At the ending of the Cryptonomicon, our hero decides to basically melt the gold out of the hole in the ground by using a pump and tons 'o gas.
This plan seems to me to be… flawed.
First problem, you don’t actually get gas to burn unless you have air. And I don’t see air in that hole in the ground of yours.
Second problem, I think the melting point of gold is higher than the boiling point of water (yep, about 1000C or so). So if you want to melt the gold, you basically have to boil off the entire lake sitting on that gold. With what amounts to a flamethrower.
Somehow, I don’t see that working. Am I missing something?
The scene in the beginning where Waterhouse the elder is prancing around on some beach with lots of military (after climbing a fence), while Turing and Rudi are… frolicking. I don’t remember the exact description, but on both readings the scene seemed entirely surreal and I remember thinking that it must be something that gets explained later.
That was the aftermath of the Hindenburg disaster. It would have had a nightmarish quality to it.
As for the OP, I’m no engineer so I can’t really comment on the viability of the scheme but Stephenson at least knows he needs air for combustion to occur. They are pumping both compressed air and pressurized fuel oil into Golgotha.
My problem with the solution is that there was a much easier way. All they needed to do was drain the artificial upper lake! Then they could walk into Golgotha using the tunnel Goto Dengo &Co. swam out of. Sure, they had collapsed some ceilings and such, but the main death trap danger is gone and they have an easy way to the main stash.
They even had the guy that designed it on their side. Goto-san could easily provide all the details they needed.
The pumping in air and fuel technique is just not going to work. Plus it will destroy all the valuable artwork (e.g., the golden Buddha) plus gems and such. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
I’m also not an engineer, but yeah, the delivery systems for gas and air are already there (through the primary shaft directly above the main vault). What you’d need to do first is to seal the lake opening - not so difficult a task, and then open the Golgotha system from its river-bed entrance. Then you can ream the primary shaft to allow the pressure to pump the remaining water out.
After that, I always thought melting it all was a waste. But then again this was not an archaeological dig, just a business decision.
The problem was that they were working against a rival - that Chinese dude. They had to come up with a solution that got them there faster than him and did not involve owning the propery to the side of the site (that was owned by the Chinese dude, I seem to recall).
Unfortunately, all of the Golgotha defences were aimed at those trying to dig straight down.
Well, sure there are shafts going straight down, but they’re filled with water! Even if you could pump a mix of air and gas down the shaft, how would it burn?
The bigger problem with the ending of Cryptonomicon, of course, is that they had already established that just knowing where a huge pile of gold in the middle of the jungle is buys you nothing–you have to get it somewhere. In addition, this particular huge pile of gold is on land owned by the Roman Catholic Church, an entity that has access to plenty of political leverage and lots of lawyers.
I really dislike everything in Cryptonomicon after the scene where Waterhouse decrypts the message in the jail cell without displaying either the encrypted or unencrypted messages on the screen.