Should the U.S. Navy blow up the Macondo oil well?

In a recent New York Times op-ed piece with the title of “Blow Up the Well to Save the Gulf,” former nuclear submarine officer Christopher Brownfield draws our attention to what could be a better alternative for dealing with the BP oil spill. BP CEO Tony Hayward admitted directly to Congress that his company has no intention of plugging the ruptured Macondo oil well in the Gulf of Mexico any longer. Experts predict the relief well that BP is going to build instead won't even work. In light of BP and the Coast Guard’s inability to even stem the tide of the oil leak, Brownfield makes a suggestion that gives the thinking human being pause. Why not give command of stopping the oil leak to the U.S. Navy?

Article Source: Should the U.S. Navy blow up the Macondo oil well by Personal Money Store

‘Blow up the well,’ suggests Brownfield

Brownfield suggests we blow up the well without any hesitation. There are thousands of barrels of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico each day, and BP and the Coast Guard lack the resources and expertise to deal with high-powered demolitions of the sort needed to deal with the Macondo oil well effectively. With little effect, billions of dollars have been thrown at this problem.

According to Brownfield, BP and the Coast Guard would still have an important role to play, namely cleanup on the surface. But the U.S. Navy has a whole lot of resources like special submarines that could have obtained real-time info on the well – well in advance of the schedule BP chose to follow. Engineers from Naval Reactors – “the secretive program that is responsible for designing nuclear reactors for nuclear submarines,” according to Brownfield – could have already dealt with how to blow up the well, if they’d been given leave to do so by President Obama.

Navy demolitions could commence then

The oil well won't just be blasted off by a torpedo. First there would need to be a hole drilled parallel to the Macondo well. Explosives would then be put into the hole and detonated from a distance. Tons of explosives creating a “pressure wave hundreds of thousands of pounds per square inch” strong would implode BP’s big problem very easily, sending rock into the well to stop the flow. Brownfield says that the “expansion and collapse of explosive gases inside the hole would act like a hydraulic jackhammer, further pulverizing the rock.” Nuclear devices wouldn’t even be necessary; they’d just be an overkill, in Brownfield’s view, although Soviet Russia has used them successfully for this purpose before.

Best and worst case scenario

At best, if the Navy blew up the well, the flow would be stopped and long-term cleanup could progress toward an endgame. The flow could just be increased by a larger hole also. But as former Naval nuclear sub officer Brownfield believes, “It’s virtually inconceivable that an explosive could blast a bigger hole than already exists and release even more oil,” when the features of the ocean bed around the Macondo well are taken very much into consideration. Considering how much money could be saved by abandoning ineffective capping techniques, it seems the course is clear for politicians with the foresight and courage to give the green light.

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New York Times

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