Jun 012010
I’ve seen some recent yappage about using a nuke to close off the Deepwater Horizon oil leak. It seems the Soviets may have done this sort of thing before. Here’s a video of one such leak & blast. It’s narrated in English, which seems odd.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpPNQoTlacU
I have to admit some doubts about whether this’d really be a good idea.
9 Responses to “Nuke The Well”
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Odd music. One would expect something darker for an economic disaster of this size. I found it curious that the narrator would refer to “this country” in English. Perhaps this was made for the diplomats?
I confess to some doubts that this is a good idea for the Gulf of Mexico. The rest of Central America might be shaken into sinkholes!
No … wait ….
“Plug the damn hole!” – that was what Obama said about it, according to an aide.
Well right away, Mr. President. Because of course it’s not a difficult and dangerous technical problem with no easy and instant political solution *rolleyes*
It seems like the thinking is do something drastic that shuts off the leak instantly, and when that fails, bring in a larger hammer..
If it’s possible to drill a relief well, couldn’t they drill a hole near the well deep and near enough to place a conventional bomb that would crimp the pipe in a few operations instead of one big blast?
droping a sinking oltanker to Plug the damn hole
is more efficient as nuke the hole in that methane hydrate ice !
Based on the estimated reserves in that field and the current flow rate, how long will it take to run out on it’s own? 10 years, 100 years, more? Just curious…
Hell of a thing, that. I’ve seen conventional explosives used to starve fires of oxygen, but that is new. If it works above-ground, then it should work on the seafloor also. Besides, I’m DTRA or whoever would be glad for a chance to fire off a B61 and see if it still works!
Jim
I’d be concerned about the shockwaves from the blast creating enough cracks in the seafloor that a lot of the methane hydrate ice would be exposed and vaporize, creating a large flammable cloud on the surface over the blast area.
There’s also the problem of the shockwaves from the blast traveling through the water once they reach the seafloor and damaging other oil rigs in the vicinity. The math gets complex, but there are things called acoustic convergence zones that lie at various distances from a underwater explosion where the shockwaves reflected from the seafloor and water surface focus and can do serious damage even though the blast itself was a long distance away.
Now, since EPA has forced drilling in ridiculously deep water, why not force those f**king morons to fix it? Oh, thats right, they don’t have a clue how to do anything other than screw up or economy. Never mind!
It wasn’t the EPA that forced it so far offshore as much as land owners of beach property who didn’t want their view sullied by an oil platform.
Most recent update – the robotic cable saw that was cutting through the riser pipe last night got the abrasive cable stuck in the cut, and now they are going to have to either fix it or replace it with a new one.
There’s live video feed from the the ROV minisubs here:
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/homepage/STAGING/local_assets/bp_homepage/html/rov_stream.html
Last I checked they were raising the cable saw back towards the surface through those layers of underwater tar balls that BP assured us a couple of days ago don’t exist.