Oil Rigs / Oil Leaks /Oil Spillages

[All Seeing Eye]

Russia's solution to leaky oil wells is simply this.

How small can a nuke be kiloton wise? Obviously a nuke to work requires a minimum amount of nuclear material. I think it would be worth considering using a nuke to close the hole so long as the nuke was the smallest it could be therefore limiting the radiation damage.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Russia's solution to leaky oil wells is simply this.

How small can a nuke be kiloton wise? Obviously a nuke to work requires a minimum amount of nuclear material. I think it would be worth considering using a nuke to close the hole so long as the nuke was the smallest it could be therefore limiting the radiation damage.

Well, we've apparently built them to yield the equivalent of only 10-20 tons of TNT, so it would seem size is not a limiting factor.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Russia's solution to leaky oil wells is simply this.

How small can a nuke be kiloton wise? Obviously a nuke to work requires a minimum amount of nuclear material. I think it would be worth considering using a nuke to close the hole so long as the nuke was the smallest it could be therefore limiting the radiation damage.

Well, we've apparently built them to yield the equivalent of only 10-20 tons of TNT, so it would seem size is not a limiting factor.

Another thing actually, why must a nuke be used? why not send down a large quantity of C4 and/or thermite? Would it not have the same end result?

Would there be no way of sending a US Navy Submarine to the scene of the hole and seal it using weapons? Blast the area surrounding the hole so the seabed covers the hole.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

The hard part about blasting it shut is making sure you don't just open up an even bigger hole. The oil gushing out is under a lot of pressure. If you weaken the earth around the hole, you're just going to make it bigger and exacerbate the problem. Putting a big dome over it achieves the same result under more controlled conditions. At least, assuming the dome is heavy enough to stay in place against the outflow pressure.

 

[Jadzia]

Another thing actually, why must a nuke be used? why not send down a large quantity of C4 and/or thermite? Would it not have the same end result?

The ones our comrades used in the past were in the order of 10 kilotonnes. That would be a lot of conventional material to gather.

It appears the seal is created a result of the blast squeezing and deforming the rock. So I'm guessing a fairly deep hole is bored into the rock first, maybe around 100 metres distance from the well. The explosives go into that. Conventional materials would require a much bigger hole.

I think Russia should be invited to help, and show us how it's done.