Could an atomic bomb stop the Gulf Oil Leak? | Hacker News Reader

Could an atomic bomb stop the Gulf Oil Leak?

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30 pointsjaybol44 comments

I'd suggest everyone itching to push their pet theory first READ the informed discussion over at the theoildrum.com. Industry knowledge, not eco-hand-wringing, gives this a BIG thumbs down.

"Suggesting an idea that has been consistently rejected for its several weak points literally dozens of times on this site alone, is an indicator that you havent been really paying attention. In short, explosions will not work because the bottom of the GOM is mud, for thousands of feet below the surface. any explosion at the surface will only make the problem worse. any explosion in the well shaft will only make the problem worse. Its been suggested to think of the bottom as a bowl of pudding, there is no way to use explosives to seal it up. it just doesnt work that way.

While its a common lust for most people to wanna blow up any problem they cant solve and seems to work pretty well for America in the past, it will not work here." http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6531#comment-634447

While its a common lust for most people to wanna blow up any problem they cant solve and seems to work pretty well for America in the past, it will not work here.

I'm convinced! This sure sounds informed to me!

I should think that industry knowledge has lost a little bit its cachet in recent months.

http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2010/05/rachel-maddow-crucifie...

I'm sure it has.

But it's kind of like a lot of engineering fields. As reported in the NYTimes, engineers reported the risks and management made the decision to ignore those risks.

So I'd still suggest that if those deeply involved with drilling oil say nuking the well is fucking stupid idea, then it's a fucking stupid idea - especially since already sounds like a fucking stupid idea. Perhaps it would work in a MacGyver movie.

Actually the technidue isn't to blow it up on the surface. It is to blow it up 14,000 ft below the well in order to collapse it in on itself. The russians have done this 6 times and been successful 5 times.

This reminds me of Centralia, Pennsylvania, where an underground coal fire has been burning since 1962. It will probably burn for another 150 years or so. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania

What could possibly go wrong?

Oil could start leaking into the ocean.

You would still have to drill another hole, which would take the same amount of time as a relief well.

A shallower hole, which would take less time.

Does anyone know the breakdown of how much time each part of drilling a relief well takes? Prep vs Equip Deployment vs Drilling vs etc?

Perhaps someone here is familiar with the natural structure of oil reservoirs, such as the one that is currently spewing forth in the Gulf. I would be interested to know if they would fear, as I do, that nuking the reservoir would effectively just blow the top open.

(very much not an expert)

I think the reservoir itself it much deeper than the effect of the explosion would reach.

Yeah... we're talking about miles of rock... There's no way you're going to blow an opening between the reservoir and the sea-floor.

Why does it have to be an atomic bomb? I'm no explosives expert, but I think it is very likely that one could find a non-atomic bomb with the necessary power.

A narrower hole, which would take less time.

I am surprised no one has mentioned Godzilla. Seriously though what about the effects on marine life if they miscalculate?

Modern nukes have very precise control over their yield. The idea is to explode it deep in the rocks under the bottom of the ocean.

If they miscalculate by a couple percent, nothing weird happens. I doubt they could miscalculate by the orders of magnitude required to do real damage to the ocean.

It would be very unlucky to hit a natural nuclear reactor...

Might be an idea to read "Engineering with Nuclear Explosives":

http://www.archive.org/details/engineeringwithn00plowrich

[Edited to point to archive page, rather than the PDF].

Warning: 66mb pdf.

Wouldn't that cause a tsunami?

Some nuclear weapons had relatively small yields - as low as 10 tons of TNT:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Munit...

Do not call the Russians then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

Woa - that was a big bomb. 35km blast radius.

Is it just me, or is there a fair bit of inconsistency on that page? Notably, the fireball is listed as being: 8km diameter, 3.5km radius, and 2.3km radius.

could have caused third degree burns 100 km (62 miles) away

That's big, all right. Wow.

It would depend on how far down the bomb was placed. There are a lot of nuclear test craters in Nevada, in fact there's a museum in Las Vegas about it which is very interesting. But most of those craters were from explosions only hundreds of feet deep (back then the environmental risks of nuclear testing were not as widely appreciated).

This image from FAS suggests that below 1000' the surface disturbance and resulting water displacement would be minimal: http://www.fas.org/faspir/2001/v54n1/sm_crater_depth.gif

Physics problem:

Assume of a wave of water 1 meter wide, 3 meters tall, and which hits at least 80% of the coastline of the gulf of mexico. Compute the gravitational potential energy in this wave. Now compare to the energy of a nuke.

(I haven't bothered to do this calculation. But last time I did it, when dispelling conspiracy theories about the last tsunami, it was several orders of magnitude too small.)

I hope this is viewed as a last resort. Not because I have any fear of the nuke itself, but because if it fails it could easily make the leak quite literally unstoppable / uncontainable by spreading it.

We are at last resorts.

But this is no sort whatsoever.

It would cause less harm to set off a nuke at a randomly chosen location to symbolize our frustration.

We are at last resorts.

After trying a couple things (or is it just Top Kill that's been attempted)? Hardly. According to [1], they've spent ~1 billion so far, and part of that is paying people off, not fixing the problem. Surely the damage will be many many times higher than that, especially when factoring in ecological damage and future repercussions - they could get more groups involved, it's pretty much just BP doing all this, with their money. They have no interest in fixing it as-fast-as-possible-and-damn-the-costs, just in saving face (ie, "fast enough") and surviving the costs (ie, don't over-do a solution).

Not saying they're deliberately delaying, just that they don't wish to commit economic suicide if it can be avoided. Meanwhile, everything dies, and hurricane season is coming.

[1] : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international-busin...

BTW a hurricane in the area is probably the best thing that could happen. It will totally clean all the shores for us.

It will also oxygenate the water.

Remember the oil is not eternal, it's very biodegradable. If you can spread it out with enough oxygen it will all be gone.

> We are at last resorts.

No we aren't. In one month the well is almost guaranteed to be closed when the relief well is completed. Lets not rush to do something irreversible.

Why can't a huge concrete block stop the leak?

The oil pressure is so high that a 5 mile tall mud (twice the density of water) needed to be pumped into the well, as its own pressure was not enough. The involved forces are incredible.

Could you rephrase?

(What is "a 5 mile tall mud"?)

Column, I'm guessing.

The mud gets pressure from being piped down from the surface - if it is twice the density of water, then that's the double to ambient pressure on the bottom.

Of course, the failure of the top kill didn't necessarily come from an inability to get enough pressure but from the limits of how to pressure could be applied - but of course, we don't know for sure why the top killed failed and possibly neither does BP. It's miles into the ocean where methane-oxides become solid.

Correct re. Column. I miss words sometimes, even when re-reading what I have written.

I suspected pressure was too high, but how exactly high? Wouldn't a nuke blast essentially shut the vent with rocks? So there must be a threshold for how heavy that concrete slab should be. Also, what is '5 mile tall mud'? A column of mud 5 mile high (how wide, how dense) equivalent of pressure?

5,000 to 7,000 psi. At about twenty feet wide.

If my calculations are right, you need about 30,000 metric tons of weight to stop it. And don't forget whatever you put down there will also float because of the water. So you need even more weight.

Thanks! That put it into a perspective for me. According to http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=titanic+weight Titanic weight was 53,149 tons.

It can wipe out the entire ecosystem of that area as well.

That's already done.

The ecosystem of the deep-underground geology? (As hypothesized, blast products might not even reach the sea floor.)

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