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Oil leak fix? Blow it up!
Nuke would do it, say scientists, but BP resists use of
explosives
Posted: May 25, 2010
8:25 pm Eastern
By Drew
Zahn
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
 Clean-up operations in Gulf of Mexico |
Around the world, scientists have turned their ingenuity toward
looking for ways to stop the ever-expanding oil slick spreading through
the Gulf of Mexico, and one answer keeps popping up: explosives.
Both in Russia and in the U.S., some scientists are suggesting
nuclear blasts to bury the oil rig and send molten rock down to seal the
leak. Other scientists say
smaller, controlled explosions can stop the flow with shock waves.
Regardless of what causes the boom, however, BP would have to
consent to the destruction of its leaking Deepwater Horizon well with explosives, something the company
seems hesitant to do.
In a telephone conference call with reporters yesterday, Doug
Suttles, the chief operating officer for BP exploration and production,
said blasting around the well was "not an option we believe we would
ever use," because once done, "we would have denied ourselves all other
options."
A former senior analyst with the White House Office of Science
and Technology, Rich Pryor, favors using multiple, simultaneous
explosions to pinch the leaking pipe closed rather than a nuke to bury
it. The nuclear physicist told WND there are several good ideas
available to BP, but they include sacrificing the Deepwater Horizon.
"That may be the reason [for BP's hesitation]," Pryor told WND.
"Once you pinch the pipe, it's done; it will shut down the well."
BP, however, has insisted its resistance is based on the use of
explosives, not a desire to salvage the well. Suttles told reporters
earlier this month BP has conceded the need to "permanently plug" the
gushing well and has "absolutely no intent to ever, ever produce this
well."
The nuclear option
Reports in a pair of Russian newspapers have been pushing the
idea that a nuclear blast could stop the leaking oil and that the former
Soviet nation has done it before successfully.
"It sounds terrible and incredible – an idiotic joke," writes
Valdimir Lagowski in the Russian daily Komsomoloskaya Pravda. "But in
fact there were several cases where catastrophes in the fields were
fought this way in the former USSR – five times – when nothing else has
helped."
According to the report, the first attempt was in 1966, when a
30-kiloton explosion (the Hiroshima bomb was about 20 kilotons)
extinguished a burning gas well six kilometers beneath the surface.
Lagowski reports that the nuclear solution has only failed once,
when a four-kiloton explosion failed to penetrate the ground far enough.
"Of course, we used a civilian nuclear program on the ground, and
the Americans [are working] in the sea," Lagowski concedes, but then
claims the scientific principle is no different and "the U.S. is full of
smart scientists and powerful computers."
The Moscow Times further reported that Alexander Moskalenko, head
of GCE, a St. Petersburg-based group that advises oil companies, is
also suggesting the nuclear option.
The Russians, however, aren't the only ones talking nukes.
Christopher Brownfield, a former nuclear submarine officer and a
visiting scholar on nuclear policy at Columbia University, wrote a piece
in The Daily Beast echoing the Russian solution.
"This was not simply an aggressive urge to brandish the most
beastly of weapons in our mighty American arsenal, but a serious way to
snuff out an enormous problem that grows worse by the day," Brownfield
writes. "For more than 100 years, explosives have been used to break the
necks of runaway oil wells, snapping the long, narrow columns and
sealing them shut with tons and tons of rock."
Brownfield also cited the 1966 Russian experiment: "The practice
was well documented by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one
of our nuclear-weapons facilities."
But would the White House even consider a nuke?
Earlier this month, the London Telegraph reports, President
Obama's Energy Secretary Steven Chu sent a team of nuclear physicists to
BP's main crisis center in Houston, Texas. Included on the team was
82-year-old Richard Garwin, who designed the first hydrogen bomb, and
Tom Hunter, head of the U.S. Department of Energy's Sandia National Labs
in Albuquerque, N.M.
Still, Pryor told WND, given Obama's stance on nuclear weaponry,
"I think there might be a lot of resistance to that."
Brownfield also conceded, "Using nuclear weapons, even for
peaceful purposes, would be problematic for a president who stood in
Prague and declared that the world should rid itself of such devices. …
The dilemma seems clear: Either Obama leaves BP in charge of managing
its own short-term interests, or he can take charge and stop this spill
immediately by pulling the trigger on a nuclear option with severe
political and environmental aftershocks."
The non-nuclear option
Even Brownfield, however, has suggested BP also consider putting
America's supercomputers – instead of its super explosives – to work at
solving the problem.
"Our military could potentially use a carefully placed combination of conventional explosives
to collapse the well," Brownfield suggested. "Our technology is much
better than that of the Soviet Union in 1966, so we should be able to
make this work without having to go nuclear."
 Rich Pryor |