We're talkin nukes again, folks

A reader sent me this NYT interview with Christopher J. Brownfield, whose credentials in the field of underwater demolition I am unable to establish:
You’re a veteran of the Iraq war and a former Navy submarine officer who’s now a scholar of nuclear policy at Columbia University. You’re also among the newly emergent big-bang crowd that wants to blow up the leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico.
I advocate the demolition of the well. It’s feasible to use nuclear explosives. The Russians did it four times with a 100-percent success rate. But I fear the mere mention of the nuclear option has only given opponents and unnamed oil engineers a straw man to attack.
New York Times June 7, 2010