Why do people think nukes/dynamite will stop the gulf oil leaks?

Bomb the hole

I crack up everytime someone says this.

I thought this site was all about denying ignorance?

Lets run through this, again, shall we?

1. Dive a mile deep strapped with a bomb.
2. Place bomb directly near the leak.
3. light the fuse(push the button).
4. it blows up.
5. it is now worse, because not only did you fail in sealing "the hole",
You have now created more of a mess on the seabed floor, while MORE OIL is comming up from the ground in multiple places.
6.You are screwed cause now there is too much debris in the way to get back to the hole you started with.
7. You scratch your head looking like an ass, then will probably follow with the line "lets try that again".

People amaze me.

I dont know how they will shut it down. I do know that BP, Halburtin and all the other corps responcible for this should pay for the clean up.

To do this each of those companies should be operated as non-profit untill the cost is covered by their revenue.

Seems like a fair and reasonable way to hold companies accountable without destroying them for making mistakes of this magnitude.

In fact Exon should be made to do the same and complete the clean up in Alaska.

reply to post by Common Good


how ironic, as you yourself just welcomed ignorance with opened arms by making an assumption that nuking the hole is a stupid idea, even though this procedure has been used many times !

im no expert, and sorry to burst your bubble but neither are you, im in for a discussion about this but theirs no need to get arrogant and laugh at any ideas, esspecialy when they have been proven to work in the past!

you also added nothing to the discussion, if you think nukes wouldnt work then what do you think Would work? or would you just leave it open spilling for as long as it takes to run dry ?

If people would like to know what a well that is not completed looks like . I have made a drawing of a typical well build up. This image might give you a better understanding of why it is not a good idea to blow it up.

can you please elaborate on how the well design makes it unsubitable for demolition?

as far as im aware from my reading up on undergrond explosions, if the bomb was to be places at or below the production liner the explosion would forst seal off that section completly with the molten rock the blast would cause then everything above the blast would collapse down double ensuring the seal.

but, what woudl happen to the other holes is what im thinking..

could it be their is litrely no answer to this conunderum other than leave it to run its course! ?

reply to post by boaby_phet


I take it you are one of those people who thinks it will work.

Listen..I told you why I did not think it would work. And I did not know that this thread was about expressing ways to fix this problem, if I remember correctly(and I do) there is already a thread going on right now about that.

This thread pretty much, is asking why you think blowing something up(the hole/pipe) was in anyways going to make it any better down there.

Its a STUPID IDEA.

And I gave you my reasons WHY I THINK it is a Stupid idea.

You are right about one thing though, you are no expert. Im not either, but it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that when you blow something up, it usually ends up not so pretty.

This isnt hollywood. Things dont always work out the way you think that they should or will. The fact of "the bomb fusing everything together" notion is not only unrealistic, its moronic.

These guys can not even seal off a leak, yet you are wanting them to play with explosives? WoW

Originally posted by boaby_phet
can you please elaborate on how the well design makes it unsubitable for demolition?

as far as im aware from my reading up on undergrond explosions, if the bomb was to be places at or below the production liner the explosion would forst seal off that section completly with the molten rock the blast would cause then everything above the blast would collapse down double ensuring the seal.

but, what woudl happen to the other holes is what im thinking..

could it be their is litrely no answer to this conunderum other than leave it to run its course! ?

Well first of, if you place a nuclear device on the bottom near the reservoir, the shear force of the explosion will burst and crack the formation cap into tiny small channels out side the casing wall. Because before anything collapses it will first expand. Its the expansion cause by the explosion which is damaging than you create more damage do to the collapse after wards.

The second thing to keep in mind is that the inside of the casing is filed with oil and gas at this stage. That means oil and gas will fluctuate under pressure causing the casing to collapse or burst. Creating new channels for oil and gas to pass through.

well,for one this is not some sort of hollywood fantasy... the "nuke" idea is taken from Real life situations where oil leaks have been stopped by russians using nuclear explosions in the past ... this aint some sort of fantasy senario that has explosion fans wetting their pants over, this has ACTUALY as matter of FACT been used in the past and as matter of FACT has worked in the past.

you clearly have not even done 1 % of reaserch into what happens when a nuclear explosion happens underground, on the flip side i have as i dont like to come onto posts , open my mouth and let my belly rumble, i like to deal with hard facts and the process of what happens in an underground nuclear explosion is well documented as people have been testing weapons and FIXING oil leaks for years with this method.

now, if you had read my post and not just launched yourself into defence mode you would have seen that im no expert, I have no idea what would work if anything to fix this hole, but i do know that nuclear devices have been used in the past with sucsess to fix problems underwater exactly like this one!

This is a discussion forum, this is a place to discus theorys, to validate theorys and to add to theorys or share your own theorys with the world, what you have done is came into the post, shouted down a theory as stupid even though a quick whirl on google will show you are infact wrong.

a nuke could be the answer, but of course maybe it is not... none of us here are thermo nuclear explosion experts and none of us here have degrees in fixing massive oil leaks under the sea, people are allowed to have theorys, but dont get all arrogant and ignorant towards an idea that you dont like, esspecialy when their is a wealth of reaserch in this done which says its probably got more chance of working than anything else they would try.

also, if you are going to call an idea stupid, please share YOUR idea! as if your just calling ideas stupid and not coming up with any of your own your basicly just trolling and thats pretty pointless!

Edit - @spy66, just seen your reply, i get what ya mean now ! i was unsure before . i dont think their is going to be any strait forward answer to this problem if im honest, if that was the case it would probably have been stopped by now.
#

lol, double edit - wouldnt the any cracks caused instantly be fused by the compression / heat effect of the detonation ? As this is what normaly happens in underground nuke explosions.
[edit on 16-5-2010 by boaby_phet]

[edit on 16-5-2010 by boaby_phet]

reply to post by boaby_phet


No, but i am a well intervention supervisor so i know what i am talking about.

This well can not be compared to a Russian well or any other well. Because they are never the same.
The formation surrounding this well from sea bed to the reservoir cap, can never be associated with a well at a totally different location that has a totally different formation build up.

This is just common sense.

Originally posted by boaby_phet
well,for one this is not some sort of hollywood fantasy... the "nuke" idea is taken from Real life situations where oil leaks have been stopped by russians using nuclear explosions in the past ... this aint some sort of fantasy senario that has explosion fans wetting their pants over, this has ACTUALY as matter of FACT been used in the past and as matter of FACT has worked in the past.

If it is an established method, tried and true, then could you please show us some links and details on those instances?

Perhaps I need an education on the process, because all my ignorance on the idea makes me want to say "no way".

You attack me because I voiced my opinion about how stupid I think people are?

What YOU fail to understand is that we have went over this already in the other thread. I posted my solution there WAY BACK when this all started, funny, I dont remember seeing you in there. You say you care, yet all you are doing isjumping on the "Blowing it up" bandwagon, the type of people who have a problem with using both sides of their brains to figure out that
blowing up A MAJOR LEAK A MILE UNDERWATER is not the mostviable solutions for stopping the leak. HELL, even entertaining the ideais doing nothing but wasting more time on ideas that have more substance behind them.

You say Russia has been doing it for years, I believe that, but have they done it undera mile of water, with this size of a leak, where no man can get to ? Have you seen video of the oil comming out of that pipe? Blowing it up is NOT the solution, its common sense.

What happens when you fail?? And when I mean fail, I mean fail miserably to the point where you can not get another chance at stopping it once you blow everything to hell. Its moronic.

With that idea, THERE IS NO ROOM FOR FAILURE.

You ignore it, because you think I am attacking YOU PERSONALLY for thinking it was a stupid idea. Get over yourself.

Hell, I thought my idea was going to work, but little did I know about the formation of ice crystals.
The difference is....the earlier method did not disrupt future attempts to fix the leak.



edit

[edit on 16-5-2010 by Common Good]

As i cant read or write russian, it makes finding the actual stories hard, as i cannot find the full storys,. just refrences to these stories.

one of which happened in "Uzbekistan, on September 30, 1966 with a blast 1.5 times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb and at a depth of 1.5 kilometers"

their have been 5 wells capped , the last one was capped in 1979 using this technique.

the stories are refrenced to "Komsomoloskaya Pravda" - which unfortunetly is in russian.

my lack of russian is making it hard to find the hard storys, just refrences to these stories... my reaserch is continuing reguardless of my lack of russian!

i am currently looking for more information on the last one which happened in 1979, ironicly, all searches i am doing lead me to an oil disaster which was in the gulf of mexico and linked to russia, their seems to have been a few oil disasters that year ... again, my non russian is hampering me i think (any russians here?_)

@spy66 - im glad someone is an expert round here! ... as someone in the field what would you say is the best way to deal with this?

@common good, chill out, you were actualy displaying a large portion of ignorance by laughing ideas off with no reaserch and getting angry about things wont help or ad to any discussion, i kind of love the phrase deny ignorance!

heres the link to the paravda story that every other site seems to be refrencing .. (babblefish link)

babelfish.yahoo.com... =Translate

sorry for the exitremely broken english lol!


i woudl also like to add again, this situation is way way way past bad and nothing that happens to stop this will be anything other than a massivly epic fail! Their damned if they do and damned if they dont!

[edit on 16-5-2010 by boaby_phet]

reply to post by boaby_phet


"chill out"?

I didnt know I wasnt being chill, hmm oh well.

You OBVIOUSLY have selective reading problems.

I HAVE doen research on this, I have read more articles and opinions on how to solve this than you probably have, that is why I laugh at the idea of blowing it up. It is MORONIC.

If they blow it up, and they fail, we are all stuck in a worse position than we started.

I TOLD YOU WHY I think it would fail. You didnt.

It seems to me that instead of entertaining more realistic means to this problem, you seem to be stuck on this one way. You have NOT entertained the idea that this could possibly the worst idea ever.

THAT IS NOT DENYING IGNORANCE.

p.s- if you are going to keep repeating the same things over and over towards me without reading my responses, than I have no more use in talking with you.

reply to post by Common Good


im not getting into a argument with you dude, you laughed off an idea calling it stupid ... even though you have most likely not ever had the experience of capping a oil leak.

i also stated that im no expert (more than once), and that im maybe not right, i dont drill oil and i dont have experience with nuclear bombs, i just know what i have reaserched and read.

you have to remember, just because you have posted in other topics does not mean to say i have seen that topics, or even that i know they exist! (which i did not) ... theirs alot of these topics going about on ats and ats is infact M-A-S-S-I-V-E !, try linking me to your threads so i can see what you have to say rather than being all defensive and acting like im trying to crap in your cornflakes when all im trying to do is have a discussion.!

really, to me, it makes sence, but maybe thats because i have not seen yours or the 100's of other theorys out their!

one major thing that has me thinking is will a nuke actualy make the situation any worse than it already is?? the area is going to be decimated for a long long long time now, as already stated in other posts, alaska is still seeing oil from exxon valdese.. and how long ago was that, their is a negligable risk of radiation but will the radiation last longer than the oil which Will be their for a long long time!

pps, dont be an ignorer just because im not on your wavelength, discussions arent about everyone saying the same idea, if that was the case their be no point in discussing it!

[edit on 16-5-2010 by boaby_phet]

[edit on 27.06.08 by spy66]

Some well makeups are condusive to a demolition closure. Some are not. It all comes down to the makeup of the well.

Depth, width, internal pressures, product that is exiting the well (gas/crude), geology, what the surrounding formations are holding, Pressure on the seabed (how deep the water is that they are drilling in) and so forth.

One point that might not be common knowledge is that many wells are actually fractured at the deepest point of penetration or at oil bearing levels by the use of explosives. Explosives are also sometimes used to cut or free a stuck drill line.

The idea of using a giant bomb to collapse the hole isn't exactly what the engineers have in mind. More likely it is a controlled charge that will be detonated at a specific point in the well to destroy the casing and collapse the surrounding rock into the hole. This would be done at a deep enough poinrt that the surrounding seafloor wouldn't be affected.

The hard part is getting the charge into the right place.

"im not getting into a argument with you dude, you laughed off an idea calling it stupid ... even though you have most likely not ever had the experience of capping a oil leak."

No, I have not ever capped off an oil leak a mile under the ocean while thousands of gallons of oil is being pumped out daily, I dont really know anyone that has.
But what they are suggesting here is laughable to me. You cant cap something by blowing to pieces.


"i also stated that im no expert (more than once), and that im maybe not right, i dont drill oil and i dont have experience with nuclear bombs, i just know what i have reaserched and read."

And I have still yet to see any of this research backing up that this will work under these circumstances. You said you have the articlesor whatever in Russian, yet cant translate them. So how could you have researched that information in the first place?


"you have to remember, just because you have posted in other topics does not mean to say i have seen that topics, or even that i know they exist! (which i did not) ... theirs alot of these topics going about on ats and ats is infact M-A-S-S-I-V-E !, try linking me to your threads so i can see what you have to say rather than being all defensive and acting like im trying to crap in your cornflakes when all im trying to do is have a discussion.!"

All those exclamation marks indicates tome all you are trying to do is yell and get pissed off at me because I do not buy into this blowing it up crap.
Its common sense to me, it really is. IF YOU BLOW IT ALL UP, AND IT DOESNT WORK, YOU ARE NOW IN A WORSE POSITION THAN YOU STARTED. I had to put that in bold so you could see it, cause I have stated that I dont know how many times already in just this one thread.
If you blow it up, and make the work down there non manageable, then there is no chance in the future of ever stopping the leak, THEN WHAT?


"really, to me, it makes sence, but maybe thats because i have not seen yours or the 100's of other theorys out their!"


My theory/solution didnt work, as I had stated earlier. The reason it didnt work was because of the ice crystals that formed in the chamber. NOBODY could have seen that comming. But it may work if we adapted it somehow to where those crystals wouldnt form, but to tell you the truth, I dont think they want to even try that(I dont know why).


"one major thing that has me thinking is will a nuke actualy make the situation any worse than it already is?? the area is going to be decimated for a long long long time now, as already stated in other posts, alaska is still seeing oil from exxon valdese.. and how long ago was that, their is a negligable risk of radiation but will the radiation last longer than the oil which Will be their for a long long time!"


To answer the question in your first sentence, IMO, yes it would.
The area is going to be ruined for sometime yes, but it will be ruined for much longer, and a much more vast of an area than it would if we didnt go down that road. We need to go about this the RIGHT way, using our technology and our brains. Thats why we have them, to problem solve.
Blowing something up is not always the answer, and this is comming from a guy who loves to make things go boom, OOH RAH.


"pps, dont be an ignorer just because im not on your wavelength, discussions arent about everyone saying the same idea, if that was the case their be no point in discussing it!"


Im not being an "ignorer" because you are not on my wavelength, I just choose not to repeat myself over and over because someone doesnt want to read it in the correct context or even read it at all.

My opinion stands. Blowing it up would be STUPID.



[edit on 16-5-2010 by Common Good]

[edit on 16-5-2010 by Common Good]

Why don't they lower a massive huge flat boulder over the leak and then seal off the sides/edges .. then continue weighing it down with more boulders and bio-safe sealants on the edges ..??

You know what's really infuriating?

WHY are we even sitting here discussing how in the WORLD we are going to stop the flow of oil from a spill caused by an offshore oil rig?

SHOULDN'T there have already been a plan in place, SOME protective measures, SOME foresight by either our own government or by the oil companies? WHY only now are we figuring out a way to deal with it? AFTER the oil is gushing into our ecosystem?

This just really pisses me off. You're considered a criminal if you change the oil in your car and don't dispose of it properly, and that's only 1-2 gallons. You can face a really hefty fine.

But with the big oil companies it's a different story.

boaby_phet, the PSI doesn't really matter, you can still get a coupling sleeve around the pipe. If for some reason you can not, you can use a split sleeve and weld it. They could also use 5" thick bolts that can withstand 5000PSI on a single bolt.