video of nuclear bomb being used to plug gas well out of control

reply to post by wirefly

Lastly, folks don't seem to understand that the resevoir is not an empty void filled with hydrocarbons. It is a sand deposit in which the hydros are between the sand particles, therefore, no chance of seafloor collapse. Has anyone ever heard of a depleted oil reserve collapsing?

Yes, I've heard of that, more than once, and recently. If the pressurized hydrocarbons mix in the oil/gas sands leave at a rapid rate, the volume of the oil sands has to diminish. Either something else like brine etc. is introduced to take the HC's place, or the structure collapses. I've seen wells lost due to over-pumping, worked gas fields in S. TX in the early '80 as a well tester. That's why there are TX RRC (Railroad Commission) rules as to how much can be flowed from any given well daily.

Source University of Texas

Q: Does drilling for oil and gas cause or trigger earthquakes?

A: Research carried out by UTIG scientists suggests that earthquakes in some parts of Texas may be induced by the pumping of fluids at oil and gas fields, or by the injection of fluids to dispose of chemical wastes. The earthquakes in the Fashing-Pleasanton area southeast of San Antonio are almost certainly caused by or triggered by pumping; such earthquakes also seem to occur in the Texas Panhandle near Snyder, Texas.

The only potential danger of the Nuke method is it could potentially shatter the shale for example. Instead of sealing the leak it could make it worse and possibly unrepairable.

It wouldn't be a huge Nuke but more of a tactical Nuke. It would be underground with a mile of water on top so their wouldn't be much if any effect at the surface.

We've set of Nukes under ground and in the ocean before and lived through it before.

Hello all! This is my 1st post.
Would just like to say that was a cool vid. A nuclear bomb would work completely however they wont resort to that because then that gives reasons for countries like iran to have nukes. While the US is trying rid countries like that of nukes, using one to seal up an oil/gas leak would be plenty of reason for Iran to keep nukes/or to build them. Iran will say "as one of the biggest oil suppliers, we need nukes incase something catastrophic like the gulf spill happens again...

reply to post by Desolate Cancer


Awesome idea! Then again I like all uses for nukes. a few properly placed nukes could end the worlds problems :3

reply to post by jdills1196


Also a firm grip on reality, better understanding, lack of ignorance and a sense of comitment to the progression of humanity could solve all of the worlds problems, why don't we try that before trying a pre-emptive nuclear holocaust?

You know, after reading your post Im inclined to say nuke the ******* leak (watching my language here), and maybe the fallout of the potential catastrophe would serve to make people think twice about the world.

But still, I think it would take much more than that to samrten some people up. End of topic for me now, this argument is just getting silly. It is highly unlikely that a nuke will be used as per reasons already mentioned above, and if they do, we will have to live with the consequences, good or bad.

Good luck, especially those nearest.

The difficulty is that the well head is 5000 feet under the water surface, and thus, manouvering any nuclear warhead into position, and getting it down into the drill hole, that would have to be drilled, minimum three months to drill, is near to impossible. The geology of the seabed at that depth of water is not like as the geology in the video. In the video the geology is geology of land far above and beyond the sea level. The geology of the seabed in the Gulf of Mexico is such that the material has the consistancy of butter. It is certainly not solid rock. The water at that depth gives it that much buoyancy such that the rocks are weightless. Anyone drilling into it disturbs it, such as we see, thus creating the problems we are looking at. In my opinion getting a nuclear warhead into position is impossible to accomplish, and anyway, if such an explosion could be accomplished, it would fracture the delicate seabed geology allowing even greater quantities of Oil and Methane to escape from the seabed geology. Worsening the situation rather than resolving the situation. Turning the entirety of the Gulf of Mexico into a lake of crude oil and suffocating methane gas with associated explosions and fire storms. It would be a nightmare even more of a nightmare than the one we are looking at already. A nuclear explosion at such depth would trigger a geological event in the nearby MICHOUD FAULT responsible for large areas of the State of Louisiana going underwater due to subsidence. It could cause New Orleans to disappear under the water. Usage of any such nuclear device would thus require that the entire coastal population be evacuated before detonation and for months afterwards. It would be a massive and extremely costly thing to do and probably resulting in more harm than good.

[edit on 31/5/2010 by CAELENIUM]

reply to post by carlitomoore


Not necessary a nuke, any explosive. Yeah there many more methods we could try, but our government(s) are too stupid to care. A star to you good sir.

reply to post by carlitomoore


Not only is the oil leak under the ocean, with what is it 5,000 feet underwater? But this particular well is close to the Michoud fault...

For those who don't know what the Michoud fault is...

The Michoud fault is a geological fault that runs through eastern New Orleans. [1] The Michoud fault is the subject of extensive scientific inquiry into why Louisiana is losing vast tracts of land. [2]

Subsurface mapping identified the Michoud fault, on the basis of well cutoffs and seismic surveys. [3] Sedimentary growth implies that movement along the Michoud fault has been intermittent since Oligocene time (Bebout and Gutierrez, 1983). A cross section in McBride (1998) shows a high-angle normal fault that was correlated by Dokka (2006) with the Michoud fault. This fault merges with a low-angle detachment fault at –7 km deep that developed along the top of a slightly south-dipping zone of weak salt and shale. These structures are considered to be related to a regional south-vergent extensional-contractional complex described by Peel et al. (1995; Fig. 1). Movement of the complex and thus on the Michaud fault reflects gravitational instabilities and down-dip motion during times of high sedimentation (Peel et al., 1995).

The Michoud fault belongs to a class of geologic structures known as growth faults (Mauduit, T., Brun, J. P. 1998). Growth faults are common geologic structures of regions undergoing high sedimentation rates, such as river deltas and passive margins. They often develop where weak rock layers (detachments) such as salt, anhydrite, or shale underlie regions of rapid sedimentation. These weak zones allow the growing mass of material above them to slide downhill, either continuously or episodically. These downslope movements will be correspondingly experienced in the headwall region (such as that occupied by the Michoud fault) either as slow (barely perceptible) or rapid (catastrophic) subsidence. Growth faults are also sometimes called "listric faults", implying that the fault is a concave-upward surface that transforms nearly vertical displacements at the surface into nearly horizontal ones at depth.

en.wikipedia.org...

But hey, let's go ahead and use a nuke there....

This fault is slowly sliding New Orleans into the gulf of Mexico, and that is not the only fault in that area.

[edit on 31-5-2010 by ElectricUniverse]

I don't really know if it would work, but couldn't they drill a hole next to the current hole, and join it at a deep point, pipe it off to relieve the pressure enough to cap the leak?

Save the well, and stop the leak at the same time? Don't criticize me, I don't know how it works, it just seems like it should work.

I live down here in New Orleans. Would you want a nuke to go off near your home? Doubt it. There are other problems that the video doesn't cover.

Depressurizing the continental shelves through oil and gas extraction will accelerate coastal subsidence as landward strata slump into the evacuated pockets that held the oil and gas.

Drilling in deeper and deeper water on the continental shelves means drilling closer and closer to the inflection point where the relatively gradual slope of the shelves plunges much more steeply to the oceanic abyss. In other words, the undisturbed strata that buttress the coastlines are getting thinner and thinner.

This can only lead to disaster. Should shelf subsidence cause the loose alluvial burden on the shelves to start to slide, what engineering marvel could prevent this moving silt from plunging into the abyss and generating a tsunami? Note that both sides of the Florida Strait, narrow and steep, are being actively considered for oil and gas extraction.

The shape of our main Gulf oil field south of Louisiana, long(east-west)and thin, indicates that a fairly contiguous volume of the sea floor is essentially being hollowed out.

Lots of oil/gas sites are similar to the mouth of the Mississippi. The mouth of the Rhine is a major gas producer, the Niger , the mouth of the Congo, the mouth of the Volga, the mouth of the Tigris-Euphrates, etc. All with loose semi-fluid alluvial deposits. Whatever the risk of subsidence-induced tsunamis, this situation is so commonplace the risk cannot be small.

The simple fact is that a lot of you clamoring for nuclear intervention simply haven't done your homework. You watch one video and form a conclusion.

I found an article a couple of days ago that speculated the Gulf of Mexico was formed by a asteroid causing an E.L.E. (extinction level event, that supposedly killed off the dinosaurs) If that did happen wouldn't you have to consider what the impact did to the surrounding area before setting off a nuke? I know that millions of years of plate shifting most likely cleaned it all up underneath but what if the makeup of the rock is different from other areas of the earth???!! I mean maybe the seabed is impacted and strong as hell from the impact long ago or maybe it's brittle as hell??? I'm not a geologist at all so let me know if I'm talkin stupid! It just kinda makes some sense to me. I will post a few quotes from it and here's the link....very interesting by the way!

Is the Gulf's Origin Heaven Sent? By MICHAEL S. STANTON
www.aapg.org...

❐a huge cosmic impact (asteroid or
comet) struck the area of the
present gulf in latest Permian
time, creating an immense
saucer-like crater, fracturing the
crust, metamorphosing the
underlying Paleozoic rocks
(impact melt?) and causing an
uplifted Moho due to rebound
tectonics.

❐ Impact metamorphosed
underlying Paleozoic sediments
and created down to basin
faulting and basinal grabens.

❐ Impact ruptured crustal
integrity, caused an uplifted
Moho by rebound tectonics and
probably induced deep-seated
radially-outward motions in the
ductile mantle. This area of
impact may have been the
trigger that initiated tripartite
continental separation (similar to
a triple junction).

Just a few VERY interesting lines from the article.....sounds like to me if this did happen the geology of that area could be different. I will have to look into it more. Gimme some feedback if I'm on to something! Thank you.


[edit on 31-5-2010 by jonnboi99]

reply to post by Desolate Cancer


When people first started talking about using a nuke, I was against it.

After learning more, and after seeing BP screwing up left and right, I think it may be our last hope.

With all of our bureaucracy, we better start planning the project NOW - whether we end up needing it or not.

I hope the LMRP will work. It looks good in graphics... sfgate.com but it looks like a partial fix.




[edit on 31-5-2010 by FearNoEvil]

How can people be against the use of a Nuke which would cause ZERO radiation output (as even if there was a leak from the initial fusion the G.O.M seabed would contain it through Tektike anyway.)

The Americans have used Thermonuclear weapons in the backyard for years over the Nevada Desert, yet theres cities, towns and public roads all built past many of the old test-beds.

A low-yield Nuke under the seabed off-shore is hardly going to blow the US off the face of the Earth, lets be realistic about that.

reply to post by Desolate Cancer


Don't know if this technology would work in the instance we have under the sea in the Gulf of Mexico. Frankly, it could cause more harm than good and make the leak worse.

BP screwed up digging a well so deep without following their own safety protocols.

I would not recommend this action as a "fix" for the situation at hand.

reply to post by ROBL240


Read what DrJay1975, some other members and I have posted before your response and you will see why it is a bad idea.

To show you a bit more how fragile this area of the sea floor is here is a drawing of the Michoud fault.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/df64dc400758.jpg[/atsimg]

Ooops, the image is too big. Will change it's size in a bit, but here is a link so you can see the entire drawing.

Link


[edited to change drawing size]


[edit on 31-5-2010 by ElectricUniverse]

wow, what an idea but very extreme and dangerous what if it fails like the rest of america

If you want to place a nuclear charge, you need to drill additional wells.

They are already drilling additional wells, these will be done in two months.

However, there is a conventional and proven solution with these other wells: inject heavy drilling fluid from lower down (intersecting the well). This will reduce the pressure at the top of the well as the dense drilling fluid displaces the lighter petroleum and gas. At that point, they will be able to cement the well shut. This is called "bottom kill". All the petroleum engineers consider this the permanent solution.

In sum, there is no way that a nuclear option could be available any sooner than the relief wells already being drilled.

Only in the unlikely event that the bottom kill fails (after many multiple attempts) would one even think about the next step, which is extremely risky based on what people are saying about the geology.

One time I had a gash in my arm that wouldnt stop bleeding so I put an M80 in it and blew it up. Guess what it worked! After we nuke the ocean and turn the fish into mutans we then should catch them and eat`em. Then we could put radiation on are cornflakes in the morning. I love being this smart..... What we should do as American citizens is band together and find who all is responsible and put them on trial for an attack on mankind.

Before the Hawks and Doomhounds, before those who really want to see the US fail, and before the Impulsive Non-Critical Thinkers jump on the bandwagon ... there are many things to consider, only a handful of which are:

1. BP can't sell radioactive oil.
2. The earthquake plates and zones.
3. Bikini Atoll - www.bikiniatoll.com... with it's water so sterile that fish cannot thrive.
4. A Nuke behaves different whether it is a groundburst, a seaburst or an airburst. www.fas.org...

The Russians have used nukes with success to stop oil leaks. A nuke wouldn't even be necessary, just a large conventional explosve would probably do the trick


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com


[edit on 31-5-2010 by Sf18443]