Gulf Oil Spill and BP's attempt to salvage their product. Nuke even possible?

We are now into three weeks of this ongoing spill and it is beginning to look like BP is not coming up with any solutions that are going to work. On top of that, it pisses me off that all of the efforts being pursued by BP involves "salvaging" their precious oil.

How long are we to sit here and allow BP to come up with more hair brained attempts at dealing with this?

It would seem the question at BP to their engineer's is:

"How can we salvage the oil from this well?"

When in reality it should be:

"How can we stop the leak?"

Now we have seen the efforts so far fail, and the ideas coming are well, just plain dumb. Golf balls and tires? Are they serious?

The next idea they are going with is to lower yet another "top-hat" that will once again, if it works, allow BP to save their precious oil by pumping it into a waiting oil tanker.

I pretty much feel that this is going to fail as well.

When is enough enough?

This thread is here to be a discussion of what the Russians have apparently done five times in the past to seal off oil leaks underwater.

Nuke it shut!

The first underground nuclear explosion was used to extinguish burning gas wells in "Urt-Bulak (80 km from Bukhara) on September 30 1966. Power charge was 30 kilotons. For comparison, the Hiroshima bomb exploded about 20 kilotons. But at a height of 600 meters. For this spill at Bukhara - it was at a depth of six kilometers.

It worked!

There are many cases where "peaceful" usage of nuclear warheads have been used. Why not now?


My question to you ATS: Is a nuke a viable option? Will it work? What are the repercussions if we do use a nuke? What are the repercussions if we do not, and allow the leak to continue?


[edit on 13-5-2010 by xmaddness]

Biggest problem I see is that the well, and the relief well are right next to a munition dump. I think that might possibly answer why they are not, thankfully, currently attempting the nuclear option.
But, what do I know? What do any of us actually, KNOW?
My gut tells me that this was a precisely planned and orchestrated event, NOT just an accident. Do I have the proof? No.
Do I trust my gut instinct? YES.
My gut also tells me that the citizens need to mobilize or this thing won't get solved. That these are the same men perpetrating violence in the middle east and around the world in the name of profit, BP, Haliburton, Transocean and many others.
This I find odd, that within the last few days, BP has been given the go ahead to store diesel, gasoline, and others, in depleted deposit cavities under the ocean in Alaska, in aged wells, whose transmission lines only retain approx. 30% of their original wall thickness, pipes too unsafe to even be used any longer.
All in the name of profit, bottom line.....

Apparently there's a new plan:
LINK


(CNN) -- Oil company BP will attempt to insert a new section of pipe into the riser of its damaged undersea well to capture the gusher of crude now spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, a company spokesman said Thursday.
The operation could begin Thursday night, BP spokesman John Crabtree said. The goal is to use the new section of pipe, which is ringed with a gasket, to seal the 22-inch riser pipe -- the section that connects the well with the main pipe running to the surface -- then pump the oil up to a ship on the surface.
The new attempt is the latest plan by BP to seal the well that was uncorked when the drill rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20 and sank two days later, about 50 miles off the southeast coast of Louisiana, leaving 11 workers lost at sea. A previous effort to cap the gusher with a four-story containment dome failed when natural gas crystals collected inside the structure, plugging an outlet at the top.

reply to post by xmaddness

Good POST..... goverment I hope have been there done that but truth is they crapped in the toilet did'nt flush looked down in and saw their brains.
30x2.2x1000= dynamite equivlancey. Why does everyone say use a nuclear bomb to close the well head when a conventional bomb of equal yield would accomplish the same effect but not release radioactive waste. Have people forgotten the daisy cutter bombs ? Just make one of equal value get the Russians to help place it in the correct spot and seal the thing...............

It seems more and more like this is going to be the solution. It is just a matter of time.

Would the equivalent in dynamite even be possible to procure?

That seems like a lot of dynamite?

Who would BP buy a nuke from? Israel? North Korea? Azerbaijan?

I really do not see a nuke being possible because of the radiation fearing tree huggers or fish huggers do not want fish to be mutilated by radiation poisoning. Along with killing the food chain or something.

I feel the best scenario that is most logical ( to me ) is to send 100 oil rigs all in the same general location and just suck all the oil dry in the area.

Benefits oil industry contractors and benefits the fish huggers.

Originally posted by wiredamerican
I really do not see a nuke being possible because of the radiation fearing tree huggers or fish huggers do not want fish to be mutilated by radiation poisoning. Along with killing the food chain or something.

Over 105 nuclear tests were conducted in the pacific ocean during the 50's and 60's by the US. They tested some pretty big bombs and none underground. The area has been determined to be safe to walk around after 50 years.

en.wikipedia.org...

en.wikipedia.org...

A smaller nuclear device detonated under the seabed would produce considerably less radiation. They are gonna have to cordone off a pretty big area to fishing anyways becuase of all the oil and dispersants already in the water. A little bit of radiation mixed in with it won't make it much worse than it already is.

In 100 or 200 years maybe the area can be fished in again.

Actually it looks like there were some successful underground nuclear tests that produced no radiation above ground.

Plumbbob Rainier was detonated at 899 ft underground on 19 September 1957. The 1.7 kt explosion was the first to be entirely contained underground, producing no fallout. The test took place in a 1,600 – 2,000 ft horizontal tunnel in the shape of a hook. The hook "was designed so explosive force will seal off the non-curved portion of tunnel nearest the detonation before gases and fission fragments can be vented around the curve of the tunnel's hook."

en.wikipedia.org...

Using a nuke seems to me like trying to fix a dripping tap with a sledge hammer.

What if this nuke opens up a lot of further cracks and fissures which leak even more oil ?
At least now, there is only one single point of leakage.
Fracture a large area, and the oil may start leaking upwards in hundreds of places and then become impossible to seal off completely.

Originally posted by Silver Shadow
Using a nuke seems to me like trying to fix a dripping tap with a sledge hammer.

What if this nuke opens up a lot of further cracks and fissures which leak even more oil ?
At least now, there is only one single point of leakage.
Fracture a large area, and the oil may start leaking upwards in hundreds of places and then become impossible to seal off completely.

The Plumbbob Rainier bomb was 1.7kt

The US has smaller weapons.They can determine what they need from 10 ton to 1.7 kt to produce the least amount of shockwaves. Put it down a J shaped bore hole and there will likely be zero radiation fallout.

The Mk-54 nuclear Warhead is a small 10 ton weapon. 400 were produced. It was designed to be fired from a recoiless rifle.
nuclearweaponarchive.org...

The effects of the RAINIER event of Operation Plumbbob in 1957 will provide an example of the extent to which the surrounding medium may be affected by a deep underground detonation. RAINIER was a 1.7-kiloton nuclear device detonated in a chamber 6 x 6 x 7 feet in size, at a depth of 790 feet below the surface in a compacted volcanic-ash medium referred to geologically as "tuff." During the hydrodynamic stage the chamber expanded to form a spherical cavity 62 feet in radius, which was lined with molten rock about 4 inches thick. The shock from the explosion crushed the surrounding medium to a radius of 130 feet and fractured it to 180 feet. Seismic signals were detected out to distances of several hundred miles and a weak signal was recorded in Alaska. The chimney extended upward for about 400 feet from the burst point. Further information on cavity and chimney dimensions is given in Chapter VI.

www.cddc.vt.edu...

[edit on 15-5-2010 by In nothing we trust]

Originally posted by In nothing we trust

The US has smaller weapons.They can determine what they need from 10 ton to 1.7 kt to produce the least amount of shockwaves.

An explosion without shock waves, huh ?

That sounds interesting.
Rather like the old joke in defense science, about a new ultra hush hush top secret project. "silent explosives".

reply to post by xmaddness


Yes...one would think, stop the flow, if it's even possible.

I caution against chaos or disorder. Instead, imagine the nightmare were this an oozing sore the size of a bomb crater.

I should think that a large valve could be built and fastened to that precious surrounding yet unruptured area. I guess the problem is when it narrows it changes temperature? Freezes?

They could build the thing above ground, with many many outlet fixtures, as many as they can weld up. The housing could be riveted to the earth w/o being under pressure. If they manage to nail the thing to the seabed floor, then they could begin closing the top (a sliding thing) which would put the flow to the connections. Strictly temporary, I imagine, as who knows how long the source will be violently under pressure. If this is an unstable theory, then sealing it may be the only option, because if it's capped but flying apart minute by minute, that will not be a solution, obviously. I assume that the drilling and valving are an integrated process which is no longer possible, thus any 'valve' attempt at this juncture will be unstable. Pressure could be controlled by how open the sliding top is. It would be simple t make a powerful screw driven sliding top. It may still be gushing/leaking, of course, but it's a start. A delicate balance until they can improve on the problem...



It baffles me that any use of force or entropy would be considered. That sounds like sabotage.

[edit on 15-5-2010 by davidmann]

Thought ya'll might be interested in this, I just heard about it on our local news. The University of Texas Energy Institute is hosting a webcast for the public going over all the aspects of the oil spill. It starts at 10:00 AM CST til 12:00 CST.

“Oil in Troubled Waters” Public Forum to Examine the Cause, Consequences and Cost of Spill in the Gulf

streamer.beg.utexas.edu...