Shell Oil ex-CEO: Oil well might "NEVER STOP"; Suggests whole casing system is deteriorating

MSNBC vie You Tube ^ | June 23, 2010

[GonzoII]

Former Shell CEO John Hofmeister, MSNBC, June 23, 2010: 1:00 Hofmeister: ...

[Bon mots]

First of all, if you believe the Peak Oil myth and that ALL the oil can leak out of the Gulf, I can’t help you.

I do not.

But given that, I will believe the experts at The Oil Drum site, who do this work every day, rather than a FReeper on Google. They say it will not work. In fact, there is a good chance that it will make cracks and matters worse.

Regarding whether or not it will work... I don't know, my only point was that the nuclear radiation created from trying would not be any more harmful than the chemicals currently being released.

I am not a FReeper on "Google".

The title of this thread reports that a leading oil executive has claimed that this blowout may NEVER be capped. I assume never means until this particular well runs dry - NOT until all of the oil in the whole wide world leaks into the gulf.

So assuming that ALL of the oil from this particular well is about to leak out into the gulf over the next decade or more unabated, attempting to stop it with a nuke does not seem to be such a crazy option.

---

Other facts to consider about modern nuclear weapons:

A standard nuclear bomb releases energy as follows:
50% as blast;
35% as thermal radiation; made up of a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum, including infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light and some soft x-ray emitted at the time of the explosion; and
15% as nuclear radiation; including 5% as initial ionizing radiation consisting chiefly of neutrons and gamma rays emitted within the first minute after detonation, and 10% as residual nuclear radiation. Residual nuclear radiation is the hazard in fallout - this would negligible in an undersea/offshore blast.

Tremendous amounts of energy are released by even say a 20 KT nuke (a little bigger than the one used on Hiroshima) temperatures of several tens of million degrees celsius develop in the immediate area of the detonation. This is in marked contrast to the few thousand degrees of a conventional explosion.

Modern nuclear weapons can be "tuned" to produce less radiation and more heat/blast to fuse loose substrates.

Again, no guarantee it will work - but if the alternative is to stand and watch the entire well's contents spew into the gulf...

[nikos1121]

what if the casing itself has deteriorated, as has been suggested by this Shell guy.

[Notary Sojac]

To the "nuke it" posters here:

Are you aware of whether or not the US military has a nuke that is watertight and operable at 5000 feet below surface?

I'm open minded about the ides. Jus' wonderin'.

[Dusty Road]

Not much difference, if you can drill that close to it then just go ahead and drill into the well bore and cement from there. There's just no need for a nuke in this case.

[nikos1121]

What are they doing actually, crossing through the existing well hole?

[Bryan24]

I think you are on to the solution.

We should be pulling every deep water drilling rig we can find and start drilling relief wells, as many as possible.

Tell BP that since they didn’t follow proper procedure, they lose the rights to this field.

[nikos1121]

How a relief well works:

As BP drills two relief wells in the Gulf of Mexico, we look at the process involved
BP crews are drilling two relief wells in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) to stem the flow from the MC252 well.

BP has relief well contingency plans in place to allow the company to completely stop the flow of oil and gas from the well. These plans have now been called into action in the GoM.

A drilling rig drills a relief well or second well to intersect the original, flowing well as deeply as possible. A specialized heavy liquid is then pumped into the flowing well to bring it under control. This liquid is denser than oil and so exerts pressure (known as hydrostatic pressure) to suppress the flow of oil. Once the flow is stopped, cement is pumped into the well to completely
plug it.

Graphic depiction of BP’s progress in drilling two wells designed to intersect the original wellbore above the oil reservoir and allow heavy fluid to be pumped into the well and stop the oil from flowing

View high resolution image of the graphic (pdf, 700KB)
A relief well should be faster to drill than the original well thanks to the knowledge already gained about the geology and pressure in the reservoir. However, drilling a well of this nature presents many technical challenges to ensure that the flowing well is intersected in the right position and that the fluid and cement pumping operations are effective. BP has assembled a world-class team of experts from within the company and key specialists in the industry to ensure that the relief well operations are conducted safely and successfully.

A second relief well forms part of the contingency plans in case the first well encounters any delays. This means that progress can still be made to kill the flowing well should one drilling operation encounter a problem.

[Dusty Road]

what if the casing itself has deteriorated, as has been suggested by this Shell guy.

---

Now that is a possibility, with these pressures and the amount of fluid and sediment blowing back up-hole the chance of serious erosion is most likely taking place.

[Frantzie]

He is retired from Shell. He wants to do what is right for America and the industry. The Democrats want to do the right thing for the Saudis.

[kabar]

The relief wells (2) are the best solution if you believe the experts. All of the other stuff that has been tried were short term to buy time until the relief wells are finished. It will be early to mid-August before the wells are completed. There is some previous experience with such an oil spill.

The 2-mile-deep exploratory well, Ixtoc I, blew out on June 3, 1979 in the Bay of Campeche off Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico. By the time the well was brought under control in March, 1980, an estimated 140 million gallons of oil had spilled into the bay.

The Ixtoc 1 Oil leak was caused by a blowout , as with the Deepwater Horizon Spill. As with the current case, attempts were made on ixtoc to (a) cap the well with a kind of steel hat, (b) place cement and glass beads into the well and (c) drill relief wells into the leaking well. Only (c) was ultimately successful. The Ixtoc 1 well released Oil for approximately 10 months. BP is currently in phase (b) with Deepwater Horizon. A relief well is projected to be finished in August.

[EQAndyBuzz]

I don’t think the problem is stopping the leak. I think the problem is the politics of stopping the leak.

[The Theophilus]

Nowadays, nukes can be 'tuned' to produce lower amounts of radiation and more blast/heat

This isn't an episode of MacGyver.

Do you know how long it takes for a pot-hole to get filled? And there are allegedly dedicated teams of people paid to do just that sort of thing, and the level to staff that team isn't hard to find.

Let's say that you are the one with the bumper sticker that reads "There is no problem large enough that it can'be be fixed with high explosives." and because this is a large problem you want to use a large explosive. That is the core of your reason for doing this.

So miracle happen. First the Kenyan Post Turtle somehow cares to "Plug the Damn Hole". Since this is a dicatatorship now, that pretty much is the only executive obstacle. Then you get tasked with making this so.

Who are you going to call? Who do know has this kind of expertise, that is the ability to "tune" the nuke specifically for this environment and task? Do you think that Lockheed has an excel spreadsheet or a CAD template laying around that, only after punching in a few parameters will kick out a design? Do you think that they will do this without modeling it? Do you know how many years it takes just to design the model? And how long it takes just to get the data to feed, design and test the model?

What company do you know of out there, routinely futzes around with nuclear warheads, such where they can just pull down some parts and after Ol'Jimmy down in the shop mills out a couple parts, they can get that thing good-to-go in no time.

We are talking about a thermo-nuclear device. This isn't a case of thumbing through the yellow pages and negotiating a price and time you can get this service done. Who has access to these things? Do you really think that there are knobs and switches on the side of a nicely packaged microwave oven looking consumer friendly device where one just punches in the equivalent of "Popcorn" and then lobs the thing overboard into the ocean where it will simply do the trick like a Mission Impossible scene?

Who has the expertise in both deep sea geology and thermonuclear "tuning" ? And intuitively knows the hidden peculiarities of both the GOM and the off-the-shelf thermonuclear warhead. You want them to design this from scratch? If it was so easy, why doesn't everyone have one?

Do you think that we have stockpiles of these devices laying around that are designed to withstand the huge amount of pressure of ocean water, then jammed down a pipe for over mile, and somehow still detonate? Did the Soviets, in those Propaganda films have that sort of thing?

Seriously, even if one could staff a team of people with passing acquaintence to the task at hand, is this something that they could whip out over the weekend? Remember the pot-hole reference. All one needs is an illegal alien, a truck, a shovel and some asphalt, and that takes months to get taken care of. We need a specially "tuned" bomb that can handle the water pressure and being jammed down over a mile into the seafloor. We need a delivery system (this isn't exactly FedEx or even Haliburton's specialty), then we need a real damned good excuse in hand when the sea floor opens with hundreds of fissures spead over a large area, all spewing forth oil.

We can't even build a skyscraper that was knocked down nearly a decade ago, and the world has thousands upon thousands of people who have direct experience in designing and constructing office buildings.

Where in the world would you find, assemble, direct and manage a team that could come up with the perfect solution, construct a device that uses technology made to rapidly destroy cities, in a marine environment that even BP or the government doesn't even understands. Remember, whoever gets this project is surely corrupt and is somehow connected to this Chicago or this regime so they can make billions of profit from it. And what happens when everything goes to Hell, who is going to eat the blame? Anyone who has been awake for the past couple years should know by now that this regime accepts no blame for anything, and ALWAYS has a scapegoat and will demonize that party right out of business. I don't know how exactly they can pin a thermonuclear FUBAR event on George Bush. And I have no idea how or why anyone would bid this project. Do you know how many months it takes just to write a government proposal? Can you imagine the bid process?

Really, this isn't Hollywood. Let the oil experts, the real ones, not the imaginary ones, do that which is all we have the marginal technology to do - drill relief wells.

[The Theophilus]

Perhaps you have overlooked this simple fact, but the genetic makeup of your family is changing constantly. It’s from marriage and procreation, not nuclear testing

You are making broad and unwarranted assumptions regarding the diversity of their procreation partner's genetic makeup.

[driftdiver]

“Nobody knows what it will really do, but if we are consigned to simply watching ALL of the oil leak out into the Gulf, nuking it does not seem to be such a longshot.”

First, the relief wells are making good progress and will have the well closed off well before this nuke could be put in place.

Second, the fact that nobody knows what it will really do isn’t good supporting evidence to use a nuke.

I guess BP is so incompetent that we might as well compound the situation.

[IMR 4350]

Do you show me any kind of follow up on these wells after they were nuked, say 20 yrs later, as to whether or not it was a 100% seal or simply not leaking as much?

[Bon mots]

Who do know has this kind of expertise, that is the ability to "tune" the nuke specifically for this environment and task?

We already have them. The technology to do this is very old.

Do you think that Lockheed has an excel spreadsheet or a CAD template laying around that, only after punching in a few parameters will kick out a design? Do you think that they will do this without modeling it? Do you know how many years it takes just to design the model? And how long it takes just to get the data to feed, design and test the model?

We already have them in the stockpile.
The US nuclear stockpile is still over 5000 very sophisticated weapons already "tuned" to do everything except produce high amounts of neutron radiation (Carter blocked the 'neutron bomb'). The peak us stockpile was over 30,000 nuclear and thermonuclear weapons - every kind of design imaginable has already been developed and exists.

We are talking about a thermo-nuclear device.

No we are not.
Thermonuclear devices use nuclear fusion. We are talking about a much smaller fissionable device.

Who has access to these things?

The US Military.
Even after many weapons were dismantled - certain W80 weapons would have been suitable - some of the best for this task have been dismantled - there are still plenty of nukes on the shelf.

US Nuclear Inventory

Do you think that we have stockpiles of these devices laying around that are designed to withstand the huge amount of pressure of ocean water, then jammed down a pipe for over mile, and somehow still detonate?
Of course we do! Our nuclear inventory
The pressure is irrelevant. A BOP was delivered to that depth and was able to mostly function... or not.
A nuclear bomb is a very simple device and a VERY heavy one that is not harmed by pressures. It is not a firecracker that will become waterlogged and not light. W80 Did the Soviets, in those Propaganda films have that sort of thing?
Yes. They stopped bad spills with nukes, hence this discussion.

Where in the world would you find, assemble, direct and manage a team that could come up with the perfect solution, construct a device that uses technology made to rapidly destroy cities, in a marine environment that even BP or the government doesn't even understands.

There is no perfect solution. This thread assumes that this well will spew oil until it is dry, so more holes would not necessarily worsen it - if it is all going to leak out anyway.

Dial-a-Yield capability of modern nuclear weapons

The W80 is physically quite small, the "physics package" itself is about the size of a conventional Mk.81 250 lb (113 kg) bomb, 11.8 inches (30 cm) in diameter and 31.4 inches (80 cm) long, and only slightly heavier at about 290 lb (132 kg).

YES, Armorers have the ability to select the yield of the resulting explosion in-flight, a capability sometimes referred to as "dial-a-yield" but more properly variable yield. At one end of the scale, perhaps using just the boosted fission primary, the W80 has destructive power equivalent to around 5 kilotons of TNT; at the other end, the yield is equivalent to around 150 kt.

So, yes - you can simply punch in the yield you need for the job. No spreadsheet necessary. This can be done IN-FLIGHT!

[seeker41]

Oh geeze, the seafloor is totally different then a land based oil well blowout....Nuke is the worst option imaginable due to the methane in the water and below the seabed. Do you want to collapse the continental shelf which would displace seawater causing huge Tsunamis that would wipe out states on the coast? Stop with the nuke idea!

[Bon mots]

I should mention, the nuke would not be shoved down the same hole, we cannot get anything down that hole as it is spewing petroleum at high pressure.

A hole of say 1000 feet can be drilled next to it and the nuke dropped down it.

Again, nobody knows if it will work... but if the alternative is to stand on the gulf shore and watch ALL of the oil spew out unabated for the next decade (or three) as this thread implies... it is worth serious consideration.

[The Theophilus]

Thermonuclear devices use nuclear fusion. We are talking about a much smaller fissionable device...The W80 is physically quite small...a capability sometimes referred to as "dial-a-yield"

The W80 is a thermonuclear device.

Ok, I stand corrected. There is a button on the side of the bomb for "Plug the Damn Hole". Just chuck the thing off the side of the boat and while it is 'in-flight' we instruct it to only plug the hole and not cause the bottom of the sea to be an oil/methane version of the Bellagio Fountains

[Bon mots]

More on "Dial-A-Yield" nuclear weapons.

If I remember correctly, this is done by varying the coverage of the beryllium shield surrounding the core fissionable material. Much like how a variable capacitor worked in old radios, the berrylium shield boosts the yield of a nuclear device.

Thin plates or foils of beryllium are used in nuclear weapon designs as the very outer layer of the plutonium pits in the primary stages of thermonuclear bombs, placed to surround the fissile material. These layers of beryllium are good "pushers" for the implosion of the plutonium-239, and they are also good neutron reflectors.

Much in the same way an old radio was tuned, a nuke can also be tuned using a variable beryllium shield.