Should BP Nuke its Leaking Well? | Hacker News Reader

Should BP Nuke its Leaking Well?

scientificamerican.com

11 pointsduncanj26 comments

An ex BP oil engineer (who I know) used the following words when I asked him about it:

dear god no, it would be horrific

His opinion is that the geology in the region would not take a massive explosion well and the most likely result (he admits it could plug/slow the well) would be a large number of cracks/channels deep underground that would seep up through the sea floor and be pretty much unstoppable.

also, I understand there are a lot more oil rigs near the disaster site... So I guess a nuke would mean a halt in oil production, and maybe a worst problem...

The problem with questions like this is that you need knowledge from a variety of areas in order to offer a well informed answer. I mean, how much can a BP oil engineer know about exploding a nuclear bomb underground? I'd imagine that there are only a handful of scientists around the globe who have worked directly with exploding nuclear devices, and even fewer who have studied the effects such explosions on underwater geology. There are entire fields of study dedicated to the effects of explosions on geology, but they deal with relatively small explosions, and the results simply don't scale to things like 30 kiloton nuclear detonations.

For me, this is what makes the answer a "no". We simply do not know what the results will be. There aren't enough trustworthy experts. As much as relations have improved with Russia, I don't think we can trust their advice in this situation. From a policy perspective, they have a history of putting results before safety.

I am told that there has been occasions when explosions are used to either break or cap wells - not this deep (as you say). But the point is that there is experience in such an activity; and those people seem to be pretty much saying the same as yourself (we don't have the experience)

"I don't know what BP is waiting for, they are wasting their time."

I don't think it is really up to BP whether or not to set off a nuclear bomb in the Gulf of Mexico, even if they happened to have one in their repertoire.

And after their mismanagement of this crisis, thank God corporations aren't allowed to possess nuclear weapons.

Do you really believe that governments are more responsible than corporations? What do governments manage better than corporations? When something does go wrong at least corporations can be held responsible while governments can claim sovereign immunity, like the Mexican oil company did with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixtoc_I_oil_spill .

When talking about nuclear fucking weapons???

Are you serious?

The short answer: no. The slightly longer answer: no, they can't, only the US government could do that and nobody is going to sign off on the risks associated with possible side effects of doing this.

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

What could possibly go wrong ?

No, but I'm strongly in favor of a plan to nuke the moon. That thing's been looking at me the wrong way for years now.

I've long had that pegged as the ultimate terrorist act. Wait, wasn't that the plot of Superman 2 or something?

I think a James Bond villain tried to draw his name on the moon.

I know Chairface did in an episode of The Tick... he only managed to write "CHA" though.

the Lunabomber?

It was a skit on Mr. Show - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csj7vMKy4EI

[comic store guy] Worst. Idea. Ever. [/comic store guy]

>Prof Ershaghi says: "A nuclear blast would not fuse the pipe under the cooling effect of water but rather would create a crater and would make it impossible to control the flow."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10268979.stm.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dk-matai/gulf-of-mexico-danger...

That this is even a remote possibility suggests that, no, big explosions should not be used. 1 in 10^9 is still too risky.

tl;dr: Some cigar-smoking fat cat with a history in the nuclear industry, as well as assuredly well-read bloggers, consider the nuke the ultimate solution to a very thorny problem.

BP are so incompetent that they can not even control a robot without hitting something, nor place a cap over the leak, nor even accurately estimate how much oil is leaking.

Giving them a nuclear weapon is not a good idea.

Probably harder than it sounds.

Analogy: Look at that stupid NBA guy. All he has to do is throw the ball in the hoop. How hard can that be? Jeez, how incompetent. :P

It's more like BP has 100's of world-class NBA basketball players at their disposal, and billions of dollars of cash to pay for equipment and basketball training, and yet not one of their basketball players has been able to make this basket. wiff. wiff. this will certainly work. wiff. optimistic this will work. wiff. it's under control. wiff. i just want my life back. wiff. :)

Ha. Good point.

However, I read a comment somewhere whose author mused that BP probably invests heavily in the discovery & extraction department, and very little in cleanup. May or may not be true, sounds plausible.

Why am I not surprised a Russian is proposing a nuclear solution? I swear, Russia and nuclear goes together like peanut butter and jelly.

That's a fairly one-dimensional view of Russia.

I think its amazing how with all the Ivy League Scientists that have been thrown at this leak, none have managed to effect a brilliant solution to this problem that can actually work. Maybe we need to rethink exactly what qualifies someone as smart in this world. They had Bill Nye, James, Cameron, and even Kevin Costner there. LOL. Despite the enormous pool of intelligence that now collects BP checks for failing to "solve" this problem, only the most basic juvenile and idiotic suggestions emerge, like Nuking the drill site. Wow. Megafailure.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com