SocraticGadfly: Can Deepwater Horizon be closed by explosion?

June 22, 2010

Can Deepwater Horizon be closed by explosion?

Specifically, the Macondo well, whose name is just now coming into common media vocabulary.

But, yes, one commentator thinks the Navy DOES have expertise BP doesn't, and can (without nukes, either) blow the well up to "shut" it.

That said, from what I've read, there's a number of caveats.

1. The gushing may be coming from not just the well itself, but other floor fractures; trying to implode the hole itself could worsen those fractures.
2. The amount of methane involved with the leak might be exploded by implosion, or something; at the least, the Russian wells sealed by implosion were almost pure oil, not a significant gas admixture.

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