Seven million gallons of oil polluting our seas and I cannot but wonder…

posted by Bill Arnett @ 1:58 PM Permalink

…why the matter of this "leak" has not been turned over to the military so they might go in with Red Adair-like planning to calculate the precise amount of C-4, Simtex, or almost any other explosive device, and figure out the exact placement of the device to crush the leaking pipe and, if not sealing it completely, at least achieve a great reduction of the size of the leak.

I can't help but imagine that a Cray or other supercomputer would be able to calculate how much explosive material and its exact placement to do this within minutes (or seconds) of inputting the appropriate data.

For those who are too young or so old they have forgotten about Red Adair and his wildcatters exploits in extinguishing oil well fires, Red was one of the greatest experts of his day and used the precise placement of explosives directly into the flames of the fire so that when detonated the subsequent vacuum created immediately extinguished the fire, leaving only the capping of the gushing oil well to complete the job.

Red Adair and his exploits were memorialized in the 1968 movie "Hellfighter" starring John Wayne as Chance Buckman, Vera Miles as Madelyn Buckman, and one of the most beautiful and enchanting women ever [my opinion] Katherine Ross as Tish Buckman. I guess they changed the names so they wouldn't have to pay hugh royalties to Red though I do seem to remember a screen credit that Red Adair and crew were the inspiration for the film.

Have we become so enamored with highly technical solutions as to forget the application of brute explosive force?

Just wondering.

Ciao.

Labels: explosives, Oil. Oil leaks, speculation