenario are the hydrocarbon fumes from the leak itself. Yes, xenon and krypton isotopes would be produced by a nuclear explosion, but they are chemically inert and they will decay within a few hours.

[Neets101]

11:57 PM on 06/07/2010

Sorry I should have been more specific, I was referring to the the toxins in the oil being released into the air.

If the airborne toxins from the oil become a major health issue, and the well is still not sufficiently contained, I wouldn't be surprised for the powers at be to turn to a nuclear option.

Here's a link to possible health hazards to humans (besides the obvious) from the oil.

http://www.sciencecorps.org/crudeoilhazards.htm

[DuPageDem]

08:40 AM on 06/03/2010

Technical arguments against nuking the leak may have merit. But this does not:

". . .it would violate arms treaties that the United States has signed and championed over the decades and do so at a time when President Obama is pushing for global nuclear disarmament."

There's a huge difference between using high explosives (or nukes) for mining, construction etc. vs. high explosives (or nukes) used in weapons. Under this logic, we would be prohibited from shooting nukes at an asteroid hurtling toward the Earth. It's nonsense.

[audeo03]

07:28 AM on 06/03/2010

Should have nuked the well bore from DAY 1! Too late now. You've already killed the Gulf...

[JapanDan]

07:23 AM on 06/03/2010

Are any of you getting the idea that the Mayan's 2012 date isn't as far fetched as it was 6 or 7 weeks ago? Anyone who's had a pool knows that a thin plastic cover and a sunny day is all that's needed to heat that pool. And anyone who's lived near the Gulf knows that the roiling of the ocean and the evaporative cooling is what weakens a hurricane and heat is what makes it stronger. Also that the ocean accounts for the majority of CO2 absorption, and killing the Gulf takes roughly 15% of that mechanism off-line. Put all those together and.........

[DarleenMB]

09:30 AM on 06/03/2010

tin foil hat anyone?

The Mayans simply didn't finish their calendar. Get over it.

[PatCroft]

07:19 AM on 06/03/2010

In hind sight this is clearly becoming the best day one option. Thus far everything that has been done for the hope that this would still be a viable productive well.

Damn BP and this government for not having a realistic worse case scenario in place, and now the worse case scenario is decades of this leakage with oil traveling up the Eastern Sea Board. What if a relief well does not produce the desired result of releasing pressure. Then what?

The environmental damage is already generations and decades away from resolution.

[JapanDan]

07:10 AM on 06/03/2010

I posted my suggestion for using nukes when this first started. here my nuclear solution for the surface oil. (I made this video.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsI5iPI_A1w

[shthar]

05:43 AM on 06/03/2010

Claiming 'we don't know will happen' is a false reason.

The 5th nuke ever exploded was an underwater blast.

We've been setting them off underwater since the soviets have had subs.

And radiation dissapates a lot faster underwater than oil does.

The real reason BP doesn't give up, is that the nuke destroys any value that the oil field has. Which means they are then worth that much less.

Which also means that BP then has a case for compensation for lost value due to government action, if it's nuked.

That may be hard for people to get their mind around, but that's how it will play out.

It'll take even longer than it did to settle the exxon valdeez spill lawsuits.

[traceminerals]

02:44 AM on 06/03/2010

No Nukes!

[jeffgolin]

02:06 AM on 06/03/2010

This is like using a sledgehammer to fix a broken clock; I can just guess where this idea came from: our nuclear establishment. When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Did you get the comment of the one expert? "What's WORSE than an oil spill? A radioactive oil spill? Who knows how much oil is down there, if the whole thing explodes? Do we have another planet in the junkyard to cannibalize if this one can't be fixed?

[Joanne123043]

04:37 AM on 06/03/2010

This insane nuclear bomb suggestion just points out how desperate things have become and desperate people do desperate things, such as what you pointed out. The fact remains no one knows how to stop it. It is so freightening to realize that man's insatiable appetite for black gold could come to this and the possible deadly consequences.

[kgb999]

05:19 AM on 06/03/2010

Nah. Nobody with any expertise in the field is advocating it. The expert source sited in the original Russian article that started the whole buzz gives it a 20% chance of working ... that's 80% chance of some sort of insane disaster.

It's an absurd idea, internet lunacy. It is only gaining support in so much as the media can't stop writing stories about it.

[Randy Shepherd]

01:26 AM on 06/03/2010

just what the gulf coast needs, a man-made sunami; what, katrina and the BP were not enough?

[myth buster]

11:38 PM on 06/07/2010

Yes, a man-made tsunami that is so small that it would never be noticed by people on the beach. I'm serious, the tsunami would be a few INCHES high, at most.

[Anthony Stuart]

01:01 AM on 06/03/2010

The old cliche "out of the frying pan, into the fire" comes to mind here.

[DonRoberto]

12:19 AM on 06/03/2010

There are billions of tons of methane in the form of clathrates in the seafloor sediment of the Gulf. An underwater seafloor detonation in the Gulf of Mexico might disturb these deposits, exacerbating the current global warming (as methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2).

Of course, there are plenty of other, less speculative, yet equally disastrous side effects we can enumerate --- but if there is a profit motive involved, we can apparently pitch all those out the window.

[kgb999]

05:20 AM on 06/03/2010

Sort of like melting the permafrost in Alaska? Interesting angle.

[rougebaisers]

12:06 AM on 06/03/2010

You stick to your nonsensical treaties and let the spew continue indefinitely, because that is exactly what is going to happen until you blow it up. Christmas? Good luck with that deadline. We will still be seeing this madness continuing into 2011.

[techcafe]

12:36 AM on 06/03/2010

"let the spew continue indefinitely, because that is exactly what is going to happen until you blow it up"

can you say with certainty that detonating a nuclear bomb will kill the well?
if the bomb does not work... then what? we've now got gaping hole(s) spewing oil.

what about possible damage to nearby oil rigs?

ecological damage to marine environment?

[rougebaisers]

09:33 AM on 06/03/2010

"let the spew continue indefinitely, because that is exactly what is going to happen until you blow it up"

can you say with certainty that detonating a nuclear bomb will kill the well? ABSOLUTELY, BUT NOT IN THE HANDS OF BP.

if the bomb does not work... then what? we've now got gaping hole(s) spewing oil.
IT WILL ABSOLUTELY WORK IN THE HANDS OF ANYONE BUT BP. YOU KNOW WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT A STATE DESTROYING SIZE BOMB HERE.

what about possible damage to nearby oil rigs
NOT A CONCERN IN THE HANDS OF A PRO.

ecological damage to marine environment?
I WOULD SAY IT IS A LITTLE LATE TO USE THIS AS AN ARGUMENT AGAINST EXPLOSIVES SHUTTING THE SPEW OFF WOULDN'T YOU?

[techcafe]

11:55 PM on 06/02/2010

before i was sad for the Gulf, but now i'm scared. now we got looney tunes 'bomb experts' talking about 'blowing it up' - with a nuclear bomb.

ummm... putting aside the chance of utter FAILURE and possibly ripping open an even BIGGER hole (or holes) for crude to belch out of, would there not be an enormous shockwave? that would definitely wipe-out countless fish and other marine life within a large proximity of the explosion. then there's the little matter of radioactive fallout from a nuclear bomb... although these 'experts' tell us that the radioactive particles will 'sink to the bottom'.

hmmm... seems we've heard that one before, kinda like those 'dispersants' were supposed to break up the oil and make it 'sink to the bottom' - except, as we all know by now, things didn't quite work out that way. instead, we ended-up with giant floating plumes of poisonous crude and dispersant chemicals... along with dead birds and marine mammals washing up on shore.

but perhaps most troublesome about this hare-brained idea... what about all those OTHER OIL RIGS in the area? get it wrong... and we could end up with even MORE oil geysers in the Gulf.

the risk of failure (or worse) and devastation to marine ecology, makes this my 'least favorite' idea,

a NUCLEAR BOMB? c'mon, is that all we know how to do now... BLOW STUFF UP??

[FBuchan]

10:35 PM on 06/02/2010

Why not try it in the Gulf? Oh, radiation in the gulf stream, a low chance of success, hydraulic shock to already stressed ecosystems, and...I could type all night.

When one is faced with a problem one created that is hard to mitigate, grasping at straws should not be followed by embracing further folly. Doing something the Russians supposedly did once, a decade or more ago, is simply foolhardy. Even if it worked once, there is no evidence remaining to declare it was a true cause and effect relationship, or that conditions were similar enough to warrant the risk.

Anyone who thinks tackling this with a risky nuclear option makes sense, needs to consider that the problem was caused by poor risk assessment.

[PFHarlock]

10:55 PM on 06/02/2010

But if the alternative ends up being to allow a high pressure flow of oil and gas to continue flooding unabated into the Gulf for years... ?

The use of a nuclear device is a dreadful, but increasingly real option.

It's almost too bizarre to grasp.

[rjvg50]

11:13 PM on 06/02/2010

The false choice of "THE alternative" THE (as in ONE) alternative? False choice sir, false choice. Which box-top of Count Chocula produced your diploma?

What actually works is lowest of all possible techs. Put oil/water admixture in derilect tankers until sane alternatives are available. Period. End.

[techcafe]

12:00 AM on 06/03/2010

and the Russians didn't try this in the ocean either... the bomb was set off on DRY LAND.

big difference