Here’s how he and others say the explosives proposal could work: Near the failed BP Macado oil well, another hole would have to be drilled some 3,000 feet down. Explosives would then be lowered into that hole. Detonating those explosives would create a cavity below the sea floor that would envelop a section of the neighboring BP well and plug it with rubble…

But opponents of the solution, including BP itself, argue it’s a lot more complicated than that. The explosion, they say, could potentially disturb rock formations that had helped contain some oil, resulting in new leaks.

“The problem with exploding a highly powerful device down there — you essentially lose any and all control,” a BP spokesman said. The explosion, he said, could create new “flow paths” for the oil.

“Now, instead of having leak coming from one wellhead, you would have it come from 100 different locations on the seafloor,” said Paul Fischbeck, an oil platform expert and a professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University. “How do you stop that?”