Mother Jones - "Nuke the Oil Spill?"

[TomCADem]

We hear Jake Trapper note during the press conference that there were many ideas offered that the Obama administration has not implemented. Is the nuclear option one of them?

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/05/nuke-bomb-oil-spill-cleanup-crazy-russia-gulf-bp

Between the on-scene reporting of Mac McClelland, the political and environmental coverage of Kate Sheppard, and the scientific curiosity of Kevin Drum, I figured Mother Jones pretty much had every angle of the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill covered. But it turns out there's a groundswell of support in the blogosphere for a radical solution to stop the spill: Drop a big ol' nuclear bomb on the mutha.

Sound nuts? That's what I thought, too, until I learned that the Russians have already done this a bunch of times—and that the US already has a bunch of bomb-savvy scientists brainstorming solutions in the Gulf. Even weirder, though, is the support that some people are extending to the un-ironically-titled "nuclear option."

Let's start with the Russians. According to Vladimir Lagovsky of Komsomolskaya Pravda (once a Soviet communist paper), "In the USSR, a few such leaks were plugged with the help of the peaceful atom." Five leaks, all underground, were plugged thusly, the paper says—starting with a 1966 natural gas fissure in Uzbekistan. That one was snuffed using a 30-megatonkiloton blast six kilometers deep—about one and a half times the size of the Hiroshima bomb. "The idea of the method is simple," Lagovsky writes. "An underground explosion pushes the rock, compresses it, and actually squeezes the channel well shut."

[ThomWV]

1. The most destructive nuclear test this nation ever did was underwater

How in hell could anyone in their right mind think that the contamination from a nuclear blast would somehow be better than oil. A 100 years from now the no one will remember the oil spill, but if they went nuke 100,000 years from now the world would still be suffering from it.

[Vincardog]

12. What if 100 years from now the oil volcano is still belching death?

[Fool Count]

15. 100,000 years from now? Really?

There were over a hundred nuclear tests performed in the atmosphere just few decades ago.
You suffer much from them? And a small nuclear device (maybe 50 pounds of material total)
going off a mile under the sea is going to cause "suffering" 100,000 years from now?
Are you joking? The Soviets used to dump diluted spent nuclear submarine fuel right into
the ocean. For all we know the Russians (and Americans as well) may still be doing it. That's
probably thousands times the contamination from a single a-bomb. In comparison to the pollution
from the oil, 50 pounds of radioactive isotopes spread over entire ocean is as close to zero
as any imaginable number can possibly get.

[WinkyDink]

22. You must not live in either Nevada or Ukraine.

[Ruby the Liberal]

2. "Is the nuclear option one of them?"

Better not be. The chemicals they are pumping/spraying are bad enough. Lets keep the nukes out of this, please!

[TomCADem]

4. The Cold Hard Reality Is There Is No Current Technology To Stop The Oil Leak

Its not like there is some logistical hang up that is preventing a proven method from stopping the oil leak. The fact of the matter is that there is no proven method of stopping the oil leak.

[Ruby the Liberal]

5. So we make it even more toxic?

[TomCADem]

20. True, Adding Nuclear Fallout On Top Of It

Could make things worse, but that did not stop the Russians. Of course, even the Russians did not try it 5000 feet under water.

[AsahinaKimi]

3. Just what we need...

A flaming TSUNAMI..
:sarcasm:

[Ruby the Liberal]

6. That sounds like a good name for a drink. The "Nuclear Flaming Tsunami"

Suggested recipe?

:D

[AsahinaKimi]

13. Oh for sure...

However you would have to ask a decent Mixologist... I usually stick with Plum wine (choya) or
unfiltered sake ~Sho Chiku Bai Junmai Nigori, both of which would not be good, set on fire.

[MadHound]

7. The ultimate "Hold muh beer and watch this!" solution.

When you get the sinking feeling in your stomach that whatever you're about to try is going to turn out badly, follow that feeling and don't make the attempt.

This is one of those times.

[Chico Man]

8. sounds viable

In a crazy sort of way. Would be one hell of a spectacle.

[MadHound]

9. Yeah, fallout circulating through the Gulf and Atlantic,

Mixed with oil. Not a great combo.

[Chico Man]

10. Our response to mother nature after her onslaught of floods

And volcanic air traffic disturbances.

[Urban Prairie]

11. It may have the opposite of the intended effect.

No one knows what might happen, if too much or too little of a nuke explosion would do to the surrounding sub-strata. It could fracture and send huge chunks of rock surrounding the crude oil and gas sky(water)ward. Then the entire crude and gas deposit could either escape completely in a much shorter time, or maybe ignite and explode as well.

Not only that, the Russians did not detonate their nuke(s) underneath a mile of ocean water, either.

[Vincardog]

14. Yeah we have never detonated a NUKE underwater

[Fool Count]

16. It cannot have "the opposite" of the intended effect.

In fact, it cannot have any other effect but intended - sealing the well.
Remember this hole is less than a yard in diameter and over a mile long.
Any slight shift in layers of crust, inevitably caused by any explosion
will seal the well once and for good. That is literally a 100% option,
or rather the 100% option. It worked every single time it was tried.
Why would it not work now?

[Ruby the Liberal]

17. Did you miss the "its never been tried in 5k of water" tidbit?

Tsunamis, sonic shock to the mammals and fish, possibility of opening the gates of hell, etc...

100% my ass.

If it was 100% effective and 100% no fallout, they would have done this in April.

THINK.

[Fool Count]

19. What "5k of water"? It is slightly over a km.

What "gates of hell"? Seriously? Gates of hell? Is that the argument against it?
The reason they didn't do it in April is the same they don't do it now - they are
still hoping to save this well for future oil production. There is no other rational
reason not to do it. Otherwise, we would have heard about those reasons right away
and from them, and not 40 days later from "Mother Jones".

[Ruby the Liberal]

21. What color is the sky in your universe?

Yes, it is 5,000 feet from the surface to the seabed. This is not in dispute.

The reason this has not been discussed as a rational option before is because it is UNTHINKABLE. The Tsunami it would create would engulf the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the entire state of Florida.

Good choice of username.

[WinkyDink]

23. "5k" doesn't mean "5000 feet"; "5K feet" does. :-)

[Ruby the Liberal]

25. Define 5k then.

Thanks.

[Statistical]

18. "using a 30-megatonkiloton "

Really?

So 30 megaton kilotons wouldn't that be 30 gigatons. If Russia had detonated 30 gigaton bomb we would have a crater the size of the moon on that side of the planet.


Science is dead.

Russia used 30kt (30 kiloton or 30,000 tons of TNT equivelent) device.

US has a 10 ton to 1kt (1000 tons of TNT equivelent) nuclear demolotion device.
At maximum yield it would be roughly 1/20th of Hiroshima. At minimum yield it would be closer to 1/2000th.

[spoony]

24. That stood out to me as well.

Apparently Russia has a tsar bomba so large journalists have to make up words to describe them, lol.