Nuke the damn oil leak!!

leftysergeant said:
It has never been done underwater and few things have ever been done that far underwater. Mistakes are just too much to contemplate.

The only thing Simmons called right was that Obama should order the BP wonks out of the way and take command.
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And so what exactly? He knows nothing about deep sea drilling. Anyone who does know about deep sea drilling is either being employed by BP already or is employed by one of the other oil companies.


We need their engineers and laborers, not their bean counters and managers.
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Unless the US goverment is prepared to break out conscription the engineers go with the managers (except that wouldn't work the US can't conscript people in london). In fact it's worse than that. Remove the managers and you lose weeks trying to build teams around whatever the US replaces them with. And who do you replace them with? The closest the US has would be the coastguard. They know suface cleanup but haven't even been doing a very good job of that so far. Some retired army types? For some reason the US millitry felt it better to train it's officers in the art of killing people than to plug oil well leaks.

Going by the amount BP has spent so far the bean counters are at this point irrelevant.
 
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geni said:
Is it really a humanitarian disaster?
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I was being sarcastic -- the "humanitarian disaster" I was referring to was Obama's slide in the polls due to the BP spill, which is the real reason, I suspect, certain people are calling for the nuclear option.
 
Skeptic said:
I was being sarcastic -- the "humanitarian disaster" I was referring to was Obama's slide in the polls due to the BP spill, which is the real reason, I suspect, certain people are calling for the nuclear option.
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I think it's more the "nukes are cool" thing. The idea that you can solve problems rather rapaidly with nuclear weapons is attractive. I suspect that was at least part of the motivation behind Operation Plowshare and Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy.
 
geni said:
I think it's more the "nukes are cool" thing.
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Not according to the progressive folks; they hate nukes really, really badly. Unless their president's popularity can be, in their view, salvaged by using one.
 
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Skeptic said:
I was being sarcastic -- the "humanitarian disaster" I was referring to was Obama's slide in the polls due to the BP spill, which is the real reason, I suspect, certain people are calling for the nuclear option.
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Yeah, that makes sense.

They've got a disaster that, as calamitous as it is, is not Obama's fault. The 'nuclear' option is one that is entirely untested (never been done underwater, at this depth), the results are entirely unpredictable, and could easily make the situation worse (not to mention that Obama would take an even bigger hit in the polls from the Liberal side who generally oppose the use of nukes).

So yes...I can entirely see the logic of your claim that those who are worried about Obama's popularity are rushing to suggest a solution that A) is entirely unpredictable, B) could very possibly make things far worse, C) would alienate a good portion of Obama's support base, and D) Obama would have direct responsibility for choosing to do it, and the blame for anything that went wrong.

Seriously...please, please change your handle to anything other than "Skeptic"...that's like Bush jr. giving himself a name like "Eloquent".
 
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Let me clarify: I didn't say it was Obama's fault. It isn't, of course. But the problem is that Obama is taking a beating over it in the polls, mostly due to the administration's reaction to it. There is nothing particularly noteworthy about this.

The problem is that to some believers in the one true Church of Obama -- and I do not include in this Obama himself, by the way, or most of his supporters (as can be seen by the "are you nuts or what?" replies to the OP by many Obama supporters) -- anything is on the table to make the oil spill, and thus the drop in the polls, go away, including the (literal) nuclear option.
 
Skeptic said:
Let me clarify: I didn't say it was Obama's fault. It isn't, of course. But the problem is that Obama is taking a beating over it in the polls, mostly due to the administration's reaction to it. There is nothing particularly noteworthy about this.

The problem is that to some believers in the one true Church of Obama -- and I do not include in this Obama himself, by the way, or most of his supporters (as can be seen by the "are you nuts or what?" replies to the OP by many Obama supporters) -- anything is on the table to make the oil spill, and thus the drop in the polls, go away, including the (literal) nuclear option.
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And let me clarify; I didn't say that you said it was Obama's fault.

I said that the claim that Obama supporters would push a nuclear option -- when, remember, it is the liberal/Democratic side that tends to most strongly oppose the use of nuclear weapons for pretty much anything -- that would be 100% Obama's responsibility (since no nukes could be used without his direct order to do so) is ridiculous in and of itself, if the stated goal is to improve Obama's popularity, or at least keep it from eroding further.
 
Yes, Wolfman, all that's true, but I was not referring to the left in general, or Obama supporters in general, but to the people who agree with the OP in particular.

The term "Obamaniac" can justly be applied, I think, to anybody who, in desperation of Obama losing popularity, declares his desire to use nukes against an oil spill as a remedy and to make Obama look as if he's doing something.

For once, I would agree that they're a tiny minority of extremists in the left-wing camp. Obama himself, no doubt, is not one of them (the man isn't insane, after all). But, as the OP shows us, they do in fact exist.
 
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Maybe if we used a nuke, it would cause a bizarre mutation that would result in the spawning of a gigantic, water breathing, Dutch boy, who could then stick his finger in the hole?






All radioactive Dutch boys aside, I do think that if this idea would work it ought to be done, and I would hope that people are at least considering the option. I, personally, have no clue whether this is an obvious solution, or whether it's a totally nutty suggestion. I just don't know enough about geology to know if a large explosion in the neighborhood of an oil well would close off the outlet, or make it very, very, large.
 
The Central Scrutinizer said:
Can't they just plug it with a giant cork?
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Or one of those "wine saver" devices. Like a rubber cork, but once it's in you push a lever and the whole thing expands to give a nice seal. A big high-tech version. Actually I'm now reminded of those screw+bolt plugs for use in soft and hollow materials. You pop in place, rotate a nut, and the whole thing expands to make it nice and secure. Anyone got BP's number ? ;)

Seriously though, the whole nuke suggestion sounds like raving lunacy. I picture a half mile wide crater all of it slowly seeping oil, and totally unpluggable ever.
 
geni said:
And so what exactly? He knows nothing about deep sea drilling. Anyone who does know about deep sea drilling is either being employed by BP already or is employed by one of the other oil companies.




Unless the US goverment is prepared to break out conscription the engineers go with the managers (except that wouldn't work the US can't conscript people in london). In fact it's worse than that. Remove the managers and you lose weeks trying to build teams around whatever the US replaces them with.
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Arrest the board of directors of their US operation and everyone not directly working in production and put them on a ship in the spill zone and tell everyone else that they are stuck there with the executives until it is capped and that the Coast Guard is in charge. The Coast Guard can bring in Chevron and the response teams who clean up behind Saddam in Gulf I.

And who do you replace them with? The closest the US has would be the coastguard. They know suface cleanup but haven't even been doing a very good job of that so far. Some retired army types? For some reason the US millitry felt it better to train it's officers in the art of killing people than to plug oil well leaks.
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Precisdely. The Coast Guard would not be aggravating the situation by using dispersants. And they could stand guard to see that the BP people do not abandon their posts.
 
Meadmaker said:
Maybe if we used a nuke, it would cause a bizarre mutation that would result in the spawning of a gigantic, water breathing, Dutch boy, who could then stick his finger in the hole?
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Or a gigantic, water breathing, Dutch girl, who could then stick her finger in the dyke?
 
leftysergeant said:
Arrest the board of directors of their US operation and everyone not directly working in production and put them on a ship in the spill zone and tell everyone else that they are stuck there with the executives until it is capped and that the Coast Guard is in charge. The Coast Guard can bring in Chevron and the response teams who clean up behind Saddam in Gulf I.



Precisdely. The Coast Guard would not be aggravating the situation by using dispersants. And they could stand guard to see that the BP people do not abandon their posts.
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1) that was on land, water's a different beast
2) Exactly how do you expect them to remove the oil without dispersants?
 
The BP oil spill mega-disaster is a topic worth paying attention to. I'm pretty sure 'nuking it' is probably a gross oversimplification of a massively complex disaster that could result in loss of social cohesion.
 
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