by Jeff Franklin

Created on: June 01, 2010   Last Updated: June 26, 2010

This discussion will address a novel way to cap a deep oceanic oil spill - such as the mile deep one in progress - in the Gulf of Mexico. Finding ways to cap leaking oceanic well heads thousands of feet below the surface presents new challenges and fewer options than are available for capping well heads in relatively shallow water.

Obviously, I don’t need to dwell on this or prove it, as the recent efforts that oil companies, such as BP, have at their disposal have failed miserably - as in the example of BP’s efforts to stop this spilling plume over 5,000 feet deep in the Gulf of Mexico.

This brings me to suggest possibly the only solution we have to arrest the greatest oil spill in history, going on as I write this, in the Gulf of Mexico. I note here, that the US and the world environment (in jeopardy) cannot wait till August 31, 2010 - the date that BP, the media, and the Obama administration says that a "relief well" will be ready to take pressure off this spewing well leak.

If the oil pressure in the sub-oceanic crust is allowed to continuously feed this pipe for three more months, the volume of oil spilled into the ocean will wreak havoc upon the world - as this colossal pollution mass hits the trans-Atlantic gulf stream and plagues western Europe (not to mention the entire east coast of the United States) with the same problems the State of Louisiana is having now.

I also note here, that I submitted this idea online a few weeks ago to Horizon Ideas/Alternative Response Technology/Proposes Solution Information Sheet.

So here is the proposal I submitted:

Lower a mega "depth charge type" bomb of 10 KT yield over the leak on the ocean bottom. It could be a tactical nuke or a "Daisy Cutter"/MOAB (Mother of All Bombs) conventional chemical explosion.

Doing this plugs not only the leaking pipe, but, disrupts and thermally seals the geologic rocks over the oil bed that feed this leaking pipe in the first place. This is especially so if the explosion on the sea floor over the spill is a fission/fusion nuclear burst.

It would create a very shallow, lens shaped crater on the sea floor up to one half mile in diameter and 100 plus feet deep. But it would create a "fusion crust" of melted and re-solidified silica magma up to 50 feet thick that would be more than sufficient to seal up this leak - forever.

A delivery vessel, craft or sub can deliver the bomb to the place at "surface zero". The bomb has a protective pressure casing to prevent it from premature detonation before it reaches the mile deep marine floor over the leaking pipe. The bomb is lowered by slow, controlled descent. Obviously, before detonation, the delivery vessel has time to get the hell out of there.

A 10 KT nuclear explosion at one mile marine depth would have minimal environmental impact. (This is especially true, when compared to the horrific environmental consequence of allowing three more months of oil leaking into the ocean at the rate it is leaking now.)

The "spray dome", atmospheric dynamic, and PSI "over-pressures" would be minimal by the time the explosion reached the surface.*

Therefore, in conclusion, I say to all parties: do not try to "recover" this oil head. It is a lost cause. Additionally, forget the nuke test ban treaties on this one. This is an EXCEPTION that that world would understand. We are talking about saving the entire marine environment here!

* Source: “The Effects of Nuclear Weapons” by Samuel Glasstone, 1977, declassified US government book.

Learn more about this author, Jeff Franklin.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.