"Nuke the Gulf Oil Gusher, Russians Suggest" - More Proof Of Obama's Inaction? Just Nuke It!

[TomCADem]

A lot of folks on this board and in the media have attack the Obama administration for its inaction in the face of the greatest environmental disaster in decades. Of course, some folks ask what can you realistically due now, except what is being done? Well, what about nuking the oil leak as suggested by the Russians?

Yes. It creates its own set of problems. But, at least Obama can forcefully respond to critics that he is moving too slowly or relying to much on private petroleum companies. Why not use the federal government's unique resources and blow the oil leak to armegeddon as suggested by the Russians. Then, this will respond forcefully to charges of inaction. Sure, this may be stupid, but as Bush showed, Americans often prefer decisive acts of stupidity over more measured responses. It is sort of like invading Iraq due to 9/11. The American public demands action, and President Obama can generate some political momemntum with a shock and awe campaign on the oil leak.

No more inaction. No more studies. Take action now!

Whose with me?

http://www.livescience.com/technology/russia-nuke-gulf-oil-well-100512.html

Using a nuclear explosion to try to plug the gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico might sound like overkill, but a Russian newspaper has suggested just that based on past Soviet successes. Even so, there are crucial differences between the lessons of the past and the current disaster unfolding.

The Russians previously used nukes at least five times to seal off gas well fires. A targeted nuclear explosion might similarly help seal off the oil well channel that has leaked oil unchecked since the sinking of a BP oil rig on April 22, according to a translation of the account in the daily newspaper Komsomoloskaya Pravda by Julia Ioffe of the news website True/Slant.

Weapons labs in the former Soviet Union developed special nukes for use to help pinch off the gas wells. They believed that the force from a nuclear explosion could squeeze shut any hole within 82 to 164 feet (25 to 50 meters), depending on the explosion's power. That required drilling holes to place the nuclear device close to the target wells.

A first test in the fall of 1966 proved successful in sealing up an underground gas well in southern Uzbekistan, and so the Russians used nukes four more times for capping runaway wells.

:hide:

[Oregone]

1. I say just let it be

Earth fucked up. Experiment over

[TomCADem]

2. No more words! Action!

BOOOOM!!!

:sarcasm:

[cliffordu]

3. Because there's a couple hundred wells down there and a nuke

would knock the heads of of what, one, two, three, or a DOZEN of them???

[TomCADem]

10. Nukes Offer The Promise Of Bi-Partisan Support!

On the left, it will show that President Obama is taking the most decisive type of action possible. Seriously, can you think of anything more decisive than nuking the leak?

Domes? Please.
Cement stopper? Boring.
Dispersants? Messy.
Mud cap? Yawn.

Also, the right wing gun nuts will be mesmerized at the shock and awe aspect of it.

Can you seriously dispute that anything less than nukes is inaction?

No more studies. No more tests. No more relying on BP. Obama can take matters into his own hand by pressing the button. You know that Bush and Cheney would do it, and enjoy a nice bump in the polling numbers for having done so.

:crazy:

[cliffordu]

15. If he does it, we could have James Cameron film it in HI DEF 3D....

Scare the living shit out of everyone. Perfect.

[Ian David]

20. I'm all for nuking the spill...

provided the execs from BP, Halliburton and Transocean are in a rowboat at Ground Zero.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. I take all of my advice from Russian newspapers.

Russian newspaper superpapers are our superiors.

[TomCADem]

29. Well, Here's Wapo - "Could you bomb the gulf oil well?"

Here is WaPo talking about how the Russians like to nuke their oil wells when they get out of hand:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2010/05/nuking_the_gulf_oil_well.html

That's what the Soviets would have done. Apparently they liked to nuke their oil wells when they got out of line. Usually worked.

Now, you're probably having some knee-jerk, turtle-hugging response along the lines of That Would Be Wrong, as if we're all staring at a lot of good options that are ecologically sublime. Let me just remind you that in the South, my native land, the act of dropping explosives into water is rather common and is generically known as "fishing."

It's so much easier than trying to persuade a fish to take a baited hook. If you did this with nuclear weapons, you'd also save all the fuss and bother of actually cooking the fish.

I'm not saying go nuclear, though. That might divert precious nuclear weapons from their important job of sitting in silos to deter the Soviet attack that may come at any minute. But what about conventional explosives? Let's just think this through! Bear with me here.

Who knew? Oil wells and nukes. It sounds like right wing neocon porn.

[krispos42]

5. Seems to me that the shockwave in the incompressable oil...

...might well make the oil gush out from another site.


Oh, yeah, and kill millions of fish and make the Gulf not only chemically toxic, but also radioactive.



But I admit that it would be cool to watch.

[Ian David]

9. I'm wondering if it could ignite all the oil in that pocket and explode miles of sea crust.

Plus, we'll have sperm whales going belly-up for miles.

We'd need to find some way to scare the shit out of every living thing possible for miles before we detonate the thing.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

11. Oil needs oxygen to burn... there would no oxygen down there to butn.

[Ian David]

17. Stuff can burn in the presence of other oxidizing agents.

For example, flourine.

And I'm wondering if the oil might not "burn" but might undergo some other kind of explosive phase change without technically combusting.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

23. Psst, Ian David.

Water isn't made out of flourine. Or even fluorine.

[krispos42]

13. I don't think it would ignite

Unless it sent a superheated blast of liquid or gaseous petroleum into the atmosphere, maybe. If it was hot enough to auto-ignite upon mixing with atmospheric oxygen.

THAT would be impressive!

[Ian David]

6. It sounds like a SyFy Channel Original Film starring Bruce Boxleitner and The Crazy Baldwin.

They always fix everything with a nuke at the end.

Giant tornadoes? Nuke it.

Mega-Earthquake? Nuke it.

Black Hole? Nuke it.

[krispos42]

7. Directed by Jerry Bruckheimer?

:-)

[Ishoutandscream2]

8. "Gotta nuke something." Nelson Muntz

[Codeine]

42. MICHEAL BAYSPLOSION! nt

[RandomThoughts]

12. There has been, metaphorically without violence, nuking of corruption every day for years.

Nuking being non conventional with kindness not bad stuff.


See the balloons. Snoopy and Woodstock. Everyone is in on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14IRDDnEPR4

[Greg K]

14. If not nukes, what about conventional explosives?

Drill three to six holes around the well, insert sufficient amount of explosives, trigger to all go off at once.

[cliffordu]

16. Or a MOAB???

[Ian David]

18. That's a fuel-air bomb. No air under the water. n/t

[cliffordu]

21. OOPS...CORRECTAMUNDO.....

I'm going to lose my war monger status over this......

[TomCADem]

25. Beat me to it.

[TomCADem]

26. Beat me to it.

[TomCADem]

22. Hmm, Can You Use Fuel Air Explosives Underwater? Like your thinking though

One of the largest conventional explosives is a Massive Ordnance Air Burst Bomb (MOAB). However, even the largest MOAB is just a fraction of the strength of the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. Plus, I am not sure you can usea MOAB underwater.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

19. I think they should use magnets.

But nobody knows how they fucking work.

[cliffordu]

24. Well......

:rofl:

PERFECT!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

27. ...

[Codeine]

40. Juggalos gonna be all up in yo shit now.

Fuck all y'all if you ain't down with the clown. :rofl:

[Purveyor]

28. I think using a 'nuke' is overkill but I do think the use of the newly developed "bunker-

buster" bombs needs consideration and study.

[time_has_come]

30. He should nuke it so he can "forcefully res;pond to critics that he is moving too slowly"???

I can't say anything about nuking it as I know too little about that to comment...but averting criticism should never be a factor in any of these decisions imo.

[TomCADem]

36. Most Americans Would Disagree With John Wooden - "Never Mistake Activity For Achievement"

The Iraq war was a collossal example of Americans being lulled into the idea that by invading Iraq, we were fighting the terrorists that planned 9/11.

The point of my post is that there are some concrete ideas on the table. Unfortunately, many of them such as nuking the leak, which the Russians apparently have done in the past, really are not that palatable. Is radioactive fallout prefereable to the oil leak? Also, when folks demand that something be done, what exactly do they want? Activity or achievement?

Now, a nuclear bomb would certainly be something concrete. But, as the responses to this thread show, activity and achievement are not the same thing.

[TreasonousBastard]

31. This is Pravda suggesting we use a nuke. Pravda, not even a Russian scientist...

who might know something besides Russian propaganda.

Now, from '66 to '81 the Russians used specially designed nukes to close up gas wells on land that were on fire. And the last one didn't work, which gives a really good hint why they haven't tried it again in about 30 years.

So, with a 20% failure rate in doing what they were designed to do, Pravda waves the Russian flag suggesting we should try to do it here with whatever devices we have lying around on an oil well under a mile of water.

What could possibly go wrong with this brilliant idea?

[Ozymanithrax]

32. That is the dumbest idea I've seen in a long time.

We nuke it and create vast amounts of fallout that would fall far inland.

[Aramchek]

33. Obama wants to replace the World's Oceans with Oil!!!

:sarcasm:

[Bluebear]

34. How silly your hit and run posts have become. /ignore

[Aramchek]

38. I respond to bullshit with humor. Don't you have another Obama hit-piece to post?

[TexasObserver]

35. There's a reason the nuke suggestion has not come from any serious commentator. It's a bad idea.

The Soviets were never particularly responsible with nuclear energy, so using them as an example isn't the best arguing technique.

[donheld]

37. Why not just nuke the Icelandic Volcano too

:eyes:

[Codeine]

39. A gas well fire

isn't an underwater oil gusher. I wonder how effective a solution it would actually be.

[meow mix]

41. how about drilling several holes all around the leak and using multiple nuke blasts

all at once..
as long as were trying to make this worse after all.