by Rachael Woodhouse
It was said to be the last resort of British Petroleum in stopping the Gulf of Mexico oil gusher. Controversial from the start, the idea of using nukes to close the gusher by bombing the sea floor is officially off the table.
Not surprisingly, Hollywood celebrities are beginning to jump into the fray with their ideas on how to solve the problem. Whether for attention or out of genuine concern, Avatar director James Cameron has jumped into the fray.
Cameron has been using deep-sea technology in filming for years, and he helped organize a meeting of experts at the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday, at which he openly criticized BP, referring to the corporate crisis handlers as “morons.”
With everyone across America — from the grocery store line, to the water cooler, to the family dinner table — offering up their ideas for fixing the gusher…
…why not listen to the ideas of film industry people? Steve Wolf is a special effects professional in Hollywood. He appeared this week on GCN’s America Tonight, and told host Kate Delaney what his idea would be to stop the flow: liquid nitrogen. “ [At] negative 320 degrees, plus or minus, boy, that stuff freezes oil solid as a rock in no time flat. If you took a tube of liquid nitrogen and you squirted it deep down in the well pipe to where the well pipe enters the cavern where the oil is, it’ll freeze the oil solid. It’ll actually form its own plug, and buy you a fair amount of time to work on sealing the plumbing above.”
Wolf openly scoffed at the notion that the so-called ‘topkill’ method ever stood a chance at working. “Where did [they] get the idea that you shoot mud at a leak? That’s ridiculous. Mud is soft, pliable, gooey… not very high viscosity. And you expect that to penetrate a hole with 6000 psi [pounds per square inch] of oil coming out, and then be surprised when it doesn’t work?”
But Wolf held unwavering optimism that by thinking creatively, the oil gusher can be plugged. “Virtually every problem at one point was considered unsolvable. Man-flight? Oh, that could never happen. Go to the moon? Oh, that could never happen. Go to Mars? Oh, that could never happen. Solve an oil spill? Oh, that could obviously never happen. I disagree with all these things, and I say, you know what? It’s just a matter of turning a problem on its head. Looking at it from a different point of view, and [with] fresh eyes and a fresh mind will solve most things.”
Let’s hope, for the sake of everyone living on the gulf coast, that he’s right.