Spill baby spill, slippery politics

CNN) -- BP plans to continue using a controversial subsea dispersant to break up a plume of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, saying that the leading alternative could pose a risk over the long term, the EPA indicated Saturday.

The EPA issued a directive on Thursday, ordering BP to find, within 24 hours, a less toxic but equally effective chemical than its current product, Corexit 9500 -- and one that is available in sufficient quantities. The directive also gave the company 72 hours to stop applying it to the undersea gusher.

Reports today of major new eruptions from the seabed around the Deepwater Horizon drill. The underground casing must have totally failed, releasing tons of oil and hydrates to seep up from a variety of areas. Totally, completely not good.

I must have an inaccurate understanding of the geology in that area or something.

The oil seeps up from beneath the sands on the beaches, so you clean it - and it comes right back. The below picture was an area which was 'cleaned' just a few minutes before.

This is probably a dumb question, but is there any reason they didn't consider sending Navy Subs down there to torpedo the well-head right from the beginning? Couldn't they implode the rock walls themselves and seal the whole thing off that way? When wells are leaking on land, don't they blow them up sometimes to stop the gusher?

Were they worried about actually increasing the flow if they destroyed the surrounding rock?

Let's Just Nuke It

Russian science editor Vladimir Lagowski has written a column in which he claims that the U.S.S.R. used nuclear devices to plug underground fissures several times with success - most of the time. The author cites one failure, where a 1972 gas blowout was not extinguished by a nuke. But at least it was only 4 kilotons.

This peaceful use of nuclear detonations fell under the Soviet Union's Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy program. The Russian Analytical Center for Non-Proliferation lists 67 underground nuclear explosions conducted by the U.S.S.R. in the interests of its national economy between 1965 and 1990.

Lagowski writes that the probability a nuke detonated a mile under the gulf would seal the Deepwater Horizon leak is perhaps 20 percent: "Americans could take a chance."