Andrew Revkin of the New York Times highlighted this comment on Twitter from his May 1 post asking, “Is it possible to seal such wells using unconventional means — specifically controlled explosions?” According to one of his readers, yes:

I have twenty years experience in using explosives in a variety of capacities. Ten of those years was in the commercial drilling and blasting business excavating rock for underground construction.In analyzing this problem, it appears to me that the simplest and most expedient solution is to kink the pipe. Any person who has ever washed a car knows that the structural dynamics of a tube (water hose) is that at some point when lateral pressure is applied to the shape, it kinks and effectively stops the flow of the water through the tube. Another solution is to simply pinch the tube closed, which is what occurs when the car rolls onto the hose.Both mechanical actions could be engineered to accomplish this goal. Explosives generate tremendous pressures and temperatures capable of vaporizing metal pipe, much less deforming it in specific directions. Since the energy from explosives can in fact be directed and focused, this is not a far fetched solution. This well casing runs through the drill hole, drilled through the sea bed and rock, material that will tend to provide a barrel or channel that provides the path of least resistance for the pressure generated by the explosives applied in that direction. As the pressure wave decreases from the plasma core of the detonation wave, the steel casing will cease to be vaporized, and will become a molten liquid, and finally will cease to be molten but will be a semi solid like wet clay, and at the outer reaches of the blast wave will just be hot metal. What should occur is that the well casing will basically accordion back and forth on itself and will effectively be cauterized. [. . .]

So, can we “shock and awe” this thing closed?

Russia is weighing in as well and suggesting we nuke the well shut. NRO’s Dan Foster explores that last-ditch option today over on the homepage.