Let's Use a Nuke on the Oil Spill!

No, I'm not actually condoning this, but apparently it's an increasingly popular idea.

Pointing out that the USSR (of course, our greatest role model) used the bomb to seal some leaky natural gas wells, some have suggested using an actual nuclear device to seal the oil spill site.

In theory, the nuclear option seems attractive because the extreme heat might create a tough seal. An exploding atom bomb generates temperatures hotter than the surface of the sun and, detonated underground, can turn acres of porous rock into a glassy plug, much like a huge stopper in a leaky bottle.

Michael E. Webber, a mechanical engineer at the University of Texas, Austin, wrote to Dot Earth, a New York Times blog, in early May that he had surprised himself by considering what once seemed unthinkable. “Seafloor nuclear detonation,” he wrote, “is starting to sound surprisingly feasible and appropriate.”

Man, I hope we don't do this. I know we need a radical option, but not this radical. In case we do it, though, I would not even have guessed that Obama would nuke a part of the United States.

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