Russia uses controlled nuclear blast to cap OOC gas well

[WhiskeyGirl]

"A nuclear explosion puts out a gas well blaze."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpPNQoTlacU

http://www.youtube.com/user/CineGraphic#p/search/0/CpPNQoTlacU

[WhiskeyGirl]

They've tried nearly everything else to seal the disastrous oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, so why not just nuke it?

No, that's not an original idea. In fact, you can read that suggestion on the pages of one of Russia's leading daily newspapers, Komsomoloskaya Pravda, which claims that the Soviets deployed specially-designed nuclear explosions to extinguish well fires on at least five separate occasions.

The idea was to harness the impact of the explosions that, among other things, would push tons of rocks into place and seal any leaks. The newspaper reports that authorities used a 30 ton atomic explosion triggered at an underground depth of six kilometers on Sept. 30, 1966, to extinguish burning gas wells in Urt-Bulak, an area about 80 kilometers from Bukhara.

A second 'success' made Soviet scientists confident about "the use of this new technique for rapidly and effectively controlling ran away gas and oil wells," according to a U.S. Department of Energy report on the Soviet Union's peaceful uses of nuclear explosions.

But not each use of nuclear energy did the trick. A 4 kiloton charge set off in Russia's Kharkov region failed to stop a gas blowout. "The explosion was mysteriously left on the surface, forming a mushroom cloud," the paper reported.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20004828-501465.html

I've read over the past year about the declining state of oil equipment in Mexico and South America.

So, when will the next rig collapse and leak?  It seems like a question of 'when' not 'if' something bad will happen.

jmho

[WhiskeyGirl]

Risk of blowout on Norway’s Gullfaks C: Statoil has no control over the situation, says Bellona President Hauge

Part of: Oil spills and accidents

Two gas leaks were detected at Norway’s the Gullfaks C oil platform Wednesday afternoon, and the situation worsened Thursday when the well was destabilized due to a loss of formation pressure. Eighty nine people were evacuated from the platform.

The well has suffered similar incidents, one as recenty as April 30th this year and again in December 23rd 2009.

“Three major events of this kind in less than five months proves that Statoil is not able to control this situation,” says President of the Bellona Foundation, Frederic Hauge.

Bellona has received new information that sheds some light over what actually happened on Gullfaks C, which is operated by the Norwegian state owned oil company Statoil. The situation remained unresolved Friday afternoon.

For the third time in five months, a critical event has occurred in Statoil’s well 34/10-C-6 on Gullfaks, during drilling of a side track. The last event occured this Wednesday afternoon, at 3.47 pm, when the well was destabilized. Statoil immediately began  efforts to establish pressure control on Gullfaks C. But all efforts toward stabilizing the well with heavy mud have so far been unsuccessful.

The well is still unstable, and the pressure still not under control. Currently the Blowout Preventer (BOP) is the only safety barrier.

more here - http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2010/dutch_ccs_money

[WhiskeyGirl]

It was September of 1966, and gas was gushing uncontrollably from the wells in the Bukhara province of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. But the Reds, at the height of their industrial might, had a novel solution. They drilled nearly four miles into the sand and rock of the Kyzyl Kum Desert, and lowered a 30-kiloton nuclear warhead — more than half-again as large as “Little Boy,” the crude uranium bomb dropped over Hiroshima — to the depths beneath the wellhead. With the pull of a lever, a fistful of plutonium was introduced to itself under enormous pressure, setting off the chain reaction that starts with E = MC2 and ends in Kaboom! The ensuing blast collapsed the drill channel in on itself, sealing off the well.

The Soviets repeated the trick four times between 1966 and 1979, using payloads as large as 60 kilotons to choke hydrocarbon leaks. Now, as the Obama administration stares into the abyss of the Deepwater Horizon spill, and a slicker of sweet, medium crude blankets the Gulf of Mexico, slouching its way toward American  beaches and wetlands, Russia’s newspaper of record is calling on the president to consider this literal “nuclear option.”

more here - http://article.nationalreview.com/435325/nuke-it/daniel-foster