Slashdot Mirror
Oil Leak Could Be Stopped With a Nuke
An anonymous reader writes "The oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico could be stopped with an underground nuclear blast, a Russian newspaper reports. Komsomoloskaya Pravda, the best-selling Russian daily, reports that in Soviet times such leaks were plugged with controlled nuclear blasts underground. The idea is simple, KP writes: 'The underground explosion moves the rock, presses on it, and, in essence, squeezes the well's channel.' It's so simple, in fact, that the Soviet Union used this method five times to deal with petrocalamities, and it only didn't work once."
What could possibly go wrong?
Life starts at the end of your comfort zone.
"Putting a man on the moon is so simple, in fact, that the United States has used their method once and it has never failed."
Only once?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Parent is totally incorrect. If capping the well was so simiplistic, it would have been done. The ultimate goal right now is to stop the leak. If there is still interest in the field, another well can be drilled later -- they will not be going through the same wellhead.
Collecting the oil appears to be necessary. If you set up a collection rig, you only need to stifle the pressure from the oil you don't collect. If you try to block it entirely, you need to block *all* the pressure. The latest attempt to cap the well failed due to pressure and buoyancy created by the well and its byproducts, even though it allowed some of the oil through for collection. Do you think an identical cap that tried to block it completely would be more successful? I'm not a fan of BP, but I don't think they're trying less plausible solutions solely to save themselves the cost of drilling a new well. Given the payouts the U.S. will likely extract to cover damages (legislation to raise the cap is already in progress, and their public promise to make good is hard to renege on), they're better off capping as fast as possible and drilling anew.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
Drill, baby, drill.
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
Well, the Russians could have done what the rest of continental Europe did: briefly offer token resistance and then capitulate to save lives at the cost of their freedom. But the joke was on the Germans, USSR didn't have any freedom to lose!
This whole revisionism that swings the pendulum of near-complete responsibility for toppling Germany from the US to the USSR is just as wrong-headed as the original assumption. Do you really think the USSR could have survived a German military undivided by multiple fronts powered by an industry undisturbed by coordinated day and night bombing by the US and Britain? You might try telling the families of the crews of the 18,418 US aircraft lost over German-held territory how it was the Russians alone that did much of the damage. Lord knows that the nearly 1.7 million missions flown by the USAAF alone were just larks to go have tea on B-17s. Nevermind also that the US provided a significant amount of material support including wholly assembled aircraft and trucks to the USSR during WWII to supplement its initially crippled industry. The list goes on.
Neither the US *nor* the USSR 'single-handedly' won WWII, nor did one or the other do 'most of the damage'.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
We all know the real party responsible for Germany's defeat is Italy. If they had held the front in North Africa, Germany wouldn't have had to divert troops to North Africa. Had that front held, Sicily wouldn't have been invaded. Had Sicily not been invaded, Germany wouldn't have had to divert troops to Sicily. Had Italy not screwed up in the Balkans, Germany wouldn't have had to divert troops to Macedonia and Greece, and Operation Barbarossa would have gone ahead as scheduled, before Winter would have caught them off guard. In fact, Italian incompetence causing Germany to have to split forces and support multiple fronts over and over again is really what did them in. There wouldn't have been an Eastern Front by the time Overlord happened had Mussolini not tried to be Caesar but only managed being Sulla. Hell, Claudius even conquered Britain, and he was inbred and possibly retarded.
The party responsible for Germany's defeat is Hitler. His failure to land troops in Britain and to start a (two front) war with the Soviets was what did him in in the end. Good fortune for the rest of the world.
If the Allies could not have a staging area so close in Britain, and there was no Eastern front, the Germans could have taken all of Africa.
What was their alternative?
I don't know, maybe not purging the leadership of your Army? Maybe letting Generals make the decisions instead of political commissars?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
What was their alternative?
They didn't have firepower or mechanized armor that could match what the Germans had. But they did have many, many people.
Regardless, their technique worked. In fact, it worked so well that they alone were responsible for much of the damage that Germany sustained.
Umh.. didn't have the firepower or mechanized armor? Ok, granted T34's were few and far between, as were KVs when the germans attacked. I'll even grant you that the BT models they had were inferior to the better german armor. However, the problem didn't really lie with not having enough mechanization. The russians had enough heavy tanks (KV) and good mediums (early T34) to give the german Mk.IIIs and Mk.IVs a run for their money. While BTs were clearly superior to older german armor, such as Mk.IIs or captured Czech stuff. The armor just was never used in a concentrated manner, allowing germans to destroy them piecemeal.
The problem the russians had on the tactical level was lack of/poor quality training for personnel and lack of experienced leadership due to Stalin's purges. Plus initiate of the officers was heavily curtailed by the dual command system, in which the Politruk had to approve all command decisions.
On the strategic level they suffered from Stalin's "Not one step back" type policies, which led to encirclements, which led to suicidal breakout attempts of mass surrenders (which led to mass deaths by starvation, etc). This in the beginning of the war.
Later on in the war the russians had a clear quantative lead and only a minor technical handicap in both airplanes and tanks, also with less restrictions from the political apparatus. Plus throughout the war they enjoyed massive amounts of artillery firepower, which has always been the unsung hero of the Red Army. Why did they still suffer huge casualties when they clearly had an edge in mechanization (not just in numbers, but in available ammo/fuel) compared to the germans and more experienced crews? Because the leadership simply didn't care about the human casualties as long as they gained the results Stalin was expecting of them. Men were simply thrown away in futile assaults, which then later had to be done "properly", just to see if they could break through without bothering to stop to build up.
Why the rush? Berlin.. Stalin wanted it for himself and feared the allies would get there first, despite promises that they wouldn't even try.
It's a long rant.. but the gist of it is: The Soviets had many chances to save lives during the war, they just chose not to.
It worked though, I agree with you there.
Try beautiful girls with big boobs. That should work not only with Germans, but any army.