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Originally Posted by mr dave
you sure about that?
i'm quite certain if you polled random people on the street and asked them if they thought a 4 out of 5 chance to win the lotto was acceptable odds they'd be ALL OVER IT. if you keep reading past the headline it also mentions that the Russians have successfully used nukes underwater up to 169 times for more mundane purposes. 'failure' in this case means oil keeps flowing freely, not the ocean turns to fire.
this whole thing is getting ire because of the bogeyman of the N word and 3 eyed fish on The Simpsons.
so far all the plans have revolved around containing the spill in a way that the oil could continue to be exploited in the future. this one proposes to actually stop the flow of oil. which brings up the REAL question - Does anyone actually want to stop the flow of oil in the Gulf of Mexico?
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My understanding is that the Russians never conducted these explosions underwater, and the cold metal would be unpredictable. We could end up in a worse situation.
http://www.salon.com/technology/how_...nuclear_option
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I'd hate to be the president who authorized a nuclear strike against an oil well and discover that the blast created numerous fractures in the seafloor that allowed even more oil and gas to escape. It seems to me that one might want to hold such a tactic in reserve as a last resort.
And then there are the worst-case scenarios -- such as the possibility that a nuclear explosion might ignite a chain reaction of methane hydrate eruptions that could result in the most horrific global catastrophe since the Permian extinction
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The gulf coast has been through a lot of natural destruction in the last few years, I'd hate for it to go wrong and cause more distress.