Two Deepwater Horizon Developments To Expect In The Coming Days

the makeout hobo said:

One worry that I'd have with nuking the oil well is that the radiation might likely settle towards the bottom of the gulf. A strong hurricane would bring up water from the lower oceanic levels, so we might just have a radioactive hurricane.

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Having read up on a half dozen underwater detonations, it's my understanding that the deeper the detonation, the less one has to worry about radiation.

Jerry said:

Having read up on a half dozen underwater detonations, it's my understanding that the deeper the detonation, the less one has to worry about radiation.

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Don't suppose you have a degree in Nuclear Physics and/or Oceanography? You're probably right, but this is much too important to be anything but completely sure about. Also, how do we know the explosion won't just make the hole bigger?

the makeout hobo said:

Don't suppose you have a degree in Nuclear Physics and/or Oceanography?

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No, but I did sleep in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

the makeout hobo said:

You're probably right, but this is much too important to be anything but completely sure about.

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Whoa hold on there cowboy, I think you forgot that non of us are in charge down there. We can direct this conversation in whatever direction we want and it will have no impact on the situation. We're armchair quarterbacking for the sake of armchair quarterbacking, we don't actually make real decisions in our threads.

the makeout hobo said:

Also, how do we know the explosion won't just make the hole bigger?

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I argue that it would.

Radiation is less of a concern with detonations at depth, but the shock waves are amplified. I'm waiting for Dana to to respond to my concerns over the detonation either directly causing tsunamis or causing land-slides and earthquakes which in turn cause tsunamis; of radiating the oil; of damaging any other wells in range of the shock waves; not to mention just blasting this well wide open.

Do you have any opinion on those?

the makeout hobo said:

Also, how do we know the explosion won't just make the hole bigger?

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The hole is 5 miles deep. There is no way it will make the hole bigger. It would seal the hole.

I having a hard time imagining why we cannot used conventional explosives to stop the leak but honestly I have been thinking from the beginning about why they didn't just blow it up.

jujuman13 said:

No chance of what happening?

A nuclear device to stop the leak?

Acceptance by the American Electorate of a nuclear device to stop the leak?

I rather imagine that if all other methods fail, then the nuclear option will have to be revisited.

Simply spouting rhetoric that BP is to blame is not going to plug this leak.

BP have abandoned the so called 'Top Kill' method, while still using the ridiculous method of shooting golf ball into the BOP (wonder if someone is picking up the ones that Obama loses in the rough, he is not that good a player)

Containment is all very well even assuming they could ever get it to work, but that idea vanishes as soon as a Hurricane roars into the Gulf.

Nuclear will be very much on the table.

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PBO wouldn't allow sand berms to be built, because there might be an impact on the environment. So, no, this won't happen.

The treehuggers would go nuts, if he popped a nuke to kill this well.

where's the CLEANUP effort, mr president?

if you can't plug the leak, daddy, you could at least GET TO WORK on trying to contain all this devastating damage

you all know if obama were making some big push to clean up the gulf he'd be advertising his accomplishments bigtime to the planet

instead, he interrupts his vacation for 3 hours to go to the gulf to meet with politicians and bureaucrats, ignoring all the locals whose lives are being destroyed by this

oblivious obama obviously just does not get it

he's not observant

where's the CLEANUP, malia wants to know

42 days, 7 hours, 19 minutes, 43 seconds...

reefedjib said:

The hole is 5 miles deep. There is no way it will make the hole bigger. It would seal the hole.

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As long as were giving opinions, my opinion is that nuking the well would make a hole as deep as the Royal Gorge, maybe as deep as the Grand Canyon. :roll:

donc said:

As long as were giving opinions, my opinion is that nuking the well would make a hole as deep as the Royal Gorge, maybe as deep as the Grand Canyon. :roll:

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That's a long way from 5 miles.

reefedjib said:

The hole is 5 miles deep. There is no way it will make the hole bigger. It would seal the hole.

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Since we would have to make a relief well to get a bomb to sufficient depth, and at that point we can just cement the darn thing, why use explosives at all? Why take the risk of opening a different path for the oil to flow out of? I just don't get why some of you folks think that blowing it up is a better solution than cementing it.

505 said:

Since we would have to make a relief well to get a bomb to sufficient depth, and at that point we can just cement the darn thing, why use explosives at all? Why take the risk of opening a different path for the oil to flow out of? I just don't get why some of you folks think that blowing it up is a better solution than cementing it.

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It can be done faster so it will stop a lot of oil from gushing out. It will not risk opening a new path, the oil deposit is 5 miles deep.

505 said:

Since we would have to make a relief well to get a bomb to sufficient depth, and at that point we can just cement the darn thing, why use explosives at all? Why take the risk of opening a different path for the oil to flow out of? I just don't get why some of you folks think that blowing it up is a better solution than cementing it.

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Because that doesn't appeal to the hyper-emotional.

reefedjib said:

It can be done faster so it will stop a lot of oil from gushing out.

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How can it be done faster? Again, you are still making the relief wells, which is what takes the most time. Cement is pumped down the drill string of the relief well and UP the MC252 damaged well, plugging it from the bottom. This process can start immediately after the RW intercepts the damaged one. Your proposal calls for pulling the entire drill string, which takes time. You then have to somehow get your bomb down the hole, which also takes time.

So again. How is blowing it up faster than cementing it?

reefedjib said:

It will not risk opening a new path, the oil deposit is 5 miles deep.

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Many geology experts disagree. The type of rock in that area is prone to fracturing and the risk of opening a huge fissure is very high. You can open up flow paths to other wells in the area, or even worse, subterranean cracks that can run for miles and leach oil slowly out of the reservoir.

Do any of you that are in support of explosives understand the pressures involved down there?

Jerry said:

Because that doesn't appeal to the hyper-emotional.

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So glad that the oil drilling experts and people in charge of this operation think that using explosives to seal the leak is completely ridiculous. The chances of it making things much worse is very high.

No surprise here

Stephanie Mueller, a spokeswoman for the Energy Department, said that neither Energy Secretary Steven Chu nor anyone else was thinking about a nuclear blast under the gulf. The nuclear option was not — and never had been — on the table, federal officials said.

“It’s crazy,” one senior official said.

Government and private nuclear experts agreed that using a nuclear bomb would be not only risky technically, with unknown and possibly disastrous consequences from radiation, but also unwise geopolitically — 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.

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Source [NYT | Nuclear Option on Gulf Oil Spill? No Way, U.S. Says]