Whats the risk that it will open up even more????
I really think this ‘bomb the thing’ approach is fatal.
Do we forget what it will take to work at 1 mile below the sea. Do we have any test results with these bombs at those pressures? I think not.
I had heard we did use the MOAB....I can see it now blow up the ocean floor and cause thousands of oil gushers.
Sounds interesting, but what would be the effect on the bomb 5000 below water?
A lot of pressure on the bomb before you get the bomb to the bottom of the gulf.
I know the fish would not like it.
I uh don’t know about that one... Could it make it worse? Do ya think maybe?
To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
An M-80 in a bowl of pudding ...
Very bad idea.
I keep hearing this “bomb it” suggestion. What’s the guarantee that will work instead of making things worse?
This “suggestion” will brings peals of laughter from the real experts at places like theoildrum.com
I can hear them now, “Here comes more noise”, referring to all noise, no signal.
I think it's just as likely that an explosion would cause the leak to get worse, create more debris, and make it harder to control.
If you could open a large enough cavity, you might use thermite, but I just don't know how this would be done.
Traditional bombs only do explode or crack and both of those aren't going to be all that helpful. Oil well people do the crack thing to get more production out of the well. So, you know that's not going in the right direction. More likely you damage the casing, and that's all.
Couldn’t they drill at an angle, 3 holes, maybe 200 feet below the sea floor right that come very close to the well piping and then put high explosives at the end of the holes, seal off the holes and then blow the explosives? Would this stop the flow of oil?
The relief wells are designed to intercept the original wellbore in the vicinity of the producing horizon, near the total depth of the well which is blowing out.
The relief wells can be used to introduce heavy drilling fluid, (AKA "kill mud") to the original wellbore, exerting enough hydrostatic pressure to stop the formation from producing. Then the well can be cemented shut.
The relief wells were spudded on May 4th and the 17th, and are in progress, due to reach depth in August.
This is the tried-and-true method to control a blowout when other means fail.
Before anyone goes and blows up the wellhead, disrupts (but fails to seal the wellbore) or causes some other major damage to further complicate the relief well/kill/cement process, how about waiting for that to work?
The Ixtoc 1 well (1979) blew out for 9+ months in the Bay of Campeche (the southern bight of the Gulf of Mexico) before it was finally controlled. This well has had many attempts to capture the oil blowing out of it, aomething the Ixtoc did not have, and they have met with some success. But the relief wells have been the main plan to kill the well since the ttempt to close the BOP failed.