Since iron tubes, giant domes and hairnets don’t seem to be doing the job, one expert is suggesting that the United States seal the Gulf oil spill with a nuclear explosion.

“Enough is enough,” Christopher Brownfield writes at The Daily Beast. “It’s time to destroy the well and put the matter to rest.”

The Russians have used this tactic on out-of-control wells before, and one Russian newspaper has urged the U.S. to try it now.

The Soviet Union first solved an Uzbek natural gas leak in 1966 with nukes. The force of the blast sealed the hole from which the gas was being expelled. They used the tactic four more times. The nuclear intervention worked in four out of five attempts.

However, it’s been pointed out that each of the five Soviet attempts involved natural gas, rather than crude oil, and leaks occurring in subterranean channels. The Gulf leak is taking place 1,500 metres underwater.

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is now a month old. The U.S. government estimates 5,000 barrels of oil a day are being spewed into the Gulf.

The well’s owner, BP, is attempting to use a 1.6-km tube to divert the oil on to a tanker ship. Brownfield, a former nuclear submarine officer and a visiting scholar on nuclear policy at Columbia University, argues that that fix is unworkable.