Why don't we just drop a nuclear bomb on the Gulf oil spill?

The Christian Science Monitor ^ | 5/19/2010 | Jeremy Hsu

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Using a nuclear explosion to try to plug the gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico might sound like overkill, but a Russian newspaper has suggested just that based on past Soviet successes. Even so, there are crucial differences between the lessons of the past and the current disaster unfolding. .The Russians previously used nukes at least five times to seal off gas well fires. A targeted nuclear explosion might similarly help seal off the oil well channel that has leaked oil unchecked since the sinking of a BP oil rig on April 22, according to a translation of the account in the daily newspaper Komsomoloskaya Pravda by Julia Ioffe of the news website True/Slant. Weapons labs in the former Soviet Union developed special nukes for use to help pinch off the gas wells. They believed that the force from a nuclear explosion could squeeze shut any hole within 82 to 164 feet (25 to 50 meters), depending on the explosion's power. That required drilling holes to place the nuclear device close to the target wells. A first test in the fall of 1966 proved successful in sealing up an underground gas well in southern Uzbekistan, and so the Russians used nukes four more times for capping runaway wells. "The second 'success' gave Soviet scientists great confidence in the use of this new technique for rapidly and effectively controlling ran away gas and oil wells," according to a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) report on the Soviet Union's peaceful uses of nuclear explosions.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Ping

[Smokin' Joe]

Where’s the ‘Oh, Jeez....’ guy when you need him?

[Gaffer]

Can’t help myself....Yes, I’m thinkin of somebody droppin’ one, but not on the oil spill.

[rednesss]

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

This is such a great topic

[RedRedRose]

Yes. Let’s nuke ourselves. The Russians think it’s a good idea.

[Keli Kilohana]

Do you remember when some guy came up with the idea to blow up a dead beached whale? That’s why.

[Smokin' Joe]

Yeah! That’s what I’m talking about! (THANKS!)

[Rastus]

No, but here’s an entry about it:

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

[Sooth2222]

YouTube on the exploding whale

http://www.theexplodingwhale.com/

Dave Barry on the exploding whale

[ctdonath2]

Simple: nukes make big holes. The whole point is to NOT have a big hole there.

As for the Russian saying how well it worked, he’s only talking about the cases where it worked, not the ones where it didn’t.

[Condor51]

Why don't we just drop a nuclear bomb on the Gulf oil spill?

Uh, I don't think that's a good idea

[libertylover]

As I recall, the big leak was started by....an EXPLOSION!

[Adder]

OOOO

Then we could market “Wild Caught Glowing Gulf Shrimp”. Has a better ring to it than “Gulf Shrimp, packed in oil”.

[dennisw]

[KarlInOhio]

I heard someone on radio talking about it (Sorry, I forget the source) and he said that the type of shale in the well is more likely to shatter than just melt and resoldify, thus causing a much larger area to leak. He could have been right or he could have been talking out of his backside, I don't know which.

[USS Alaska]

We should first test fire it in Tehran.

[valkyry1]

People who suggest that do not understand the geology of the Gulf, anything about this well, or the conditions at 5,000 feet of water in the Gulf.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

The title of this article is misleading. The Russians never dropped any bombs ON their run away wells, but drilled deep down adjacent to them, inserted a low yield nuclear device, and detonated it underground.

Here's the video (scroll down below the poll):

Archival Footage Of A Soviet Nuke Plugging A Leaking Gas Well