MISSING VESSEL: The U.S. currently has only one active icebreaker in its fleet, the research vessel Healy.
Image: National Science Foundation
Have a spare polar icebreaker lying around? The National Science Foundation would like to hear from you.
The agency is scrambling to secure a ship to lead its annual resupply convoy to McMurdo Station, the largest of the three U.S. research stations in Antarctica.
For the past five years, NSF has relied on a Swedish ship, the Oden, to break a channel in the ice for ships carrying fuel and cargo to McMurdo. But the Swedish Maritime Administration, which owns the Oden, declined to renew its contract with NSF this year. The Swedes want to keep their icebreaker closer to home after heavy ice in the Baltic Sea stranded ships and scrambled cargo traffic there last winter.
If the NSF can't find a replacement icebreaker to lead the journey -- scheduled to begin in early December and reach McMurdo in late January -- this year's Antarctic research season could be cut short.
"We are trying to work really diligently to identify alternatives," said NSF spokeswoman Debbie Wing. "It could impact the research season if we can't resupply for researchers to head down there."
McMurdo was once serviced by U.S. icebreakers, but the country's fleet has dwindled to just one operational vessel, the research ship Healy. It's in the middle of a seven-month science cruise in the Arctic Ocean.
NSF has asked the Coast Guard, which operates the Healy, to send the ship south to Antarctica this winter, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Robert Papp Jr. told a Senate committee yesterday.
"We've gotten an inquiry at the staff level about the possibility of breaking out McMurdo," Papp said. "Sweden has decided that their national interests need [the Oden], so that ship is not available."
Slim chance of response from aging U.S. fleet
Now the Coast Guard must decide whether it can spare the Healy, which would mean going without a U.S. icebreaker in the Arctic for several months. A second U.S. icebreaker, the Polar Star, is being repaired in Seattle, but Papp said there's no chance it would be seaworthy in time to service Antarctica or provide coverage in the Arctic if the Healy heads south. A third icebreaker, the Polar Sea, is sitting in dry dock, and the Coast Guard plans to decommission it later this year.
"We're in what we call a strenuous chase right now trying to catch up," Papp told lawmakers, describing the aging U.S. icebreaking fleet.
Meanwhile, NSF spokeswoman Wing said it's not clear how the Antarctic's summer research season -- which runs from November to February -- would be affected if her agency can't find a replacement for the Oden.
An email from the contractor that operates NSF's three Antarctic stations suggests that the biggest challenge would be finding a way to transport fuel to McMurdo.
The station, whose population swells from about 150 in winter to 1,000 each summer, is also a supply hub for the U.S. base at the South Pole, Amundsen-Scott. (A third U.S. research base, Palmer Station, is serviced by an ice-strengthened research vessel, the Lawrence M. Gould.)
"If an icebreaker is not available to clear a channel in the sea ice, fuel and cargo resupply ships may not be able to reach McMurdo Station," reads the email from Raytheon Polar Services.
"We could possibly airlift enough cargo to maintain most operations, but fuel is another story. Fuel is critical for the McMurdo and South Pole station power and water plants, flight operations, field camps, and even support of other national programs. We will need to plan in order to reserve enough fuel to last until late January 2013, which could be the earliest that we could re-supply fuel, if there is not an icebreaker this season."
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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8 Comments
Add CommentYes, but whose reality are you talking about?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnprecedented corporate profits, unconscionable banks, outsourced jobs, etc. - those are the elements of reality that refuse to pay their portion of American sustenance. Their refusal - aided and abetted mostly by doltish Reps. - force the remainder of us to pick up their share, or lose some of our important efforts, such as this one. You are just another in a long line of clay-for-brains who believes the Faux talking points. Try putting your cards down long enough to understand what is truly going on.
The vast majority of federal outlays that you've listed are not quite in order of expenditure, but I take your point. I am not convinced that Social Security is anything but a slush fund for the Feds to grab - as they have done for each and every year since some politician decided to fold it into the general revenues. First would be to permanently separate it from the federal budget.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThen there are countless savings to be made in defense programs that are beyond their lifespan, are duplicate [triplicate? quad?] efforts, or completely unnecessary. But these are programs that represent American jobs in all 50 states, so Congress has no appetite for cutting defense - except in someone else's district.
Health care? That the US, like the rest of the civilized world, is not a single-payer system, with private health insurance for more in-depth coverage, begs belief.
But before we accept the need to raise tax revenues on anyone, we should also insure that *everyone* pays. That simple.
That's what my undergrad degree in economics says; maybe I missed something that was held exclusively for grads.
No, pokerplyer, FDR established SocSec as an independent trust fund - separate from the general fund of US revenues. Lyndon Johnson is responsible for combining SocSec with general revenues, where it's been since. Furthermore, SocSec by itself is fine; it's the rest of our unsustainable obligations that drags it down.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSingle-payer efficiencies would not provide unlimited health care for free; that was the idea behind my inclusion of additional private health insurance for those who want to spend extra to receive a higher level of health care.
As far as the need for fuel is concerned, they could start constructing a Power Station, that is built on the Gravity System.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt may need some solid ground to erect two Silos, side by side. Inside each is a weight that can slide up and down.
The weights can be made up of any material that is around but the sliding container of the material is made of steel.
The Propulsion Units underneath, to push the weights up to maximum height, will be manufactured in Canada and can be flown up and installed.
When the weight comes down it will activate a generator.
The Silos will work alternately and can be built in Micro-Mega- or even Gigawatt size and will work anywhere where we have gravity.
A Diesel Generator is used once to start the operation.
After that, it is only a stand-by and will be in a heated Unit, heat supplied by the Station.
One Terminal Capacitor shows the origin of the technology.
& the Gaul
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are both getting way off topic, elsewhere please.
Thanks, smiler03. I almost forgot what the article was about.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI thought Gore and Hanson, among others, said that all this ice would be gone by now. Isn't that the reason the U S hasn't been worried about replacing icebreakers? I think we need ennui's space ship so we can melt the ice with the ray guns. Later.
Heavier than average ice in the Baltic sea. Sweden takes care of its own national interest.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHINT...Washington, cut out the fat and concentrate on science at home.
In times of financial crisis we need to prioritize our science dollars and renting an icebreaker for antarctic research is not one of them. In an ideal world 'yes'...in a bankrupt USA word 'no'.
Stop the friggin spending!!!!!
The navy had it right the 1st time. They had a nuclear reactor down in McMurdo. Plenty of power, without worrying about umpteen thousand gallons of deisel fuel.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThen, instead of leveling off part of Ross island and building a permanent runway, to support skibirds, as well as all types of wheelbirds, the powers that be decide to support 3 different runways. The Ice runway, Williams field, and Pegesus. Pumping fuel for miles out to each of these sites on the open sea ice.
The gallons of fuel wasted each and every day by these large deltas hauling people, and cargo back and forth 8-14 miles to these "temporary runways" is just obscene.
One permanent runway on Ross island, and a Nuclear reactor could solve alot of these problems. C-17's could rotate 7 months out of the year with cargo to a permanent runway without worrying about the snowpack being hard enough. KC-10's, and 135's could land around the clock there for months with fuel if they had to, on a real runway. NSF, and the Gov't reap what they sow.
I don't have a degree in anything, but have spent many seasons on the ground there watching the waste, in disgust.
Mike73