Friday, June 11, 2010

Mother of all leaks...

A plan to use a MOAB to plug the Gulf oil squirter:
Using a MOAB to seal the BP pipe.
And, really, who cares if it works or not? Massive amounts of high explosives, like little girls and butterflies, need no excuse.

Bonus points if the person who gets the honor of pushing the button says "Hey, y'all! Watch this!" right before detonation.

24 comments:

Drang said...

They could probably pay for it by auctioning off the right to push the button.

Moriarty said...

A "Tell-Ulam design"?

(Thumps head on desk...)

One of my acquaintances (a gunsmith by trade) worked at Livermore and the Test Site as a detonator designer.

Drawing on my own misspent youth, I asked him if there was ever an issue with spontaneous, nervous giggling after a test.

"No, but there are all sorts of odd smirks and chuckles when you feel the earth heave beneath your feet."

Anonymous said...

All we need is a Major Kong to ride it down--I have a suggestion.

:-)

Shootin' Buddy

Joanna said...

Michael Bay just burst into joyful tears, and doesn't quite know why.

Alan said...

There's got to be a, "Hold my beer" in there somewhere too.

Drang said...

BTW, nuking it until it glows, I mean, no longer flows was one of the first suggestions made...

Aaron said...

Has anyone proposed just putting a bigger pipe over and surrounding the torn pipe that is spewing oil an drebuilding the bloen diverted stuff above it and then pumping all that oil to the surface in a controlled manner where it can be poured into barrels and do some good?

Anonymous said...

SURFS UP!

Gerry

nbc said...

According to this, the Russkis considered using nukes

wv:rewrig

Justin said...

Uh.

Wouldn't it be kind of hard to use a MOAB to plug an underwater oil leak?

After all, MOAB does stand for Massive Ordnance Air Burst. It kind of needs a lot of oxygen to detonate all the little particles of explosive it shoots out all over the place.

Sorry to spoil the fun. :-/

Tam said...

Justin,

Did you click the link? :)

Tam said...

(...and, to be technical, I believe the "Air Burst" in the name refers more to its intended altitude at detonation rather than the fact that it, like its BLU-82 predecessor, is a fuel/air munition.)

Bram said...

Cool. It will either work and seal the leak, or, it will crack open the Earth and let ALL the oil out at once. Then we can just filter out the salt water and pump oil from the Gulf to the refineries.

Robert said...

"Has anyone proposed just putting a bigger pipe over and surrounding the torn pipe that is spewing oil an drebuilding the bloen diverted stuff above it and then pumping all that oil to the surface in a controlled manner where it can be poured into barrels and do some good?"

I believe that was one of the first things they tried, and it was a horrible failure. Something to do with methane ice preventing it from sealing.

Montie said...

Justin,

The ordinance commonly known as "MOAB", the GBU-43/B uses H6, a high explosive that is commonly used in underwater explosive ordinance like mines, depth charges, etc. H6 provides its own oxygenator, and I think that the actual design of the GBU-43/B even carries within the bomb casing, extra LOX (liquid oxygen) and additional powdered aluminum as enhancers (powdered aluminum is already one of the components of H6).

Like nuclear weapons, the MOAB is exploded some distance above the ground to allow for greater propagation of the shockwave. hence the term "air burst".

Living in Babylon said...

See, when I saw this, I thought "Wait, does she mean 'Mother of All Bailouts?" followed shortly by "So they're stuffing money down the hole?" on the heels of which was "Wait, isn't that what they're doing?"

Tam said...

Been over at Jim Rawles' place a lot lately?

Yeah, me too... :)

Bubblehead Les. said...

Double bonus points for the supervisor who turns to the button pusher after the KaBoom and says "Use enough dynamite there, Butch?"

Anonymous said...

If this goes down, the gov. owes the ENTIRE country free fish sticks. Just pass 'em out with the cheeze.

Anonymous said...

Yellow stripes = good times. Maybe not a successful well plug, but good times.

Jim

Bubblehead Les. said...

Unfortunately, since this would be a Gooberment operation, well, what did Marvin the Martian say?

wv: trite- What the so-called news the MSM feeds us everyday can be classified as.

Dixie said...

... what did Marvin the Martian say?

There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering KA-BOOM!

I've wondered since Day 1 why they didn't call Dr. Craven in on this... but then I realized that Dr. Craven is right-of-center, a scientist AND worked on weapons projects. Three strikes, and you're out.

Matt G said...

I prefer the Russian technique.

Ian Argent said...

Sorry - anytime someone brings up "hey, y'all, watch this" I can't help but think of the end of the Posleen incursion... ("You have HOW MANY KILOS of antimatter on my planet?!?!")