10 May 2010 To the victor, the spoil

10 May 2010 To the victor, the spoil


The Gulf of Mexico continues to be the recipient of thousands of gallons of crude oil each day. There is no uncertainty remaining about ecological damage except for “how bad is it going to be in the end?” No one is willing to admit that we are facing a disaster of earth-altering magnitude. Food chains will be disrupted, the amount of water evaporated by the sun will be changed, and Oxygen production by marine phyto-plankton will be decreased. Ocean and air temperatures may be impacted by changes in evaporation rates and by changes in the reflectivity and transmissibility of the ocean’s upper layer.

The drilling engineers and oil well specialists are considering pumping trash and detritus into the well in order to plug it up like a water line or a toilet. The pressures involved at the well head on the ocean’s floor and then beneath an additional 13,000 feet of rock are tremendously high and may well prevent such a solution.

If the old USSR were faced with this problem, it is a safe bet that there would be a tactical nuclear device on-site by now, ready to attempt blasting the well shut. And such an attack might just work. The jokes about “green glass” are based upon physical reality at nuclear detonation sites. But such an attack might not work. It might simply blow the well’s structure further open. We don’t know, we can’t say. We don’t want to irradiate the Gulf of Mexico. We don’t want to release a plume of radiological particulates into the Gulf Stream to add to the potential for ecological damage. We don’t want to introduce dirty, long-lived isotopes into the seafood food chain or inadvertently sterilize those species that breed in Gulf waters.

Of course, a small nuclear device might be powerful enough to ignite the oil dispersed in the water column. That would also create a fallout plume that could cause Floridians to glow in the dark. Such an attempt at closing the well might generate enough unwanted and truly bad side effects to make the statement,” This may be the oil industry’s Chernobyl,” all too true.

It is frightening, to say the least, that I’m suggesting that a nuclear device may be needed to end this oil leak. But I’m willing to bet that BP’s experts haven’t had the same thoughts, that the Pentagon is looking at a nuclear option, and that someone has feelers out to some old Cold War planners. I hope I’m wrong.

BTW, there were missiles in Red Square for the Victory Day celebration.  Troops from nations who supported the USSR as allies, including the U.S. Army's 2/18th Infantry Regiment marched in the parade for the first time.