How's this for outside-the-box thinking - use nuclear explosives to stop the BP oil spill that is ravaging the Gulf Coast?
According to some of the panelist on Fox News Channel's "Forbes on Fox," using nuclear materials would be a more expeditious way to solve this calamity.
"That's right, nuke it." "Forbes on Fox" host David Asman said on the show's June 5 broadcast. "Some scientists do advocate this. The Soviets apparently succeeded in doing it. Here is the video they say actually shows it. And now some at ‘Forbes' agree, nuke it.
Rich Karlgaard, publisher of Forbes magazine, was one of the strongest proponents of using nukes for fear that the relief well option could be thwarted by a hurricane.
"Well David, this is the kind of option you really have to put on the table. Why? The leak has been going for seven weeks - 500,000 gallons of oil a day," Karlgaard said. "Tar balls are showing up on the coast of Florida. The only sure-fire option to stop it is a relief well which is ten weeks away and that puts you in August hurricane season. So we might as well look at something with an 80-percent success rate according to the Russians.
Another advocate of this method was Neil Weinberg, the executive editor of Forbes. He didn't necessarily say it was a sure-fire means, but said it should be an option left on the table.
"Well obviously David, the conventional ways to solve this have not worked," Weinberg said. "So, why not consider some unconventional ones? I will admit, I am a little bit nervous about this, but we shouldn't have a nuke-ophobia here. I mean, we have nuclear power plants in our backyards. We have nuclear submarines. Just because something is nuclear, that is detonated well below the sea, doesn't mean that it is going to contaminate anything."
Forbes magazine Editor-in-Chief Steve Forbes wasn't quite on board with this line of thinking.
"I can see the tourist posters in the future for the Gulf," Forbes said. "In addition to the oil, you can have warm water and radioactive water.
He explained the Soviets could have afforded to take such a chance with nuclear explosives, but in a volatile political situation, doing so just isn't feasible.
"So, the Soviets can get away you might say, playing nuclear Russian roulette with things like natural gas and the like," Forbes continued. "But, this is in the ocean and never done before. I don't think it's ever really been modeled before. So, politically the idea is a bomb and radioactive. Not going to happen."
