Slog
News & ArtsTuesday, June 15, 2010
News The Nuclear Option
Posted by Dan Savage on Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 9:45 PM
NYT:
A government panel raised its estimate of the flow rate from BP’s damaged well yet again on Tuesday, declaring that as much as 60,000 barrels a day could be gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. The flow was already categorized as the largest offshore oil spill in the nation’s history, but the new figures sharply increase previous estimates. Scientists on Tuesday estimated that the flow rate ranged from 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day—up from the rate they issued only last week, of 25,000 to 30,000 barrels a day. It continues a pattern in which every new estimate of the flow rate has been dramatically higher than the one before.
How long before the nuclear option is back on the table? Seems to me that if we're going to have to nuke the thing in the end... well, we might as well nuke it sooner rather than later.
1
You like this idea precisely because every single expert who has devoted decades of their lives to studying the subject is appalled at the mere suggestion of such stupid idea? You want nuking offshore oil well leaks to be the pit bull ban of environmental disaster policy? Is it just the Draconian nature of the solution that sexes it up for you?
Because this can't be a discussion of the so called "merits" of this dumb, dumb, dumb fucking idea. Please let this only be a discussion of the psychology of those who would consider using a nuclear bomb this way.
Why do I bother? Carry on.
Because this can't be a discussion of the so called "merits" of this dumb, dumb, dumb fucking idea. Please let this only be a discussion of the psychology of those who would consider using a nuclear bomb this way.
Why do I bother? Carry on.
5
I assume this keeps coming up because they Russians did for several out of control natural gas wells back in the 60s. Take the time to look at what they did, they didn't simply drop a nuke on the well, they had to carefully drill a relief well that intersected with the out-of-control well and then they collapsed the well underground. So in other words, we would still need weeks of drilling at a minimum before we'd be ready to do that, even if it was a good idea.
6
It's my understanding that the only ones who've had this kind of deepwater well blowout are the Russians. And that they used a nuke to stop the flow. This simply comes down to lesser of two evils and some extremely bad PR for everyone involved...
8
No one has ever used a nuke to seal an underwater well. The Soviets did it for dry gas wells 5 times, and it worked for 4 of those. The nuke wasn't just sitting on the ground, it was placed at the bottom of a freshly drilled shaft, and sealed in with concrete. We'd still need to wait for the relief well to be drilled -- a much, much wider relief well. And then invent a whole new science of placing a nuclear device a mile underwater.
Speaking as anything but an expert, everything I've been able to dig up points to this being a stupid and deeply non-serious idea.
Speaking as anything but an expert, everything I've been able to dig up points to this being a stupid and deeply non-serious idea.
9
One thing that bears pointing out: the wellhead is 5000 feet undersea. The actual reserve is about 15,000 feet below sea level. Using bombs to destroy the well is not going to uproot the 10,000 feet of soil that separates the deposit from the Gulf of Mexio: it will just have a very good chance of collapsing the vent through which the crude oil is escaping.
I would love to know why this is such a bad idea. At this point, I don't.
I would love to know why this is such a bad idea. At this point, I don't.
10
@8: Well, okay, that's a fine point. Getting the bomb into a position where it would be useful would be challenging to say the least.
But, I guess what gets me going is the panic around the idea of nukes. A deep underground atomic blast would probably be less damaging to the ocean's ecosystem than the ongoing gusher. Yeah, lots of radiological emissions, but the impact would be minimal compared to what we're going to deal with from this spill.
But, I guess what gets me going is the panic around the idea of nukes. A deep underground atomic blast would probably be less damaging to the ocean's ecosystem than the ongoing gusher. Yeah, lots of radiological emissions, but the impact would be minimal compared to what we're going to deal with from this spill.
11
Lee, nuking a problem you think you have no time to solve isn't like snapping at it with a tea towel. Here's one view, from the end of the article Dan linked to:
A senior Los Alamos scientist, speaking on the condition of anonymity because his comments were unauthorized, ridiculed the idea of using a nuclear blast to solve the crisis in the gulf.
“It’s not going to happen,” he said. “Technically, it would be exploring new ground in the midst of a disaster — and you might make it worse.”
Not everyone on the Internet is calling for nuking the well. Some are making jokes. “What’s worse than an oil spill?” asked a blogger on Full Comment, a blog of The National Post in Toronto. “A radioactive oil spill.”
Aside from the science, politically it's the Curtis LeMay solution: impatient with an epic problem? Convert it into a different problem. Sure, it might not fix it, but you'll feel better for a bit.
A senior Los Alamos scientist, speaking on the condition of anonymity because his comments were unauthorized, ridiculed the idea of using a nuclear blast to solve the crisis in the gulf.
“It’s not going to happen,” he said. “Technically, it would be exploring new ground in the midst of a disaster — and you might make it worse.”
Not everyone on the Internet is calling for nuking the well. Some are making jokes. “What’s worse than an oil spill?” asked a blogger on Full Comment, a blog of The National Post in Toronto. “A radioactive oil spill.”
Aside from the science, politically it's the Curtis LeMay solution: impatient with an epic problem? Convert it into a different problem. Sure, it might not fix it, but you'll feel better for a bit.
12
@10: Yeah, I have no particular problem with the radiation that would be released. I'd like to see some expert commentary on tsunami risks, though.
13
Why does it have to be a nuclear weapon? Can't someone figure out howmany kilatons or whatever the fuck measurement for "bang" and then make a regular bomb? I mean, what's his face brought down a nice-sized building with fertilizer.
15
@13: Because it has to be placed down a newly drilled shaft next to the existing one. 20 kilotons of chemical explosive means a very, very big well. Anything that takes longer than drilling standard relief wells (the only proven technology for this kind of problem) is useless.
16
13: Conventional explosives usually make a big bang by making a lot of gas. Heat is released as a byproduct, but the point is that all this stuff doesn't want to all be in the same place, so it creates a lot of pressure as it tries to spread out. Nuclear weapons work on the basis that hot things expand, and make the surrounding air so freakin' hot that the expansion has the same effect. That's a fucklot of heat, and the nuclear option is intended to melt the surrounding rock into a plug. Making things go bang rather than making them rock-meltingly hot is missing the point.
17
Dan, Dan, Dan. I love you. I really do. But please stick to your areas of expertise: sex advice and gay rights. When you vier off into science and foreign policy, you are way out of your field.
Though as a point of curiosity, you might pose this question to Dear Science, since he, you know, works for you (at least part time). He can probably explain why this is a terrible idea. He's very good at that sort of thing.
Though as a point of curiosity, you might pose this question to Dear Science, since he, you know, works for you (at least part time). He can probably explain why this is a terrible idea. He's very good at that sort of thing.
18
"Milo D. Nordyke, in a 2000 technical paper for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., described five Soviet blasts from 1966 to 1981. All but the last blast were successful."
Well there you go. Only a one in five chance that we'd be uselessly detonating a nuke on the sea floor. I can't imagine why anyone would have second thoughts about that.
"Robert S. Norris, author of “Racing for the Bomb” and an atomic historian, noted that all the Soviet blasts were on land and never involved oil."
Oh wait, maybe I can imagine why after all.
Well there you go. Only a one in five chance that we'd be uselessly detonating a nuke on the sea floor. I can't imagine why anyone would have second thoughts about that.
"Robert S. Norris, author of “Racing for the Bomb” and an atomic historian, noted that all the Soviet blasts were on land and never involved oil."
Oh wait, maybe I can imagine why after all.
19
I dunno. The Japanese tried something like this once and they were plagued with giant, radioactive monsters that stomped their cities flat.
20
@19, if a monster spawned by an undersea nuke happened to make its way up here and include Seattle among the cities it stomps flat, just think how the sudden lack of hills would encourage more of us to bicycle.
A net win for the environment, if you think about it.
A net win for the environment, if you think about it.
23
For once, elenchos and almost everyone else for the win.
Because, with nukes, nobody wins - unless you're dropping them on Saudi Arabia.
Because, with nukes, nobody wins - unless you're dropping them on Saudi Arabia.
24
I agree nukes are a bad idea and have not been proven underwater (as far as we know). But when does deparation set in? What if this thing is still leaking in a month or a year or a decade? How long could this go on and how untenable will any solution look as this things goes on and on...
28
Use a bunker buster to collapse the vent. Like we are going to fuckup the Gulf worse than it already is? The place is fucked for generations.
29
This is called and E.L.E. (extintion level event) and if we don't stop it somehow the oil will spread to all the Oceans in a few years. And that will effectively end life of the bottom of the food chain which will eventually take us out as well.
If you accept this could be the slow death blow for all of us then trying a nuke could be a viable option. Could be...
If you accept this could be the slow death blow for all of us then trying a nuke could be a viable option. Could be...
31
@29: Extinction for which species? It certainly poses some huge risks to sea life in the Gulf, but I hope you don't mean this will blot out all life on the planet. That's some ginormous ignorance you got going on if that's what you're getting at.
I don't want to minimize this disaster in any way, but exaggerating it is no better.
I don't want to minimize this disaster in any way, but exaggerating it is no better.
32
@31, Did you flunk out of 3rd grade science? Seriously Lee you are an ignorant slut. Once you keep this oil eruption going on for months and months into years you will destroy the plankton and other microsopic organisms in the ocean. And the death works it's way up.
Jacques Cousteau said that if we destroy the ocean (and we may just have done that Lee in case you haven't been paying attention) you destory life on the planet.
So no, I'm not exaggerating this at all.
Jacques Cousteau said that if we destroy the ocean (and we may just have done that Lee in case you haven't been paying attention) you destory life on the planet.
So no, I'm not exaggerating this at all.
33
The info I'm about to cite is from Wikipedia, so forgive me for not using a credible source...
But from 1946-1958 the US tested 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands, including the largest nuclear test the US ever conducted, Castle Bravo.
I know none of these tests were to end an oil spill but there is some precedent for the US using nuclear weapons (a lot of them) in the ocean...it's not just the Russians.
But yeah, nukes are bad, mmkay.
But from 1946-1958 the US tested 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands, including the largest nuclear test the US ever conducted, Castle Bravo.
I know none of these tests were to end an oil spill but there is some precedent for the US using nuclear weapons (a lot of them) in the ocean...it's not just the Russians.
But yeah, nukes are bad, mmkay.
35
@15, 16: thanks for clarifying the facts around explosions for those of us not into that kind of thing.
36
Dan-Dan-Dan. As an engineer and nuclear physicist, you make one hell of a sex advice columnist. Two words to live by: "core competency".
38
The people of Louisiana just want the drilling moratorium lifted! They don't care about the environment. A crazy (teabagger, I'm sure) woman, who is the president of a parish council, was interviewed after Obama's speech last night and she was livid that he had not announced the moratorium was over. Apparently, gas/oil drilling accounts for 16% of the Louisiana economy and the shrimping industry only 1%. People are so short-sighted.
39
how are the 2 relief wells (BP wanted to drill 1, Obama insisted on 2) progressing? that's the only relevant question here, hysterics.
41
Um, yeah, here's what an expert interviewed on the BBC website had to say about that:
"A nuclear blast would not fuse the pipe under the cooling effect of water but rather would create a crater and would make it impossible to control the flow."
He also discussed the option of using another type of warhead:
"A torpedo or any warhead entering the casing would have made this a major catastrophe as the loss of casing integrity would have resulted in a crater with continuous and uncontrollable oil flow for the next 30-40 years depending on the amount of oil in the reservoir."
You can see his thoughts on a wide range of other suggested solutions here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_…
Honestly, I'm not sure the strong possiblity of a radioactive seabed and/or a continuous oil flow into the Gulf for the next 30-40 years make either a good idea.
"A nuclear blast would not fuse the pipe under the cooling effect of water but rather would create a crater and would make it impossible to control the flow."
He also discussed the option of using another type of warhead:
"A torpedo or any warhead entering the casing would have made this a major catastrophe as the loss of casing integrity would have resulted in a crater with continuous and uncontrollable oil flow for the next 30-40 years depending on the amount of oil in the reservoir."
You can see his thoughts on a wide range of other suggested solutions here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_…
Honestly, I'm not sure the strong possiblity of a radioactive seabed and/or a continuous oil flow into the Gulf for the next 30-40 years make either a good idea.
42
@33- Those tests in the Pacific were set off on tiny islands, NOT at the bottom of the ocean. Drilling holes for nukes on dry land does not equal holes drilled in water 1 mile down.
Ditto many others on this one: Dan, stick to sex advice, or at least consult Science before posting.
Ditto many others on this one: Dan, stick to sex advice, or at least consult Science before posting.
44
Cato's 3rd grade science education must be the reason why he's a hysterical alarmist about just about everything.
45
@12 on Tsunami risks. I'm only a semi-expert. But the energy release of the 2004 indonesian tsunami earthquake was equivalent to over 1500 Hiroshima bombs (see the wikipedia article), so we're looking at something much smaller than that.
As for the histrionics about radioactivity ... a huge part of the point of this approach is that the bomb is detonated many thousands of feet down in the bedrock, where the entire explosion and all radioactive products would be trapped in the resulting melted rock. NOT on the seafloor, and not anywhere near it. You know, just like the underground tests that were done towards the end of the nuke-testing period of our history precisely because they didn't release any radioactivity into the aboveground environment.
I'm not saying this is guaranteed to be a good idea. It might even be a very bad one. But the amount of damage the oil spill is doing to the environment every *day* is incalculable. Frankly, it seems to me, far more than any nuke test ever done - and some of those were astonishingly bad.
But we're looking at a situation where doing *nothing* is pretty much guaranteed to wipe out the entire ecosystem of the gulf. Much of that damage may already have been done, in fact.
As for the histrionics about radioactivity ... a huge part of the point of this approach is that the bomb is detonated many thousands of feet down in the bedrock, where the entire explosion and all radioactive products would be trapped in the resulting melted rock. NOT on the seafloor, and not anywhere near it. You know, just like the underground tests that were done towards the end of the nuke-testing period of our history precisely because they didn't release any radioactivity into the aboveground environment.
I'm not saying this is guaranteed to be a good idea. It might even be a very bad one. But the amount of damage the oil spill is doing to the environment every *day* is incalculable. Frankly, it seems to me, far more than any nuke test ever done - and some of those were astonishingly bad.
But we're looking at a situation where doing *nothing* is pretty much guaranteed to wipe out the entire ecosystem of the gulf. Much of that damage may already have been done, in fact.
46
@29, no this is not remotely an extinction level event.
The deepwater horizon spill will suck horrendously for the environment, but it is still far smaller than the Gulf War oil and gas catastrophe. And despite that one, the planet and the species are both still here.
The deepwater horizon spill will suck horrendously for the environment, but it is still far smaller than the Gulf War oil and gas catastrophe. And despite that one, the planet and the species are both still here.
47
All the Soviet blasts were on land and never involved oil.
These are the only known gas leak nuke tests, and they just don't apply: apples and orangutans.
These are the only known gas leak nuke tests, and they just don't apply: apples and orangutans.
48
All you Nagging Nellies get the fuck off Dan's back.
He saw this on Road Runner and it worked just dandy....
He saw this on Road Runner and it worked just dandy....
49
@48: Show's called Looney Tunes or Merrie Melodies. Not Road Runner. Get your facts straight before you troll.
Advertisement
Most Commented on Slog
-
Hating People Doesn't Make Them Thinner by Jen Graves
-
Los Angeles Gay Bar Bans Bachelorette Parties Until Marriage Equality Is Attained by David Schmader
-
Fill in the Blank by Grant Brissey
-
This Reminds Me of the Great Calculator Scare of the Late '70s/Early '80s by David Schmader
-
Idiot Tries to Defend Bigoted Anti-Gay-Marriage Preacher on Anderson Cooper by Paul Constant
-
Six Moms with Too Much Time on Their Hands and a Shitty Website Decide to Fight Gay Superheroes by Paul Constant
-
Why Mayor McGinn's Wife Canceled Her Family's Seattle Times Subscription by Eli Sanders
-
What the Hell Is Wrong With Seattle's Pride Parade? by Dominic Holden
-
The Saturday Morning News by Unpaid Intern
-
NYC Man Ticketed for Not Riding in the Bike Lane by Jonathan Golob
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
Comments (49) RSS