The 'bomb' must be placed very deep under the seafloor to cause the collapse of enough material to seal off the well. That requires a hole drilled for inserting the bomb. How long will that take?
You can't just let any Thomas, Richard, or Harold handle the bomb. They have to be trained and then pass government certification.
Then there is the issue of a foreign owned company being allowed to use nukes within our territorial waters. That means the 'government' must give approval. How long will that take? (longer than the required drilling, which would take at least several months)
Of course, we could just let the government takeover the drilling of the hole for the nuke, and the insertion. Nothing could go wrong there....
We might be better off to try a low altitude nuke burst over the coastal areas and hope that it burns away the oil.
Maybe Obama could appoint a CZAR to oversea this activity.
OOPS. I see from today's headline that he already is in the process of doing so. You will hear about it tonight during his speech.
Maybe I haven’t yet earned my PHD in Nuclear Oil Leak Recovery Management (NOLRM for short), but I was thinking more along the lines of a detonation above the sea floor. Underground nuclear explosions tend to create large caverns, whereas I think the shockwave and melting of the sea floor from an underwater explosion would seal any holes. There have been underwater nuclear tests before, and at some point doing something is better than nothing. However, I don’t think I can foot the bill myself if it backfires.