Nuking the BP well may just win the lifetime award for the most asinine thing...

[Poll_Blind]

...I have ever heard seriously discussed on the Internet by a measurable group of people. I even saw a clip on YouTube of it being discussed on TV.

I have taken part in all manner of hypothetical discussions in the 21 or so years since I have had access to the Internet, first on Usenet groups and then, after they slapped the World Wide Web on top of it, message forums.

I have seen every mother-lovin' idea proposed to solve a problem but, and I say this with the utmost seriousness and solemnity, trying to fix what really might be an un-fixable problem by blowing it up with a nuke and desperately hoping to fuse this already-fractured rock into some sort of permanent glass sarcophagus- under 5,000 feet of water and the pressure that implies- is without a doubt an invitation to the single biggest Darwin Award, ever.

If you want to roll dice, roll a smaller pair. And one where I and my family and all the rest of the life forms I enjoy on this planet don't have to pay the croupier for your lost wager.

PB

[mikelgb]

1. You are right. We should nuke bp headquarters instead. n/t

[Poll_Blind]

2. There we go. This is a compromise I can get behind!

:evilgrin:

PB

[Uzybone]

5. hey I live 3 miles from there. NIMBY.

[mikelgb]

7. well you should have a fallout shelter anyhow being that close to bp and all

[Hugabear]

3. Oh come on. If this were a made-for-TV movie, nukes would be the #1 option.

Who cares if nobody has ever detonated a nuke so far underwater before? Who cares if we have absolutely no clue what the possible consequences could be? It would be fucking cool, man.

[Poll_Blind]

6. And Bruce Willis can be the one who sacrifices himself to make it happen....

..while a poignant Aerosmith song whines in the background. Again, a compromise I can get behind.

Hell, I'd even suspend my disbelief at a 70-year old Jane Fonda playing the plucky cub reporter with her first big story.

I just don't want to have to live in a world where it's anything more than a late-night cable make-out movie.

PB

[NNN0LHI]

22. Oh, no. We are getting Slim Pickens back for this one

[Renew Deal]

4. Did you discuss Obama bombing (raping) mother moon?

If not, then you might be right.

[Poll_Blind]

8. Different story. The moon needs to stop messing with God's America.

See HERE

PB

[tammywammy]

20. That was a great thread n/t

[TomCADem]

9. Just Underscores That There Is No Clear and Reliable Way To Stop This Spill

Yet, god forbid that the news reports this fact, because then we might have to really deal with shutting down drilling permanently until such a solution is found.

[Poll_Blind]

10. How long do you think it'll be before some major news network actually...

...has an anchor which broaches the idea that...well...that there isn't anything left to do but watch it and weep?

I give it another two weeks or so and my money's on Keith Olbermann. Hell, he may have already broached the subject in passing, AFAIK.

PB

[provis99]

11. Nuking the well would work.

The Russians have done it before, and it worked out for their oil leak. why are you in favor of allowing the continued pollution of the Gulf coast?

[TreasonousBastard]

12. IT DID NOT WORK FOR THE RUSSIANS!!! How many times must I repeat the story...

The Russians tried it five times, and the first four times the specially designed nuke actually did stop burning gas wells on land (NOT gushing oil wells under a mile of water) but the fifth time it didn't and they don't know why.

They have never tried it since.

[Hugabear]

15. So instead of oil contaminating the Gulf, we could have oil AND radiation contaminating the Gulf

Nice.

[Poll_Blind]

30. It WOULD make it easier to see the oil slick at night though.

:sarcasm:

PB

[caledesi]

13. Agree! Only hear of nukes from RWers & Fox. I am clean. nt

[inna]

14. I'm with you on this. Check this out - this is not directly reated, but...

:scared:

The Gate to Hell: Darvaza, Turkmenistan:



"In the hot, expansive Karakum desert in Turkmenistan, near the 350 person village of Darwaz, is a hole 328 feet wide that has been on fire, continuously, for 38 years. Known as the Darvaza Gas Crater or the "Gates of Hells" by locals, the crater can be seen glowing for miles around.

The hole is the outcome not of nature but of an industrial accident. In 1971 a Soviet drilling rig accidentally punched into a massive underground natural gas cavern, causing the ground to collapse and the entire drilling rig to fall in. Having punctured a pocket of gas, poisonous fumes began leaking from the hole at an alarming rate. To head off a potential environmental catastrophe, the Soviets set the hole alight. The crater hasn't stopped burning since.

Though little information is available about the fate of the Soviet drilling rig, presumably it is still down there somewhere, on the other side of the "Gates of Hell."

[Poll_Blind]

19. !

:scared:

Damn!

PB

[cwydro]

16. K and R

[Mojeoux]

17. Isn't this is how Godzilla was created?

[AsahinaKimi]

18. OH YOU BETCHA!!

[Mojeoux]

21. It's crazy that anybody would conceder atomics.

Unless they WANT to have cool giant monsters running around.

[AsahinaKimi]

25. Thats why in Japan they need that

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

23. Nah.

I hear stupider things all the time.

[FLPanhandle]

24. Bad enough to have oil everywhere; let's make it RADIOACTIVE oil everywhere.

That'll help with the cleanup effort.

[wildbilln864]

26. Than you!

r! :hi:

[TheKentuckian]

27. Its hard to take any thing off the table but that needs a few thousand simulations

before it is seriously considered but it may give better odds than a 25-30 year blowout.

Its time to start preparing for some truly worse case scenarios because they might be coming.

It's just as asinine as anything to think this might not come to a crossroads of awful choices. We can hope and pray it won't but we better get ready for gawdawful, at best. The low odds are on this being writing some checks and doing a "whatever happened" story in ten or twenty years.

[Poll_Blind]

28. I wrote a long response then erased it. I (basically) agree.

I've looked seriously at a layman's version of how the "Russian Method" works and given the easily fracturing rock (there's a thread in GD about this) causing the Deepwater Horizon so many problems during drilling and also that the jacket for the inside of the well bore could be broken/damaged/split, I can't see the upside of a nuke.

It's just a totally different environment, with amazing pressures both above and below the target area and rock in-between which seems poor for the purpose the Russian Method is intended to be used in. Obviously, I only know very little.

Without being what I feel is unnecessarily pessemistic, I think this is (as I think you indicated) a no win scenario with varying levels of losing, going up to levels of disaster boldly entering the surreal.

PB

[TheKentuckian]

32. Unfortunately, there are probably no experts in this just varying degrees of ignorance

This is one of those areas where specialization has to be a hindrance because experts in each relevant field know too little about the others.

I wonder if we have enough heads that have strong grasps on geology, engineering of all kinds, robotics. oceanography, various areas of physics, chemistry, biology and whatever else to work through and combine ideas, knowledge, and to ask the right kinds of questions to the deep specialists.

It's like every aspect of our society is a direct impediment to dealing with large encompassing problems of every kind.

[Poll_Blind]

33. I'm actually curious what the Obama administration is cobbling together...

...at the moment to continue to deal with this and any further exigencies. Ideally, we'll all be around to read the terribly-interesting book about it that comes out a few years from now.

PB

[Buns_of_Fire]

29. Never happen. Given their record, BP would lose the detonator. nt

[fascisthunter]

31. Americans watch too much tv