Nuke the BP well? Idea has backers, but more critics
Russian experience touted — and ridiculed; radiation, bigger blowout, time are factors
MOSCOW/WASHINGTON — His face wracked by age and his voice rasping after decades of chain-smoking coarse tobacco, the former long-time Russian minister of nuclear energy and veteran Soviet physicist Viktor Mikhailov knows just how to fix BP's oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.
"A nuclear explosion over the leak," he says nonchalantly puffing a cigarette as he sits in a conference room at the Institute of Strategic Stability, where he is a director. "I don't know what BP is waiting for, they are wasting their time. Only about 10 kilotons of nuclear explosion capacity and the problem is solved."
A nuclear fix to the leaking well has been touted online and in the occasional newspaper op-ed for weeks now. Washington has repeatedly dismissed the idea and BP execs say they are not considering an explosion — nuclear or otherwise. But as a series of efforts to plug the 60,000 barrels of oil a day gushing from the sea floor have failed, talk of an extreme solution refuses to die.
For some, blasting the problem seems the most logical answer in the world. Mikhailov has had a distinguished career in the nuclear field, helping to close a Soviet Union program that used nuclear explosions to seal gas leaks. Ordinarily he's an opponent of nuclear blasts, but he says an underwater explosion in the Gulf of Mexico would not be harmful and could cost no more than $10 million. That compares with the $3 billion BP has paid out in cleanup and compensation costs so far. "This option is worth the money," he says.
And it's not just Soviet boffins. Milo Nordyke, one of the masterminds behind U.S. research into peaceful nuclear energy in the 1960s and '70s says a nuclear explosion is a logical last-resort solution for BP and the government. Matthew Simmons, a former energy adviser to U.S. President George W. Bush and the founder of energy investment-banking firm Simmons & Company International, is another calling for the nuclear option.
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9 comments:
The Soviets have used nukes to quell out of control wells but they have all been ABOVE GROUND.
This well is on the side of a mountain under the sea. The pressure is larger than any oil well ever drilled because the well has struck a massive oil deposit.
It is possible that the well cannot be stopped. The government and BP are working on solutions in private because the implications of this well are horrific.
In the meantime Americans are breathing toxic fumes (benzene) in the Gulf region. It should be evacuated.
I dont think the Government and the people down in the gulf want to do this. I think everyone is interested in those blow out preventers, and if they were truly defective and BP knew...Many of the workers on the rig have stated that the problems were well reported to BP before the accident happened, and BP is stead fast in deninig those charges... I do believe that they were considering a NAVY dive team to complete that mission,(blowing the well) but they really want the "black box" which in this case seems to stem around the blow out protecters.
What we need to be doing is Screaming at the top of our lungs and the Obama adminatration to get kicking ass (his words) He has the power to suspend all the hang ups in the clean up operation under executive order and has 30-45days before congress can really stop him...I think they need to stop worring about "someone else making profit on BP's oil".....and worry about getting more skimmers, and all the boats that are sitting idle waiting for BS paperwork....
I want to make sure everyone remembers this .....in Nov two years from now.... but...Until this Country gets a real leader (not a celebrity) who can make the tough dessions needed, for the people , by the people and not some party affiliation or special interest group
We should do whatever is going to result in the least ecological damage.
I've always supported offshore drilling, but what good is oil if the area is polluted to the point it can't support life and the area's economy is annihilated as a result of spills?
It would take a strong leader to make such a decision . We don't have one !
I think we should try stuffing it with the useless politicians in DC,. but wait, we would need a larger hole...
No. It would KILL everything in the Gulf.
Well, the truth is Russia has only tried it on wells on dry land. And only 2 out of 6 were actually successful in sealing the well(They claim a higher success rate but 3 started to leak again, 1 did not even work temporarily). It's a crapshot, not a silver bullet.
yea they cant even drill a good oil well and you want to give them a nuclear device. brilliant
Prediction: the oil will not be stopped for at least 3 more months..at least. Maybe another 5. Neither BP nor Obama will, or wants to, reveal the true nature of that issue. They are lost and without a clue....notice how every couple of weeks they issue a NEW timetable for capping the well....because they still don't know if they can do it at all and STILL aren't sure of how much oil is ACTUALLY gushing out.
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