BP Top Kill fails... NOW What?

[elder999]

I still say nuke it. That way, there is one less nuke to keep track of (saves money).

There are real, substantive, and time consuming difficuties there. All five Russian wells that were capped with nukes were, in fact, underground, and not deepsea wells.They were also burning gas wells, in gas fields, not gushing oil-a real and substantive difference.

The deepest underwater nuclear detonation ever occurred in 1955, when we were still pursuing the notion of nuclear depth charges and torpedos. It was at a depth of about 2,000 ft. The well itself is 5,000 ft. below the Gulf's surface. We'd have to reengineer a weapon to withstand the pressure of the depth-greater than 2500psi ., in this case (2500 lbs.= 5,000 ft., give or take, and I'm assuming that the technique will require a somewhat greater depth). Not only that, but the well is gushing at about 9000 psi-which is why it's overcoming the water pressure and spewing out, so actually getting a weapon directly into it may well be technologically unfeasible. A detonation will probably require drilling another shaft parallel or at an angle to the well itself.

Of course, all of that's being worked out as we speak, so when all other options have been exhausted, and we've spewed more than 140 million gallons into the water, we'll have our solution of last resort.

Elegant idea, Bill-

 

[Bruno@MT]

Pressure would not be a problem I think.
Sink the nuke in a diving bell. If a diving bell can reach the bottom of the mariana trench intact, it should have no problem reaching the well. And for the purposes of detonation results, I would think the casing (bell or not) is irrelevant. I mean I can see why this wouldn't work for a torpedo, but for a simple 'sink, steer and trigger' without time pressure (compared to the war time use of a torpedo) it might do the trick.

Granted, getting it inside the well is not really feasible afaict, but if it is detonated near the well opening, wouldn't the shockwave collapse the entire well?
I don't know how deep the well is, but your suggestion of drilling a second pipe, wouldn't that risk rupturing the plateau open (outwards) compared to an external detonation where the pressure is inwards (from the pov of the well)?

 

[elder999]

Granted, getting it inside the well is not really feasible afaict, but if it is detonated near the well opening, wouldn't the shockwave collapse the entire well?

That's not the technique-the technique is actual placement in the well or in a parallel shaft-both of which would require the exposure or the device, and it's instrumentation to pressure. Maybe a nearby detonation would collapse the well, maybe it wouldn't, but even the Russian technique only has an 80% success rate (4/5).

This isn't exactly something we want to do and have it not work, now is it?

 

[Bruno@MT]

This isn't exactly something we want to do and have it not work, now is it?

Depends on the risk and the consequences of failure.
If a failed attempt does not carry significant consequences, I'd nuke asap. If, otoh it would have the risk of making an even bigger hole for the oil to come out, I'd be more hesitant. That is why I'd go for a 'surface' blast first.

That said, I am an armchair quarterback in this discussion without access to a supercomputer and decent simulation software.

 

[elder999]

If a failed attempt does not carry significant consequences, I'd nuke asap. If, otoh it would have the risk of making an even bigger hole for the oil to come out, I'd be more hesitant. That is why I'd go for a 'surface' blast first.

And, actually, a surface blast would be more likely to make an even bigger hole for the oilt to come out-this is fundamental dynamics.....

 

[dancingalone]

Just from a public perception viewpoint I would imagine a nuclear detonation would be among the last preferred solutions that Obama WH would care for. Regardless of the actual efficacy of the remedy.

 

[Bruno@MT]

And, actually, a surface blast would be more likely to make an even bigger hole for the oilt to come out-this is fundamental dynamics.....

How so?

I mean with a surface blast, all pressure is towards the well / bottom of the ocean, which imo is likely to collapse everything in on itself. Everything goes 'down'. With a burried nuke, part of the blast goes down / sideways, but the other part of the blast will go up and take a whole lot of bedrock with it, like in the youtube clip I posted.

Don't get me wrong I am not doubting you. You seem to know a lot about weaponry. I am just wondering about the mechanics of the situation.

 

[Bruno@MT]

Just from a public perception viewpoint I would imagine a nuclear detonation would be among the last preferred solutions that Obama WH would care for. Regardless of the actual efficacy of the remedy.

Why? If that would be a surefire way to end the spill, wouldn't that be much preferable compared to another x weeks of pouring oil? I'd think that 1 successful attempt would be better in public opinion than a string of failed ones.

 

[Makalakumu]

Depending on the geology of the field, a nuke blast could be very bad. Even sinking it into another shaft could blow off the overlying strata and make the problem nightmarishly worse. A nuke isn't a simple solution, it's a desperate gamble that contends with all kinds of serious risks, both known and unknown.

Back to the discussion of alternative energy, no single or combination of renewable technologies will ever be able to ramp up to the level of fossil fuels. The gigantic, centralized, power plants that we are so accustomed, are only possible because of the attributes of various fossil fuels. They are portable, they are high in energy, and they are relatively cheap to get out of the ground.

Alternative energy technologies could work very well on a decentralized platform where property owners can purchase various implements cheaply and install them. This would reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and the people's dependence on large centralized power plants. Politically, this is a hard sell because the large corporations have every intention of keeping things centralized and maintaining their monopoly.

 

[dancingalone]

Why? If that would be a surefire way to end the spill, wouldn't that be much preferable compared to another x weeks of pouring oil? I'd think that 1 successful attempt would be better in public opinion than a string of failed ones.

Sure, if we're being rational. Last time I checked, the environmental lobby in the USA can be quite irrational at times. Nukes are a dirty word to many. Adding a nuclear blast to the oil spill could be quite incendiary politically even if it's thought to be a good solution.

 

[elder999]

Depending on the geology of the field, a nuke blast could be very bad. Even sinking it into another shaft could blow off the overlying strata and make the problem nightmarishly worse. A nuke isn't a simple solution, it's a desperate gamble that contends with all kinds of serious risks, both known and unknown..

The geology of the field is likely a known quantity in this instance, based on surveys of the field prior to drilling, and core samples from the drilling itself-all data kept by BP, and rather scrupulously maintained by all oil companies. Doesn't eliminate all the risks, but one example of where they'd be minimized-or they could possibly eliminate the nuclear option, though I have reason to doubt that.......

, Alternative energy technologies could work very well on a decentralized platform where property owners can purchase various implements cheaply and install them. This would reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and the people's dependence on large centralized power plants. Politically, this is a hard sell because the large corporations have every intention of keeping things centralized and maintaining their monopoly.

They also could work very well in the original Edisonian model, with community based centralization.

 

[elder999]

How so?

I mean with a surface blast, all pressure is towards the well / bottom of the ocean, which imo is likely to collapse everything in on itself. Everything goes 'down'. With a burried nuke, part of the blast goes down / sideways, but the other part of the blast will go up and take a whole lot of bedrock with it, like in the youtube clip I posted.

Don't get me wrong I am not doubting you. You seem to know a lot about weaponry. I am just wondering about the mechanics of the situation.

I don't really know a lot about weaponry at all. It's not really about weapons; it's about physics

All explosive reactions can be quantified using the equations of fluid dynamics, and, basically, Newton's laws.

An explosion itself, though, especially a nuclear one, is not necessarily directional-in the case of a nuclear explosion, it's quite spherical, with equal amounts of energy expended in each direction.

Naturally, a surface detonation would result in a portion of the energy of the explosion being reflected away from the surface-this in spite of the relatively high energy in the form of heat from the initial blast.

While the combination of the thermal release of energy and the blast shockwave might seal off the well, most of the energy really wouldn't be directed where it should be: at the complete collapse of the well itself along a good portion of its length.

To accomplish this, the shockwave of the blast should be on a lateral plane to the shaft itself; a surface blast would be longitudinal to the well shaft, and thus, less efficacious-indeed, far less energy would impact the shaft itself in this fashion, with the majority spreading along the seabed and up into the water itself. This is, of course, not the case for an instance where the munition (which would be the proper term in this instance, rather than "weapon") is placed within the shaft itself, or in an adjacent drilling. I don't think I need to explain the within the shaft model, but in an adjacent shaft we can clearly see that closer to half the shockwave would be expended along some length of the shaft itself, depending upon the radius of the shockwave and the proximity of the munition to the shaft.

 

[Cryozombie]

Perhaps we can stuff the hole full of the bodies of all the dead wildlife this is likely to cause.

:/

 

[Makalakumu]

Perhaps we can stuff the hole full of the bodies of all the dead wildlife this is likely to cause.

:/

Heh, stuff it full of politicians...

 

[kaizasosei]

Never heard of a shapedcharging a nuke with all the heat but never given it much thought. I was thinking along the lines of creating some kind of pressure zone, but i can't see it working.

I'm not sure but something tells me the devastation would be worse and who knows what a nuke would do in that kind of environment. Well, with all the freaky bikini tests, i guess they probably do know that to some extent but i wonder if it's possible to quantify the source of the oil.

How about syphoning the source with many vents untill it it all starts to flow in the desired direction.??

j

 

[elder999]

Never heard of a shapedcharging a nuke with all the heat but never given it much thought. I was thinking along the lines of creating some kind of pressure zone, but i can't see it working.
j

Nuclear munitions can be collimated to something less than a 30 degree spread-at least, it's been done, but I don't know that that's at all what's planned-it would be interesting, in that it would demonstrate that we had something in the arsenal that hadn't been accounted for. Of course, there are enough people working on the problem that they might be able to reengineer something within a matter of weeks......I dunno...my father-in law might, since he worked on nuclear propulsion back in the late 50's.In any case, while collimation might be part of the solution, everything I said about a lateral detonation still applies for the desired effect, as does everything I said about countering the effects of such depths: even in a diving bell, a device would be subjected to conditions that might be adverse to detonation.

 

[kaizasosei]

Nuclear munitions can be collimated to something less than a 30 degree spread-at least, it's been done,

Interesting. Isn't that a higher proportion of concentrated energy than a regular shaped charge?

Is the aim of the lateral detonation to collapse the area upon itself?

I think the navy will definitely come up with.. something.


j

 

[Deaf Smith]

Why can’t cargo or transport ships with large oil tanks in their holds, be used to suck up the oil on the surface? Using simple oil pumps, like they do on land, to pump oil into the tanks and then the ships come back, swap their full tanks for empty ones, and go back for more oil.

To me this is a simple thing the Coast Guard can do. Does not take the more scarce oil tankers but simple cargo ships. AND IT COULD HAVE BEEN DONE A MONTH AGO!!!!

Surely with all the money the government throws around they could rent a few cargo ships!!!

 

[elder999]

Interesting. Isn't that a higher proportion of concentrated energy than a regular shaped charge?

The energy concentration of conventional shaped charges is confined to the mechanical shape of the chevron, the conical liner of the charge.

Collimation is more of an optical or energetic process-think of the energy as being focused through a magnifying glass-that's an oversimplification, but all I'm really prepared to say.

In fact, though, it's safe to say that the reflection I posited for a seabed detonation is a form of collimation, not unlike the proposed nuclear space propulsion system from the 50's and 60's, which would have employed a large reflective plate and nuclear detonations.

Is the aim of the lateral detonation to collapse the area upon itself?

Precisely.


Didn't anybody see Armageddon? THe whole drilling premise was actually halfway decent science......

 

[MA-Caver]

Lots of great ideas lots of speculation... we're only bystanders one and all that sees what SHOULD be done but don't know what CAN be done in terms of actually making things work. No offense to anyone here but... well... you know what I mean. Besides... they probably wouldn't listen to our ideas if we sent them their way anyhow.
And how long before the next idea get implemented?

Meanwhile thousands of gallons of noxious crude oil is still being pumped into the open gulf waters.