It's been... what? Thirty-four days now? Thirty-Four days and BP is still ditzing around with this oil spill... Enough. We've left it to the private sector long enough. I don't know much about this stuff, but I'm begining to suspect that BP has been more interested in preserving this exploration well as a viable production well than in stopping the leak. After all, they've a hell of a lot of costs to recoup.
It's time to call in the military with a 'Bunker Buster' and just blow the damned thing shut.
3 comments:
Nasty stuff! Since the failed "top kill" approach, there has been some very cautious optimism about the latest siphoning initiative. Yet even if that is more successful than all of the previous failed attempts, the well is still leaking.
Some folks including experts are in fact saying "Nuke it!"...literally. It sounded like a joke when I first read about the option of nuking it shut. Yet, it seems there have been a handful of previous uses of nukes to seal these things off. I recently posted on it (http://visionsofanothertime.wordpress.com/2010/05/31/the-gulf-oil-spill-did-you-say-nuke/).
However, I have also heard that the nuke option is not likely to happen because of the message it would send (the Obama admin is trying to see a very different message in terms of nukes). I am not technically savvy enough to know how bad the idea is or isn't. Some say the US won't do it because the technology is Russian. Who knows.
Hi Joe,
Yes, I'd heard that the Soviets had put out a couple of deep-water gas leaks with nukes, and that's when I first heard the idea of using explosives being proposed.
Politically, I don't think the idea of solving one environmental disaster by using a nuclear bomb and possibly causing another would go over too well. I'm not sure what the environmental impact would actually be, but I'm sure in the public imagination, at least, it would bring up the spectre of Godzilla. Close your eyes, listen to the commentary on the movie trailer, and imagine the spill :-D
We've developed a lot of heavy ordinance in the past decade or so... That's why I was speculating on whether or not a conventional device could be used. I heard someone saying on the radio the other day, however, that the results would be unpredictable. It might close the gusher, but the thing could continue to bleed out in certain spots just the same.
In any case, as time goes on, it does seem to me that BP is more interested in controlling and preserving this "well" than in capping it.
Good post at 'Visions...'
yeah, intuitively the nuke option doesn't seem the way to go.
BP is trashed (they lost $17B of their share value yesterday alone.) The whole thing is a sample of how energetically expensive oil has become. Getting interesting!
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