Matthew Simmons on CNBC: Only way to stop the gusher is a "small nuke"

CNBC "Fast Money"

[drangundsturm]

Imagine the impact on tourism and fishing even if it is "relatively safe."

[thefactor]

Imagine the impact on tourism and fishing if the well isn’t shut off.

[SnakeDoctor]

Haha. Lets go with a plan lifted straight from the movie Armageddon.

SnakeDoc

[PGR88]

I can imagine Iran also saying - we need nukes for our oil and gas industry also!

[Paleo Conservative]

This is stupid. A nuke would contaminate the oil still in the reservoir for tens of thousands of years.

[drangundsturm]

Well yes that thought crossed my mind, seems we’re damned either way.

I forgot to mention, Simmons also said BP should be kicked out of the operation and it should be handed over to the US Military. He said the big equipment manufacturers (Schlumberger, Haliburton) are the ones with all the know-how anyway and they would prefer to work for the military than BP.

[avacado]

" explosion would occur 20,000 feet from the surface"

Huh? Which surface? It's only in 5000 feet of water.

[OregonTide]

Imagine exploding a nuke, for any reason on Obama’s watch...ironic?

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

We can tell Iran that we would be glad to nuke any of their oil wells anytime they need it done.

[deadrock]

What about setting up another platform and drilling a new welland suck out of that one at a higher pressure than the hole that is leaking? Too simple?

[JRandomFreeper]

Imagine the impact on tourism and fishing if the well isn’t shut off.

Imagine the impact on tourism and fishing if the nuke fractures a major reservoir and spews billions of gallons of oil instead of the flow that currently exists. Imagine instead of one leak at the sea floor, hundreds. Imagine letting the engineers that know what they are doing alone so they can work without idiots wanting to nuke the gulf.

/johnny

[DCPatriot]

I have read that the reason a nuke may not work on this leak is that the seabed is very fragmented.

[drangundsturm]

This is stupid. A nuke would contaminate the oil still in the reservoir for tens of thousands of years.

True but do you think the US Government is ever again going to let anybody drill there anyway? At least not in our lifetimes.

We should be drilling on land and coastal waters not out in the middle of the ocean anyway.

[GonzoGOP]

A sea floor blast is actually worse than an atmospheric blast as far as contamination is concerned. Most of the areas used for above ground testing in Nevada are safe from radiation today. They set off an ocean floor test on Bikini Atoll in 1946. And the area is still "hot" and the plant and animal life on the island are still contaminated. So go ahead and do this only if you can guarantee that none of the fish shrimp or crabs that swim through the contaminated area in the next 60 years will stray into areas where they can get caught. Or if they know how to clean it up go clean up Bikini as a proof of concept.

[JRandomFreeper]

The only other president that used nukes for effect was a democrat.

/johnny

[OldDeckHand]

"This is stupid. A nuke would contaminate the oil still in the reservoir for tens of thousands of years."

Probably not. The oil is still thousands (tens-of-thousands) of feet beneath where the well head is. The small nuke would theoretically collapse the well onto istelf, sealing the hole, but still a LONG ways from the oil itself.

And, here's a picture of downtown Hiroshima today. Just saying...

[Political Junkie Too]

-PJ

[buccaneer81]

That’s the plan. But it will take until August to complete. I think the nuke idea will soon look better than watching the wellhead spew for another two months.

[Joe 6-pack]

"What about setting up another platform and drilling a new welland suck out of that one at a higher pressure than the hole that is leaking? Too simple?"

That's precisely what the Relief Wells are that they're talking about...only problem is it's going to take about two months to get the equipment in place and operational to drill them.

[dennisw]

It just might come down to nuking the oil well. But sadly only after 2 more months of gushing and pollution and ruination. Nuking will only be done if the relief wells fail or work half assed