Nuking Gulf Oil Leak Has '80 Percent' Chance of Success: Russia
"It
sounds nightmarish and incredible - like an idiotic joke. But in fact there
have been several instances where oil field disasters have been fought this way
- five times on the territory of the former USSR. ... The probability of the technique failing in the Gulf of Mexico is 20 percent. The Americans could take the risk. The chance of their astronauts dying on one of their flights to the Moon was greater."
Is an underwater nuke the answer to plugging the gushing BP oil leak? The above 1958 test, known as Hardtack Umbrella - was detonated at a depth of only 150 feet and was an 8 kiloton blast. What a blast at 5,000 feet would look like and the number of kilotons the blast would be remain to be seen.
It's possible that fruitless
attempts to stop the oil leak at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico with
underwater robots will compel specialists to take extreme measures. Namely - to
blow up the damaged well head with a nuclear warhead.
It sounds nightmarish and incredible
- like an idiotic joke. But in fact there have been several instances where oil
field disasters have been fought this way - five times on the territory of the
former USSR. Nothing else was working, just as today in the Gulf of Mexico,
where oil is already gushing from three places.
The first underground nuclear
explosion used to extinguish a burning gas well took place at the “Urta-Bulak”
field (50 miles from Bukhara) on September 30, 1966. The power of the explosion
measured 30 kilotons. For comparison, the Hiroshima bomb was about 20 kilotons
- but was detonated at the height of 2,000 feet, whereas at Bukhara, the bomb
was triggered at a depth of 1 mile.
The concept is simple: an
underground explosion pushes layers of rock, compresses them, and essentially squeezes
the well shut.
Powerful nuclear “plugs” - at
times with the magnitude of three Hiroshima bombs - were used here until 1979 -
and only once unsuccessfully. In 1972 in the Kharkhov region, the technique
failed to close a gas blowout. Mysteriously, the blast exploded toward the
surface, creating a nuclear cloud. And this although the explosion was minimal -
only 4 kilotons. And it was planted deep underground - over a mile and a half
down.
The probability of the
technique failing in the Gulf of Mexico is 20 percent. The Americans could take
the risk. The chance of their astronauts dying on one of their flights to the
Moon was greater. Of course, we used the peaceful atom on land, whereas the
Americans will have to use it at sea – under water at a depth that reaches
5,000 feet.
But in principle, there's no
difference - you still have to drill a hole a distance from the leaky one, in
which the bomb would be lowered - as in the movie Armageddon with Bruce
Willis in the role of the driller. It's preferable that the calculations are
made correctly. And there is reason to hope they will be: the United States is
full of smart scientists and powerful computers. And Russia could assist. Experts
at peaceful nuclear demolition are still alive here.
The USSR organized underground
nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes from 1966 to 1988. In all, the former
Soviet Union detonated more than 100 nuclear bombs. According to some estimates
there were 124 detonations, and others 169. And that's not counting military
testing.
According to the official explanation,
the explosions were carried out in the interests of the national economy. The
majority according to official records were for seismic exploration of minerals
and for depth sounding. The explosions created underground reservoirs for
storing gas, chemical waste, created underground channels, helped build dams
and increased oil well yields. And they weren't considered something harmful. Albeit
if there were a war, it would be unlikely that a hundred nuclear bombs would ever
be detonated.
The United States also “played”
with the peaceful atom. And they began earlier - in 1962. But in the interest
of their capitalist economy, in the end they produced far fewer explosions -
although their plans were immense.
