The US government has felt it necessary to rule out using a nuclear explosion to bring an end to the oil spill coming from a BP well in the Gulf of Mexico.
The idea of deploying a nuke to entomb a leaking well, reported last month by The First Post, originated in Russia, where it was used at least five times between 1966 and 1981.
The 1966 explosion, near Bukhara in Uzbekistan, used a 30-kiloton atom bomb to blow out and seal a burning gas well. (The bomb used in Hiroshima was 20 kilotons.) The principle behind the method is that heat from the explosion vitrifies the rock around the gas or oil, trapping it in its reservoir.
Following the bitter disappointment at the weekend when BP failed to cap the leaking Macondo oil well in a 'top kill' operation, the 'nuclear option' has been gaining support, with CNN and the New York Times both entertaining the notion.
A spokeswoman for the US Energy Department told the New York Times that neither Energy Secretary Steven Chu nor anyone else was thinking about a nuclear blast to stop the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The nuclear option was not - and never had been - on the table, officials said. One "senior official" said simply: "It's crazy."
Quite apart from the risk of a decades-long legacy of radiation, any deployment of nuclear weapons – peaceful or not – would be in violation of the comprehensive test ban treaty.
Luckily for BP, there are plenty of other ideas as to how to plug the oil well floating around. The company has received around 31,000 suggestions from the public – around 800 of which have been deemed worthy of forwarding to technical staff for consideration.
Suggestions have included plugging the pipe with a giant screw, using oil eating bacteria and filling giant plastic pillows with oil on the ocean floor.
Meanwhile, BP’s has overcome a setback in its latest attempt to contain the oil spill. A diamond-tipped saw that it was using to cut the damaged pipe above the well had become snagged, but has now been freed. Once the pipe is cut, a ‘top hat’ funnel will be lowered into position, allowing the oil to be captured and directed to a tanker on the sea’s surface.
Read more: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/64120,new ... z0qH3GvhJd
This is what the oil slick could look like in 82 days if they dont fix it soon ( 50th day) in to this oil spilling mess now and still looks like they dont know wtf they are doing ? What you guys think about all of this ?
