BB: Dr. Nordyke when does the U.S. Government’s and BP intermittent plan due to operation accidents and hurricanes which halt efforts to recover oil from Well become unacceptable half hearted measures for remedy to plug Well?

MN: They’re obviously trying to stem the Well as best they can right now. But what ever they’re able to do with that right now it’s always going to be a temporary thing that any hurricane or anything like that could come back and really be a danger. The ultimate solution really depends upon the relief Wells (Russians tried relief Wells in some cases for three years and they were never successful). I think what they’re planning on doing with the relief Well is to intercept the run-away Well and pump mud and concrete down and try to fill the run-away Well through the relief Well. Either that or just divert the flow into the relief Well. If those [measures] are successful, fine that’s the solution to the problem of the disaster. The relief Wells I hope are big enough to withstand the pressure that they’re facing down there. It’s one of the deepest Wells they have drilled in that area with some of the highest pressures.
They are exploring somewhat new territory. If those [relief Wells] fail then I think we ought to consider the concept of using a nuclear explosion to seal it because it’s quite safe and you’re going to be at a depth 10,000 ft. approximately below the ocean. Depending on how the relief Wells are positioned with respect to the run-away Well I presume they can get to within 10 meters of the run-away Well the nuclear explosion would want to be 10-15 meters away from the Well so that the shockwave from the explosion crushes the run-away Well and stops the flow of oil to the surface. If you’re down that deep 10,000 ft. below the ocean there is no risk whatsoever of radioactivity. The only possibility of radioactivity coming to the surface would be if some how the run-away Well didn’t close and some radioactivity came up in the oil that would be a rather minor amount of radioactivity when diluted into the ocean floor. That’s a very, very remote possibility. They’re very successful with deeply buried nuclear explosions. They seal, they have never leaked when you’re down at those depths. We had quite a few explosions at 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 ft. and this one will at least be 10,000 ft. below the ocean so it could be down to 15,000 ft.

Wikipedia quotes:

“Frustrated with the lack of progress three weeks into the crisis, the U.S. sent in a team of nuclear physicists assembled by President Obama's energy secretary Steven Chu, including Richard Garwin who designed the first hydrogen bomb and Sandia National Laboratories director Tom Hunter. The team visited BP's main crisis centre in Houston, where they worked with BP scientists.” [118]

“The team visited BP's main crisis centre in Houston, where they worked with BP scientists.

On May 24 BP ruled out using conventional explosives, saying that if the company tried blasts to crimp the Well and failed, “We would have denied ourselves all other options.”[119] 

“In addition, Admiral Thad Allen stated, "since we don't know the condition of that Well bore or the casings, I would be cautious about putting any kind of kinetic energy on that Well head, because what you may do is create open communication between the reservoir and the sea floor."[121] Allen also said that the result could be oil seeping through cracks and through the seafloor, "and then be uncontrolled until the reservoir pressure equalized with the hydrostatic pressure; I think that's a risk that's too great to take a chance on, myself."[122]

BB: Do you have any comments toward these quotes ?

MN: If the explosion is down at 10,000 ft. that’s not very far above the existing reservoir which has managed to seal over thousand millions of years. It’s hard for me to believe that at 10,000 ft. gas and oil, particularly oil, but even gas could seep up through 10,000 ft. of rock, shale of various kinds of rock-that’s hard to believe. And basically you’re sealing it right above where the formation is so if it where possible to seep up through the rock it would have done that in the past over the last million of years -but it hasn’t. You are sealing it down there very deep, you’re not sealing it just under the ocean.

BB: How do you feel when statements from official luminaries nix the idea of using a nuclear device do you think they might not be calculating the right risk metrics?

MN: I appreciate it’s a political issue which would be difficult to deal with. But if this is as Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev said, a world ecological disaster then we have to do something to solve it. And I don’t think one could let it go on for the next 2 or 3 years. I think you’d would find a lot of support in Louisiana, Florida, Alabama and Georgia for doing something to ultimately seal it.  

BB: Can the President issue an Executive Order (EO) or would U.S. Congress rule on the matter to allow use of a PNE device?

MN: I'm sure they could find a way to do it. The only other political issue is the U.S. has already signed the Comprehensive Test Band Treaty (CTBT). But the U.S. has never ratified the treaty. So it has not gone into effect yet and so the president could withdraw the signature at least for this particular event- I would think.

BB: I have noticed comments posted from some of the articling out of major newspaper websites they seem to raise the specter of large radioactive seawater plumes, which characterize nuke shots, lodged on floating barges. I think people can easily be confused by old videos of nuke shots in the Polynesian area which incidentally was the site of hundreds of nuke shots over the "Ring of Fire" pacific seismic belt that never caused any abnormal volcanic or seismic activity out of the ordinary for example, the Wigwam nuke shot in 2000 ft. of water.
Do you think a low yield PNE device properly placed down a relief Well as you have stated, 10-15,000 ft. deep so that the Well would be sealed with 5-10,000 ft. between it and the ocean floor would rise like some 200-400 Kt nuke shots?

MN: But these were explosions in the water not underneath the sea floor.

BB: Other 'armchair' comments is the ruse that some how contortion of undersea rock formations would become vitrified under the extreme 3000-4000 degree C heat from PNE device blast to become too brittle to contain structure under subsidence cratering. And the issue of gas venting of radioactive gas as rock material is vaporized in heat.

In research I’ve noticed the following from Russian/Soviet technical literature on underground shots: 

[With respect to the time of the beginning of emergence of radioactive products of the explosion into the atmosphere and corresponding radiation effects, all explosions in holes can be divided into three groups.]

1)

Early escape of radioactive gases into the atmosphere ranging from 10 s to 20 min was recorded in 30 borehole explosions. The normalized depth of burial of the device in this group ranged very widely, from 70 to 960 m/kt^1/3. The total gas content of the rocks where the nuclear devices were placed ranged from 4.5% to 18%.

2)

Later escape of radioactive gases ranging from 25 to 60 minutes was observed in 40 explosions, from 1 hour to 5 hours - in 30 explosions, and from 5 hours to 25 hours - in 10 explosions, from 1 hour to 5 hours - in 30 explosions, and from 5 hours to 25 hours - in 10 explosions. The normalized depth of explosions of this group also ranged over wide limits (from 88 to 236 m/kt^1/3), and the gas content of the rock was 2.6-14.4%.

3)

In the third group of 23 explosions, there was no emission of radioactivity into the atmosphere. The normalized depth of explosions of this group ranged widely: from 96 to 225 m/kt^1/3, and the gas content of host rock reached 4-12%. With respect to these indices, the explosions of this group were practically the same as for the first and second groups, and are of little help in explaining the absence of gas escape into the atmosphere.

In our opinion, the reason that gases do not escape into the atmosphere in this group of explosion is the sealing action of the upper sand-clay layer, along with a high-quality stemming system and the sealing of other components in the epicentral zone. Indeed, the conditions of conducting these explosions differ only in terms of the thickness of a considerable layer of drift sediments, ranging from 25 to 90 m. For the explosions with escape of radioactive products into the atmosphere, the thickness of the drift was 3-30 m, and in only 10 shots was this layer 40-70 m thick. It is probable that the stemming was not of high quality in these detonations. [LINK]

BB: So in fact there are nuclear terrestrial blasts that don't emit radioactivity at all. There's that possibility.

MN: We have had hundreds of explosions that we have carried out at test sites and other sites at large depths which didn't produce any radioactive release to the surface theirs lots of data on that.

BB: I agree. There would be no post blast radioactivity on the sea floor surface not to mention you have a mile worth of salty ocean water that tends to mitigate and mute radioactivity.

BB: Would packing down in the relief Well along with the PNE device a specialized silica compound in proximity of the blast shockwave in the intense heat produce and insure a good crystalline seal for this run-away Well?

MN: No, the nuclear explosion produces initially a sphere of several thousand degrees C at extremely high pressure which melts the rock around it and start to expand as an expanding spherical shockwave. The shockwave initially melts the rock around the explosion it expands and crushes all rock around this propagating shockwave. If you had pipe in this blast sphere they would be crushed [and the metal fused shut] as well. The pipe would be crushed above and below the explosion. 

BB: If you had a submersible with cameras over the sea floor area would you see the ocean floor crater a bit?

MN: Oh, No! The long term effect of the explosion is [figuratively cavity formation] described here. When you make a large cavity and it expands to its full size it then tends to collapse and the rock above it will come down but that rock occupies a much larger volume because it's broken rock. And so within the time that its (explosion) gone up 4 or 5 times the diameter of the cavity it stops because its run out of volume. That's what we call a "Chimney". We had observed this effect in just about every underground explosion. You produce a "Chimney" which is 4 to 5 cavities high. What we're talking about here is at 10,000 ft. [down in depth in solid rock] the "Chimney" formation would be 100 ft. high maybe 200 ft. This has been observed in just about every deep underground nuclear explosion.

BB: What amount of kilo tonnage explosion would be a proper remedy for the BP oil spill Well?

MN: 30 Kt that sounds reasonable to me.

BB: Is there anything lower like 10 Kt device or 5 Kt?

MN: 10 Kt is possible, but 30 Kt would be a little safer to make sure you're close enough for the yield that you have to crush the Well, that's up to a calculation [computer modeling of blast]. We have made explosive devices for deep burial in the earth before. For the Rio Blanco gas stimulation experiment at 5,800 - 6,700 feet in Colorado in 1973 we made 3 explosives, 7.8 inches in diameter, these were designed to withstand pressures of 7000 psi and temperatures of 215 degrees Fahrenheit. That certainly can be done again for higher pressures and temperatures.

BB: On the legalities of TBT (Test Ban Treaty) like the CTBT (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty), PTBT (Partial Test Ban Treaty), OST (Outer Space Treaty) and NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) Do you think these treaties (especially CTBT) in light of the BP incident prompt a review of the treaty, would it go back to a partial test band to allow for PNE's in the future ?

MN: The only treaty that would apply here is the CTBT which the U.S. has signed but never ratified, PTBT only limited the yield of explosions. It was discussed at the time they were negotiating the CTBT that there could to be an exception for "Plowshare" but this was never included in the final version.

BB: Has any BP company or government official talked with you or sought your consultation?

MN: No, they've been kinda nervous about getting involved.

BB: Do you sense an extreme anti-nuclear bent on any technology involving nuclear science to the point of irrational fear of radiation and a proper prudent approach to weighing risk metrics that could mitigate and already catastrophic oil spill in our oceans?

MN: There has been an over reaction to radioactivity and to the threat that's involved here. Mention the word "Nuclear" and it causes people's concern to rise. If all else fails you'll find a fair amount of population surrounding the Gulf who are going to re-examine that. One of the problems is that when you mention "Nuclear" people think of these plumes going in the air, this huge mushroom cloud. That's what they think of when you say nuclear explosion. Well... that's not what we're talking-about at all.
CNN had a video clip on this [explosion] every time they mention "Nuclear" they show an atmospheric explosion. Which was just contrary to the message of the clip.
There would be no visible explosion to witness.

BB: What I've noticed also in media is they exhibit proponents of PNE device use as a remedy for the arrant BP undersea oil Well as "Crazy", as an idea that should not be given credit. Mr. Matthew Simmons and oil expert on  MSNBC Dylan Ratigan Show was in favor of using the PNE to arrest the BP oil Well flow ASAP.

Milo, in closing I would like to express my thanks to you on behalf of our readers for the wealth of information you have provided us on this issue - I thank you.  

Other links of interest on PNE use:

Crisis in the Gulf Part IV- Interview with U.S. Expert on Peaceful Nuclear Explosives LaRouchePAC

Laurence Hecht Editor, 21st Century Science & Technology