Dumb question: How about evacuating and then blowing up the ship?
Yes, the loss of the ship and all its cargo will be immense, but that seems to be dwarfed by the damage the blocked canal causes.
Yes, the loss of the ship and all its cargo will be immense, but that seems to be dwarfed by the damage the blocked canal causes.
Turns out: the container ship __itself__ is the easiest way to move all of that debris out. And its already packed and loaded.
> the container ship __itself__ is the easiest way to move all of that debris out.
Well, evidently not if it is stuck.
Yup.
...I mean, come on. After the last five years, it wouldn't even be the craziest thing to happen.
I admit, fallout could be a problem though, especially with all the other ships in close proximity.
A nuclear explosion probably would damage the canal itself. But its said that USS LSM-60's pieces were never found again...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_LSM-60
Just 170 yards away was USS Arkansas, a battleship. The hull mostly survived (though was deformed and melted).
Like that old Mythbusters episode where they blow up a car twice
I think the Earth could use just ONE MORE nuclear crater..
Look at the aftermath of the Beirut explosion. The metal frame of the building the explosion happened in is still lying there.
The blast radius of an explosion scales with the cube root of the energy of the explosion. So if you want to make the hole twice as big, you need eight times as much explosives. To create a hole the size of a large container ship, you'll need a nuke. A pretty big one too. The Ever Given is 400m long, the crater left by the Trinity test (22kt) was 390m across.
Modern weapons can be very clean. :]