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Obama Sends Nuclear Experts To Tackle BP Oil Spill
An anonymous reader writes "The US has sent a team of nuclear physicists to help BP plug the 'catastrophic' flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico from its leaking Deepwater Horizon well, as the Obama administration becomes frustrated with the oil giant's inability to control the situation. The five-man team — which includes a man who helped develop the first hydrogen bomb in the 1950s — is the brainchild of Steven Chu, President Obama's Energy Secretary." Let's hope this doesn't mean they actually try the nuclear option. In other offshore drilling news, reader mygoditsfullofdoom informs us that a Venezuelan gas rig has sunk in the Caribbean (with no loss of life). This one is being laid at the feet of Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA, which hasn't exactly been regarded as uber-competent "after President Hugo Chavez fired half the company's managers and senior engineers following a 2002 strike."
Could kdawson's opinion be any more obvious?
Physicists... lol...
Katrina???
They are planning to use the LHC to create a small black hole and drop it into the gusher to suck up all the oil.
I think that would silence the critics of both the LHC, the oil drilling industry, and Apple's restrictive rules about apps!
the last time had some pretty good results http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater
Instead of refuting the Reuters article, or refuting it's relevance to the BP story, you've chosen to attack kdawson. I wonder why...
It makes you uncomfortable that he seems to have a point, doesn't it?
Has the oil industry become so corrupted that the only way to get a useful opinion is to recruit a team from a completely different field?
I'm curious at the usage of the phrase "let's hope". A correctly placed nuclear device in the that seals off the oil as well as causing a collapsing void that traps any fission products generated sounds a lot better than pouring yet more megagallons of oil into the ocean.
(your milage may vary in practice a fair bit from theory of course)
Let's hope this doesn't mean they actually try the nuclear option.
Thanks for the environmental message. A little late for that, don't you think?
At this point, a small controlled nuclear explosion to simply fuse the entire mass together into a big piece of molten glass and metal might be what's needed.
When Reagan broke the ATC union, he was standing up to the Big Bad Union. When Chavez did it, he was being an autocratic commie.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Why would the nuclear option be bad? If they're unable to get it stopped up in a few months using conventional methods then some other methods will have to be tried. Unless it would be an acceptable option for BP to just throw up their hands and declare "We can't stop the leak. There's nothing we can do. Maybe it will just stop by itself. Sorry about your Gulf."
What harm would there be in using a low yield nuclear device to attempt to stop the leak? The well is fairly deep so it isn't as if the cratering from a tiny nuke would be punching through a thin crust and releasing the entire reservoir of oil. Compared to the environmental harm due to the volume of oil being released I'd expect the radioactivity produced from a low yield undersea nuclear detonation would be fairly small potatoes.
The Russians claim that it works...
Lets face it, this is the US way. I remember countless jokes about the Mir space station that after years of faithful service was retired while the space shuttle was blowing up all over the place. When you can't be proud of your own stuff, ridicule what others do. It works.
The Venezuela incident seems without side effect so far, and the firing of all the engineers and directors? Well, BP didn't and that one blew up... so what is the relation? But no worry, logic has nothing to do with propaganda.
What do you expect from a country where fox-news is not a contradiction in terms?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
From space...
Just a while ago we were warned by a computer scientist (whatever that is) that this huge oil reservoir is under so much pressure that if 3 miles or rock spits, it could blow up the planet and end life as we know it...
Presumably kdawson read this slashdot story... oh wait... editor reading story... I see where I went wrong there.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Blowing something up is always the best option. Detonating a large fuel reserve to stop it from leaking makes perfect sense to me. Absolutely nothing to worry about.
Someone showed me this demonstration today and I don't see any reasons it could not work. It's using hay to soak up the oil. What do you think?
I'm sorry, but I don't see a big problem with the "nuclear option". Underground nuclear explosions have been used quite a bit and they are not a significant radiation hazard. The geology of the area is presumably also fairly well understood. I wonder, though, if they even need a nuclear bomb. The drill hole is tiny compared to the 3 miles of rock it goes through. I would think even a conventional explosive placed some distance to the drill hole about a mile or so down into the rock might be enough to shift the rock and seal it off with little risk of making things worse. In any case, it's good to see people besides BP employees are on the case.
The Russians also thought that this would work.
They don't exactly have a flawless track-record when it comes to this sort of thing.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Hugo Chávez gets all his communism second hand through people like Castro, Che and Marigella (sp) but he is equally dangerous as he is slowly establishing a totalitarian regime. What is frightening is not the political aspects to his debasing of human, civil and corporate rights but the sheer incompetence in his doing so.
If we allow Venezuela to establish itself in the orbit of the last of the last totalitarian Marxist-Lenist states like Cuba it is going to spread not communism but totalitarianism. What we might eventually have is something like Hoxha again, who went batshit insane after WWII and kept Albania shut almost completely out of the world for 60 years.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
It stopped the methane from leaking into our atmosphere, so it did work.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
If we allow Venezuela
Fuck off
Where is Bruce Willis and his team? I am sure they'd do it at the last second!
That is what everybody did when Germany started picking on Poland.
Worked nicely, didn't it?
Don't you see? The bias in the article is a prime example of reverse psychology. Notice how many people are already acepting the idea of nuking it.
Are you going to "not allow" Greece to go commie as well? While you're at it, tell me about your creditors - y'know, that government you owe *trillions* of dollars to? I kinda think they will be OK with Venezuela doing the communist polka. I suggest you worry about the controls being leveraged into your own country, for now. The rest of the world isn't seein' a whole lotta open-market democracy happening, any more.
Pop quiz:
Britain declared war on Germany ___ days after the German invasion of Poland.
Venezuela has invaded ___ allies of the US.
Let's hope they will not accidentally nuke the Venezuelan gas rig :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_in_the_World
Worked fine, the last time it was tried on the silver screens in the 60's . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
In mother Russia bomb beats oil.
If you don't like the WWII example, then feel free to use one of the thousands of others. Darfur for instance.
There is no shortage of examples of times when outside intervention is not only warranted, but should actually be mandatory.
What are you doing on Slashdot when you should be in Venezuela mandatorily fighting Chavez?
I am in Venezuela and can tell you that the rig incident in Venezuela was handled much more gracefully than what they show in that link. They managed to break the main pipe and close it before the platform leaned over. The captain of the platform, who is American by the way, was congratulated by Chavez in public TV since he stayed until the very last moment on the platform, only jumping into the water after the platform was over a 45 degree inclination angle. The Venezuelan navy also did a pretty good by-the-book rescue operation, so I don't know why is there so much negativity in the reports I see in the links posted. As far as the problem in the US, I kind of disagree bringing a nuclear physicist to do what can probably be solved by an emergency contract with the Norwegians, by far the best of the world in that field. But I guess when there are no tried solutions, a good idea counts no matter where it comes from.
Fuck You!! What do you know of whats happening in my country? Venezuela is becoming FREE. Let us be. We dont want War, we just want to develop our country and be happy. With Chavez we will have that.
the problem is if they make a mistake in the maths then things could go very bad very quickly (like chunks of tar washing up in Australia kind of bad).
so i would think that they would need a couple guys that didn't get a c minus in astro^Hnuclear physics to make sure of things.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
The problem until now was that they didn't really want to stop the flow. They wanted to continue production. The government is now forcing them to stop the flow and abandon production.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
So the oil still flows, and the government has to step in for what should be a problem solved by the private sector that has claimed they are more than capable of regulating themselves. The private businesses that are destroyed from Louisiana to Florida due to BP negligence will be limited to fighting over the $75 million dollars, hardly enough when all your memorial weekeend guests have cancelled.
Here is the thing. I am one of the few people not in the oil industry that will actively defend the high price of gasoline, and even say it go higher. Oil production is risky, and the rewards should be commiserate. What I find maddening is that when the risk does manifest, the executives claim they have no money to pay for liabiliy. BP has made a profit of 5.5 billion this quarter. It is only natural that all that is forfiet to pay for the accident. That is how the free market works. As long as one is efficient and keeps one nose clean, one can make a huge profit. On big mistake an put one out of business. We should not be making laws to protect incompetent firms, any more than we should have laws to protect incompetent employees.
And for those who think there is a greater competency issue in the Venezuela explosion, remember that BP is responsible for the death of 11 good people, while no one died in the Venezuela situation. If you think that killing people is competent, something is wrong.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Greece can go commie if they want too. As a general rule, Europe is populated by sensible people capable of making informed and responsible decisions.
Contrast this with South America, which is populated by 3 types of people: un-educated peasants, druglords, and warlords.
What's up with the "Let's hope this doesn't mean they actually try the nuclear option" commentary? If the world's top physicists (not necessarily implying that Obama's and Chu have assembled such) were to claim that the nuclear option is a valid one and worth any potential risks then why wouldn't we do it? I expect Slashdot to be more Science-friendly than the typical "OMG NUKULAR == BAD!" crowd. I am not for nuclear proliferation but that doesn't mean that we must AVOID finding practical uses for them.
Dust off and nuke the site from orbit.
It's the only way to be sure.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Contrast this with South America, which is populated by 3 types of people: un-educated peasants, druglords, and warlords.
Oh, at least 4! You're forgetting the resident agents of the appropriate US government department who've spent the past 50+ years trying to keep them that way.
I spent a number of years as part of a team testing nuclear devices. They could be used as Russia has done to cut this off but at a mile deep I'd be worried to death about the potential for unexpected side effects. It may be the only option we have given the current failures but the chance of a catastrophic failure is far more likely than the LHC producing a large black hole.
If we allow Venezuela
Fuck off
I'd like to apologize on behalf of the people in my country, the United States. We're extremely paranoid, uneducated, and religious, and our entire every day consists of being endlessly pummeled by sophisticated government and corporate public relations/propaganda, making us impressively easy to manipulate. We do indeed have the mindset that we (as a country) have an inherent, God-given right to allow or disallow Venezuela (or anyone else in the world, for that matter) to do anything, and there's no real sign that we'll cease acting on that mindset anytime soon.
It may have a chance to work on land based situations, but it can also cause a major disaster.
In the mexican gulf there is a lot of hydrocarbons dissolved into the water, and there is a risk that you can get this "mint in a soda" effect if you are unlucky. And on a gigantic scale. In worst case it can be a termination event. It may not be that, but there is still a risk of a tsunami and other nasty things to happen if things goes wrong. Imagine New Orleans and a large area along the south coast of the US drowned again...
The fishing industry may be in deep trouble for decades due to this accident regardless.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Are they trying to plug the leak, or are they really trying to salvage the bore there and get back to pumping oil?
The reason I ask is..why not a chernobyl style containment effort. Drop a 200 (whatever, hugemongous, the biggest they can move) ton solid concrete and steel cube on that thing, then add to it, until the leak totally stops. The first big chunk would smash the pipe flat, effectively sealing it.
It has looked to me right along as more an effort to salvage what they did so far, not actually just plug it up.
You have also a burning coal mine in the US that has forced at least one town, Centralia, PA to be more or less abandoned.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Steven Chu's "nuclear" team is presumably following up on his suggestion that BP should use high-energy gamma-ray imaging to get a more precise picture of the leaking pipe. "Nuclear" doesn't always mean explosions...
Not sure whether insightful or funny was the warranted mod. There really should be a combined mod... "+1 Funnily Insightful" or something
Contrast this with South America, which is populated by 3 types of people: un-educated peasants, druglords, and warlords.
Oh, at least 4! You're forgetting the resident agents of the appropriate US government department who've spent the past 50+ years trying to keep them that way.
The warlords would include that set.
There is no shortage of examples of times when outside intervention is not only warranted, but should actually be mandatory.
Yes, that's why I told you to fuck off. The Iraq civil war might have been prevented if bullies like you were convinced to fuck off instead of invading it for Windmills of Mass Destruction.
Well, if we use oil drillers to use nukes to stop an asteroid catastrophe, it only makes sense to bring in the nuclear scientists to deal with an out of control oil well.
Yes I get that they're wicked smart, they're nuclear physcists and all. However since probably none of that is applicable what does having a bunch of super smart newbies get you? (I'd rather have one smart guy with relevant experience than a bunch of geniuses who are trying to learn it while they're working.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
2 (http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/ww2time.htm)
1 (http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/1092.cfm)
What's my prize?
using it under water doesn't sound too effective.
Oh, there should have been intervention long before Germany invaded Poland. If action had been taken right after Hitler crossed the Rhine, as had been agreed, Germany never would have invaded Poland to begin with. It was allowed in the name of maintaining peace, but peace never belongs to cowards. It takes courage, vigilance, and bravery.
Qxe4
One of the early successes of this scheme was the use of gamma ray imaging to find the state of the stuck valve. That was suggested by Secretary Chu himself (he is a Nobel laureate experimental physicist and knows a thing or two about gamma rays). The BP guys said it wouldn't work, but did it anyway and it worked. I think I'd be sending NASA folks rather than nuke folks but it's clear there are smart nerds in the government with something to contribute.
The article about the gamma ray operation on The Atlantic.
We no longer have to invade a country anymore to change its politics, that has been true since WWII. Saddam made the invasion of Iraq inevitable after he showed that he was prone to invading neighboring countries in the region and threatened to upset decades of hegemony that have allowed the US, Europe and China access to the largest energy market on the planet.
Force and Force Multipliers we have at our disposal include assassination and agitprop, automated air strikes are new but somewhat effective. Socioeconomic options are also available including economic and political sanctions, price manipulation of their export commodities and turning their friends against them on the world stage for trivial and substantial policy matters.
If Saddam or one of his sons were still in power, there would no civil war because he would still be using state power to crush any opposition i.e. totalitarianism. This is a man who wasted the lives of millions of his own people as well as killed millions of Iranians, 10's of thousands of Kuwaitis and would never of stopped unless the US or some outside power overthrew his government. What is happening now in Iraq is a tragedy of epic proportions but it does not address the reality that Iraq led under Hussein would of eventually been over run by either the US, Saudi Arabia or Iran because he was destabilizing the whole region. Worse than that if he had restarted his program for WMD he had running before 1991 than Israel could of started a regional conflict by attacking him. Do you think the Saudis or the Iranians would of made better occupiers because there was no way that the Hussein regime would be allowed to remain in power after he attacked Kuwait.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
As a far better article over at PopSci notes, the team includes a variety of physicists and engineers, only two of whom have done anything in the nuclear field.
While Richard Garwin did design the first proof-of-concept H-bomb way back in 1951, he spent most of his career at IBM, and held a symposium after the first Gulf War on how to close all those burning oil wells in Kuwait.
And although Tom Hunter has a couple degrees in nuclear engineering and is (until he retires in July) director of Sandia National Lab, his strengths appear to be more in the area of managing "big science" these days.
George Cooper, Alexander Slocum and Jonathan I Katz, though? Not nuke guys.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
just food for thought....
I have no problem with communism as I am a socialist albeit more of a Fabian than a fan of Marx, but I do have a substantial problem with totalitarianism. Force and Political Will is what is needed in dealing with any regime that would usurp the will of the people for the will of a single party or worse a single individual, no matter how charismatic he may be or how much of the population they claim to represent.
An open society is one in which one can have political change without violence. Once the threshold has been crossed and a country engages itself in methodologies, machinations or outright mechanized force against dissent it is the responsibility of all mankind but esp those who would claim the banner of human and civil liberties to confront them online, at home and if needed in the streets.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
You must be benefiting but millions of your countrymen are still disenfranchised through his comically inept and violent rule .
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
declared war, sure...
no military activity followed the declaration for months though.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
This should not be modded flamebait, kdawson is pushing his opinion into the main post rather than in a comment like everyone else. Clearly, he's a biased editor, this isn't a discussion, it's a fact. You can not, BY DEFINITION, put your opinion into an article and NOT be biased.
Anyway, why shouldn't we use the nuclear option to control the oil leak? This is an ENGINEERING problem, not a fucking moral one. Let the engineers decide of a nuclear bomb would best control the oil leak.
Nonsense statements like "nuclear weapons are always bad" don't help anyone. According to the previous article on slashdot the Russians have used nuclear blasts five times to control things like this with an 80% success rate. Obviously, there are risks and problems, just like there are with every option. If the ENGINEERS (not idiots that think "nuclear ANYTHING is ALWAYS bad") decide that a nuclear blast is the best option then we should go for it.
Tell me, kdawson, where did you get your degree in nuclear engineering? You don't have one? Well then how about your degree in environmental engineering? No? Then how can you say that the nuclear option is a bad idea before trained scientists that actually know what they're doing have even evaluated the situation?
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
You have also a burning coal mine in the US that has forced at least one town, Centralia, PA to be more or less abandoned.
NO! the town you're thinking of was called Silent Hill, duh... ;-)
Of course, leave it to kdawson to sensationalize it. Too good to check the facts, you see :).
If the cold temperatures and static pressure caused the containment dome's outlet to plug, why not use liquid nitrogen to cool the leaking wellhead to cause it to plug with hydrates? From the CBC website: ...
a "large volume of hydrates," material similar to ice crystals, has formed inside the box, Suttles said Saturday.
The hydrates — which are formed when gas combines with water under certain pressure and temperatures — have plugged an area at the top of the dome's interior.
Sure, I'm very much aware of Centralia, and have been near there on more than one occasion. I didn't mention it because the mine fire at Centralia was the result of negligence (kind of like the BP oil spill really...), not the result of engineers trying to fix something.
If you are trying to point out that the US fucks shit up as well as the Russians, then sure, that'd be a great example. I was only trying to point out that sometimes the Russians don't think their "fixes" through.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
benefiting? Im a collegue student, with a minimum wage job at an electronic store. I do lots of volunteer job's with a lot of movements of our glorius revolution helping a lot of people in need. Like i always say, dont talk abot my country if you dont live in it. dissentmagazine is imperial propaganda, paid by US ONG's and CIA or whatever organization is behind the curtains of the USA goverment.
God bless the USDIA and their evil overlords the CIA plus the DEA who keeps the warlords in business.
Don't explain computers to laymen. Simpler to explain sex to a virgin. -- Robert A. Heinlein
Soviets viewed 4 out of 5 of their citizens as disposable too.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The point of the GP is that Britain/Poland/ETC should have declared war on Germany earlier (during the invasion of the sudetenland, for example). Essentially, you're saying Britain should not have preemptively struck Hitler, which (considering hindsight) is asinine.
Wait, what? No, really? He's back?
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Saddam made the invasion of Iraq inevitable after he asked permission from the US to invade Kuwait and was told "no problem" by Bush I
Fixed that for you.
Cite source and verse.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
I was wondering if that might work..ie nuke it...assuming the blast would liquefy the rock and seal the leak. Or maybe pump a couple of tons of concrete into the area. The temperature may be too cold for concrete.
You don't even begin to speak for me, I'm an eclectic not ecclesiastical political realist; people that apologize for other people suffer from either delusions of grandeur, Jerusalem syndrome or some other deep-seated messiah complex. I believe you are the more likely of us to hold to some religious belief, watch scrolling news networks and buy products based upon exposure to wantonly egregious displays of craven consumerism synchronized to the beats of your favorite popular music band. Yeah, I'm solidly against allowing a country to slip into the shackles of slavery because their version of the populist pied piper deposed a more hated regime.
En Garde, motherfucker.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
their experience in the early 1950's has been well documented on film
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
Officials at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have identified a new contagion from the oil-spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The new contagion has the potential to rid the planet of Republicans. Obama has ordered the US Army Disease Development Labs to Weaponize the new contagion. However, a variant of the contagion has now been identified, which targets the Chief Executive. Barak Hussain Obama. Fearing the worst, Obama, together with officials from Treasury, Justice and Defense have a plan in place to halt the contagion from the Gulf of Mexico.
First, a 200 mile wide boarder zone facing the Gulf is being enacted. All people within the border zone will be exterminated. The zone included all of Florida, parts of Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas in the US, and much of Mexico and all of Cuba. except the eastern end of the island. Banks within the zone and Cities affected are being contacted by officials of Treasure and Justice. Bank accounts and all monetary instruments are being transfered to ownership of Barak Hussain Obama. Bank officials have been warned not to divulge information regarding ownership transfers by the Secret Service on orders to commit Assassination of reluctant bank officials and those noncompliant by Barak Hussian Obama. All monetary instrument transfers will be carried out by the Internal Revenue Service, on orders from Barak Hussain Obama.
Elements of the US Army are beginning forward-deployed to parts of Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas with munitions and fuel supplies. The US Air Force High-Altitude High-Energy Battle Laser (HAHEB) platform is being readied at Kirkland AFB in New Mexico. The US Air Force Strategic Defense Command is taking charge of targeting and assault operations on all affected cites.
The "Cleansing" operations called "Operation Bright Light" will commence with a strategic nuclear missile attach on Mexico City, Mexican Political and Military Officials, Havana, and all Cuban Political and Military Officials. This will be followed by a cleansing of all US cities in the affected zone, including ops against States Officials and National Guards. Following this, the US Air Force will launch Operation Glass Earth, using their HAHEB to incinerate the 200 mile zone producing a 1-inch layer of silicate glass from the heat of the laser throughout the zone. With successful completion of the operation, President Barak Hussain Obama will have achieved the extermination of at least 25 million human beings.
While operations are ongoing, President Obama will contact foreign leaders to announce the emergence of Empire America, wherein President Barak Hussain Obama outlaws the US Congress and US Federal Courts System, establishing himself as Emperor, The Immortal Sovereignty over All Human Beings. As example of his Supreme Ssovereignty, Emperor Barak Hussain Obama I calls to the White House, the Ambassadors of all Foreign Powers, In front of Live Video Feeds, He, Emperor I, orders the killing of all Foreign Ambassadors. As with the killing, Emperor I, Barak Hussain Obama, dictates, "This is Empire America ... I ... am Emperor." And with those words, a darkness descends upon the peoples of the Earth.
Obama should just issue an executive order dissolving the corporate charters of Transocean and the US subsidiaries of BP using his authority to protect our territorial waters.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
As long as it doesn't turn into another Bravo incident I have no problem with them nuking it. It wouldn't take a large blast and no one has more experience with bombs then the US. The fallout would probably be less damaging then the oil has already done.
This is coming from someone living on the west coast of FL.
Take a look at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsD0FDLOKGA
The damages to the ecosystem might be irreparable and of unimaginable consequences.
Really sad, indeed.
You can't blame the oil companies, it's not like they have the funds to deal with catastrophes ..
"Oh bob, it's ok, it's a 50$ bill.. we use it as toilet paper.. just like the citizens"
All this talk of dropping nukes in places where we can't really predict the outcome inspired me to look up a movie I watched as a kid.
http://blackholereviews.blogspot.com/2008/04/crack-in-world-1965-apocalypse-back.html
In the end, the rodents always win...
Cobalt Thorium-G
We no longer have to invade a country anymore to change its politics
No problem then. If you are going to ask a country politely for "Regime Change" it's all fine.
Faux News told kdawson that the nuclear option is bad I bet.
It's not like an uninhabitable part of the Gulf is going to become even more uninhabitable because we use a small nuke there. Whatever gets that leak closes ASAP is what I am for and so should everybody else.
I hear the government keeps certain "dead" persons in cryogenic storage, to be revived in case of emergency or time of great need I suppose..
Anyway, why shouldn't we use the nuclear option to control the oil leak?
Time for ocean to recover from leak: 100-200 years.
Half life of Plutonium-239: 24,000 years.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
Well, if they blow it up with a nuke, we will have radioactive oil spilling all over the place. (instead of regular oil, which is already bad enough)
As far as I understand the situation, the problem with the hole is that the oil pours out with high pressure from below. Like pinching a needle into a balloon, or something. So, just dropping heavy stuff on top of it will not really stop it, unless it really seals off the high pressure.
And blowing it up (with a nuke) might just worsen the situation even more.
Wow, the sheer ignorance of your comment is frightening, although not that surprising.
-Looming threat to the planet
-Drilling
-Nuclear Warheads
Why isn't Bruce Willis on the list?
If we'd sent peace-keepers to Afghanistan back in the 90s we might not be at war there now. And, having found ourselves 90% of the way into Iraq the first time we should have taken Saddam with us, when the Iraqis and the rest of the world agreed.
Too timid is almost as bad as too aggressive. Dictators are like spousal abusers - not someone you can leave in control of innocents.
The problem is that the USA has a record of removing governments for profit and expedience, not the bad ones. But that doesn't mean all intervention is bad.
he was destabilizing the whole region
That's the problem, the only concern was destabilization. If he'd made the oil-tankers flow on time we'd have let him come up with some cultural excuse to invade anyone.
We really need to have a zero-tolerance policy on dictators/abusive governments.
Of course, by any rational standard (war crimes, etc) ours fails...
50%. Decades of FARC border skirmishes and difficult diplomacy after the US installs military bases in Colombia to "help in the fight against rebels and drug traffickers" (uhuh) != Chavez invading Colombia.
Yes, Venezuela is more sympathetic toward FARC than the US, pointing out the hypocrisy of labelling them terrorists and negotiating for release of hostages rather than "hurr bomb them all!". In similar logic, the US invaded England because it did nothing about American support for the Provisional IRA and Clinton helped push the Good Friday agreements.
Hindsight's always about how obvious it is that the evil foetus should have been aborted in the first trimester, isn't it?
U.S. Ambassador in Iraq, April Glaspie: [The USA] has no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts.
It's tenuous to call it permission, but Saddam may have seen it as such - after all, who wouldn't have an opinion on a thing they didn't want you to do?
Contrast this with South America, which is populated by 3 types of people: un-educated peasants, druglords, and warlords.
I guess that you are an "un-educated" peasant of somewhere else.
Now it could be argued that Britain/France "could have done more" during the Phoney War - I mean, things go really well and quick when you roll in with all guns blazing, as US in Afghanistan and Iraq - but you're wrong. To give some examples:
1. The French Saar offensive began on 7 September.
2. HMS Courageous was sunk on 17 September.
3. The Luftwaffe attacked warships in Scotland from 16 October, with casualties on both sides.
Hindsight cannot rationally be considered in deciding whether some decision was asinine. A fool is someone who ignores or misjudges available data rather than data which does not exist.
I know it's easy as an American in 2010 to think that war is something which happens "over there" with buttons and rockets, but when your (France, Britain) population has been through the Great War not 20 years before, of course you want to avoid war again. Better to ask: how would Europe have developed through the 20th century if its countries were as trigger-happy as your idea of hindsight would want them to be? If, at each opportunity for war, they'd forgotten how horrible it was the previous time?
We put him in power in the first place, we just did nit realize how hard it would be to dislodge him once we did.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Faster , Quicker, Cheaper, and deny everything in case of trouble is still the motto.
And they are still silent on why the BOP is jammed - or was it defective to begin with?
Reports claim there was no warning before the boom - something else not working?
The BOP, note, was the only safety. No secondary backup - whoops.
Lets See. A number of rigs have sunk. Lowish risk. Amount of people being blown up acceptable.
Would they 'graft' onto the pipe something to plug it for a 1 in 100,000 event?
Will Obama say, right, you gotta install several stoppers in case one should fail or in case the rig sinks. They did not have sufficient booms/ and whatever in case of a leak.
Conclusion: After this, extra backups and fallbacks need to be added in law. No more slap happy
drilling with a 'nah - not needed' mentality.
If you don't like the WWII example, then feel free to use one of the thousands of others. Darfur for instance.
You still have to come up with one that's even remotely relevant. Last I checked, there isn't an ongoing or planned genocide in Venezuela.
Yeah, I'm solidly against allowing a country to slip into the shackles of slavery because their version of the populist pied piper deposed a more hated regime.
What, precisely, do you propose, considering the widespread popular support Chavez and his policies enjoy in his country?
"Time for ocean to recover from leak: 100-200 years.
Half life of Plutonium-239: 24,000 years."
Making up numbers: priceless.
Agitprop and sabatoge.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
There's plenty of propaganda coming out of U.S., but it doesn't seem to be working. Most likely because a great deal of it is very American-centric, and assumes core values that are to the right of most people outside of U.S.
And sabotage? Seriously? What are you proposing, blowing up factories so that the evil socialism couldn't possibly succeed?
The US arming Iran stopped when the Ayatollah came into power. The last US president who sold weapons to Iran was Carter.
The US did give military support to the mujahideen in Afghanistan, but those are the only Muslim militants that got weapns from the USA.
This came 13 years after Reagan left the US presidency.
I'm an engineer. Underwater nuclear explosions have been done before. As a matter of fact, some of the first nuclear tests after WWII were done underwater. Look here
Notice how the water rises as an almost perfect vertical cylinder (and lifting ships vertically). That will not cause a tidal wave.
There are numerous reasons why a nuclear blast would *not* be a solution for this oil leak, but the danger of tidal waves is not one of them.
Why cannot your americans do anything without bashing your enemies iran or venezuela?
I read some speculation elsewhere about using two very small shaped charges, opposite sides of the pipe, to smash it flat. Pinch it closed in other words. Supposedly it wouldn't take much either.
Yes, it just looks to me like they are claiming to want to plug the leak for public consumption, but their efforts look way more like trying to salvage the pipe and get it working again.
I'd imagine that you'd use a small enough bomb that the deposit of hydrocarbons, which are still under a substantial amount of rock below the ocean floor, would be unaffected.
Answers:
Britain declared war on Germany 2 days after the German invasion of Poland (on 3 September 1939)
Venezuela has invaded 0 allies of the US (as far as I am aware they have not invaded any countries at all).
Spray the well head/pipe with liquid nitrogen and freeze the oil. It's not a permanent solution, but it'll buy you time.
But Colombia - with US live intel (and the HW / HR it pressuposes) - did invade Equador. And has carried out over-border ops in Venezuela. To catch (PR) terrorrists.
I'd be pissed off myself. Popularly enfranchised Dictator or not.
That is suspiciously akin to the pre-WWII Poland excuse.
Do you mean...
Oil rigs, perhaps ? And seducing corruptible oil admins with (crony micro-middle-class) aristocratic delusions ?
Really, now.
That would *never* work. Not in L.A. :D
I hear ya, and you're also missing another use for small nukes... mining. Using a pocket nuke to blast loose a bunch of granite is an acceptable use for nukes as well, without the news being blasted about "oh my god!!! We're heading for nuclear winter!!! Oh the carnage!!!" etc...
Stone
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2008/09/18/decade-under-ch-vez
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2004/06/16/rigging-rule-law-0
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/10/09/hugo-ch-vez-versus-human-rights
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/25/oas-report-chavez-human-rights
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/18/venezuela.humanrights
Venezuela may be becoming many things, but free is not one of them.
This post is a wonderful example of grammatic incompetence leading to a simplistic, self-absorbed world view.
Assuming anyone is really considering the nuclear option, do we even have enough data to do a reasonably accurate risk-benefit analysis? For instance, can we really know that a nuke will not fracture the rock and allow oil and gas to continue to spew, but now from hundreds of unsealable places? What was the failure mode for the Russian's use of the bomb technique? Unless there is excellent data that says to a very high degree of certainty that the nuclear option is less risky than letting the damn thing leak for another two months, I can't see using it.
Of course, after reading TFA, it looks like this is yet more political FUD from Slashdot. When are kdawson and timothy going to be fired? As best as I can tell, they are both paranoid nitwits with political agendas and a severe lack of nerdhood and it shows in their work.
http://www.marxist.com/
Sounds to me like using a nuke would create a risk of causing fractures in the sea bed that would release even more oil from different locations. I'm surprised this idea hasn't gotten much attention http://www.fastcompany.com/1646820/could-the-gulf-oil-spill-could-cleaned-up-by-supertankers. Although its just a cleanup idea that wouldn't stop the leak.
It was pretty clear what Hitler was trying to do. Hitler broke multiple peace treaties, and lied many times. There was no excuse for letting him get away with all that they did.
Qxe4
Crimping the pipe seems a good idea, that's why I brought up that idea I had read about using two shaped charges on the pipe. They can make shaped charges stronger than their hydraulic crimpers, that's just adding more kaboom. They must know the pipe specs internally, so I would imagine any decent UDT guy could design the charges.
And that is exactly why I think they are trying to salvage the pipe, and not just stop the flow. The PR disaster if they admitted that would be terrible, so instead they are trying the salvage operation, but keep maintaining they want to stop the flow. Sure they want to stop it..and eventually open it back up again. That's two distinctly different goals. Seems if they had a *permanent* stop in mind, it would be loads easier, several techniques would or could work, the shaped charge crimping, or my idea of just a huge big heavy plug smack dab on top of the thing, then add to it. Or both, the crimping first, then the big mambo kahuna weight on top of it.
OK, I just checked, the largest ocean going crane can move 14,200 tons! That's a hella large plug to drop on something 21 inches in diameter, I don't care what pressure that flow is at, something that hugemongous is gonna smash it way down to bedrock. As to what to use, any old random used bulk tank. Fill it with scrap concrete chunks, put a little wet around that to fill it out, weld it shut again, add some lift points, drop that sucker right over that pipe. They could tow it out to the scene empty or almost empty, fill it up over the target, then drop it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saipem_7000
Why the hell haven't they defrosted Powers yet then?!
Humans are terrible replicators of Godly things.
So, if we all get our info from BP, at least all the public info.... The US has black assets that go down that far, and can work at that depth. A spy sub isn't set up to fix oil leaks, but can't we at least use it to get some NON BP info ? I doubt it would give away strategic info as commercial devices are already there. At least someone would have an idea of the real output....which I doubt we are getting from Bonus Pollution.
Beter risking blowing the planet into deep space than to have a world without oil, right ? Very shortighted, very ego-maniacal ... very homo sapien ... i's about time they got extinct anyway ...
beware he who denies you access to information for in his mind, he already deems himself to be your master (SMAC-ish)
Look. From a Pole's viewpoint it really sounds like explanation of a blonde who totalled a car against a wall and claims "But I was honking!"
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