Nuke the oil spill?

[mattbell]

I'm not an expert in this area by any means, but I find this an interesting approach.  Apparently the Russians successfully sealed several large natural gas and oil leaks this way a few decades ago.  It's starting to get serious media attention. 

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/05/nuke-bomb-oil-spill-cleanup-crazy-russia-gulf-bp

Sure, detonating a small nuclear weapon deep underwater will release some radioactive pollutants into the deep ocean.  Is that better or worse than an ongoing leak that's releasing tens of thousands of barrels of oil a day and damaging hundreds of miles of coastline?  I don't know. 

Comments

[steuard.livejournal.com]

I heard that option suggested fairly early on (probably close to a month ago). It clearly gets less appealing the later it happens, since (in principal) the relief well(s) in progress will have the same effect without the radiation hazard sometime in August. Setting up a nuclear explosion that works right wouldn't be trivial, so that would take some time to plan (and time to drill the hole for the bomb).

I'm torn on the idea: it sounded insane at first ("Why not just use this funnel thing that they're building?"), but I can see how it would be more appealing now. I'm not sure how bad the radiation issues would be in practice (I think the damage from underground blasts tends to be fairly contained), but I'm largely opposed to any use of nuclear explosions in principle (and the Soviet use of them for this sort of thing is something that I've considered horrifying and tragic for years).

One thing's clear, in any case: if they tried this and it somehow didn't work, we'd be completely screwed.

[happyinmotion.livejournal.com]

Not sure I understand the benefits of this. When the French were nuking coral islands in the Pacific, NZ got to send scientific observers along to monitor the potential for radiation release. As I understand it, if you've got a nuke exploding in rock, then you end up with a small vapourised cavity surrounded by a large zone of rock shattered by the shockwaves. The shattered rock falls into the cavity and there's condensation of rock vapour which might lead to some bonding of the loose rock at the core, but really, you just end up with a large volume of shattered rock. If you're wanting to increase the flow from an oil or gas deposit, then that helps. If you're wanting to stop it, then it's a very silly idea.

You still end up having to drill a hole in the sea floor deep enough to take a massive pressure pulse without letting that pressure break the sea floor, so why not just drill a hole down to the well and use it as a relief well?

(If you've got a nuke exploding on or near the sea floor, then the shattered zone will break up the surface layers and I doubt that would do anything other than make the leak worse, along with wrecking whatever well-head gear is still functioning.)

It's entirely possible the Russians are full of shit/really badly translated. It's also entirely possible that this news story is just FUD, along the lines of "we could stop this oil well from leaking, if it was not for those environmentalists and their hatred of nuclear power".

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

I admit my mental model could be totally wrong, but I assumed that nuking the spill at the leak site would in essence "cauterize" the leak as there'd briefly be a layer of molten rock covering the entire leak area that would then solidify.

It doesn't intuitively seem like the well for the nuke would have to be as deep as the relief well, but I have no experience in deep-sea drilling, so this could be a total misconception.

Also, I'd image the Russians' claims of having stopped the leaks with nukes would have been verifiable.

[happyinmotion.livejournal.com]

Possibly, but you need to put a lot more energy in to melt rock than you do to break it. So around the point source of a nuke, you'll get a small volume of melted (and vapourised) rock surrounded by a much larger area of broken rock.

As for verification, the Soviets certainly let nukes off like firecrackers, but no thorough review is available of their successes or side-effects (wikipedia on this topic).

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Good to know. Thanks for the link.