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Sea of Okhotsk rescue operations restarted

January 14, 2011
Depths

Depths in Sea of Okhotsk: Image via Wikipedia

The suspended rescue operation of the trapped ships in the Sea of Okhotsk has restarted and is progressing slowly in deteriorating weather and increasing ice.

From Ria Novosti:07:45 14/01/2011

Russia’s Krasin and Admiral Makarov icebreakers continue to lead the Sodruzhestvo mother fishery ship through thick ice floe to clear waters, the Far Eastern Shipping Company said Friday.

The fishing ship with about 300 people on board has been stranded in heavy ice in the Sea of Okhotsk for two weeks. The Admiral Makarov and Krasin started towing the vessel on Wednesday afternoon, but towing ropes snapped soon after the start of the operation. The rescue resumed on Thursday morning.

“The convoy has covered 17 miles since the beginning of the rescue operation, and will reach the Bereg Nadezdy refrigerator ship after another eight miles,” spokeswoman Tatyana Kulikova said. “After the meeting with the refrigerator, they will face a very difficult stretch of ice floe before reaching clear waters.”

According to the rescue plan, the icebreakers will continue towing the Sodruzhestvo, while the Bereg Nadezhdy will attempt to sail on its own along the channel cut in the ice by Admiral Makarov and Krasin.

The weather conditions in the area continue to deteriorate rapidly. Strong winds, low visibility and shifting ice floes hamper the rescue effort, the spokeswoman said.

Photographs from the Sea of Okhotsk can be seen here:

http://en.rian.ru/photolents/20110111/162101793.html

and here:

http://english.ruvr.ru/photoalbum/39338590/39338722/index.html

Related: https://ktwop.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/unusually-thick-ice-traps-ships-in-the-sea-of-okhotsk/

https://ktwop.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/sea-of-okhotsk-rescue-update-tartar-straits-frozen-to-the-bottom/

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Posted in Engineering, Environment, Russia, Technology | Comments Off on Sea of Okhotsk rescue operations restarted

Sea of Okhotsk rescue attempt suspended

January 13, 2011

In worsening weather the first attempts to tow the trapped Sodruzhestvo mother ship clear of the ice by the icebrakers Krasin and Admiral Makarov have had to be suspended when towing lines broke.

From Voice of Russia:

Sea of Okhotsk rescue: image Ria Novosti

The operation to tow the ice-locked mother ship Sodruzhestvo (Commonwealth) in the Okhotsk Sea to clear water has been suspended due to a rupture of the tow rope. This operation was being carried out by icebreakers “Krasin” and “Admiral Makarov”.

A mile and a half after the start of the towing the cables broke, their attaching mechanisms were damaged. Today they are undergoing repairs on the “Commonwealth” and “Admiral Makarov”.

Throughout the night icebreaker “Krasin” was clearing a passageway for the caravan of vessels. Today it shall continue this work.

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Posted in Engineering, Environment, Russia, Technology | 1 Comment »

Sea of Okhotsk rescue update: Tartar Straits frozen to the bottom

January 11, 2011

Little news is coming out of Russia where icebreakers are battling to rescue the ships trapped in the Sea of Okhotsk. It all seems to be going much slower than hoped for and bringing the Sodruzhestvo out is clearly posing some challenges.

Itar-Tass reports:

The icebreakers Krasin and Admiral Makarov have escorted the Bereg Nadezhdy refrigerator ship to ice-free water in the Sea of Okhotsk and now are heading to rescue the Sodruzhestvo floating base still trapped in the ice, a spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Transport told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.

“Taking into account weather forecasts, it has been decided to leave the Bereg Nadezhdy refrigerator ship in a safe sea area and send the Krasin and Admiral Makarov icebreakers to the Sodruzhestvo floating base to help it get out of ice and reach the area where the Bereg Nadezhdy is waiting,” the spokesman said, adding that the move would cut back on the length of the rescue operation. The Sodruzhestvo remains trapped in ice. It has fuel and foodstuffs enough for 75 days. Experts believe that it will be harder to take it out to clear waters because its hull is wider than that of an icebreaker. The Krasin icebreaker is expected to widen the canal for the ship’s passage.

artar Straits: graphic Wikimedia

The Tartar Straits is reported to be frozen right down to its bottom for the first time in many years. The ice field in the Sea of Okhotsk is also reported to have grown from 25km wide to 45 km wide.

“The ice has hit the bottom and the ice field is spreading northwards. The icebreakers have broken through two big floes and are facing another one. After the icebreakers get the Sodruzhestvo base to the area, where they left the Bereg Nadezhdy, the four ships will proceed to a loose ice area in a single caravan. The Magadan icebreaker and a tanker ship are waiting for them there”.

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Posted in Engineering, Environment, Russia, Technology, Winter | 1 Comment »

Mt. Merapi rumbles on and rains cause cold lava floods

January 10, 2011

Mount Merapi has continued erupting in the past two or three weeks but at much lower intensities than the  fatal eruptions which occurred on October 26 and November 5.

Island Crisis reports that:

YOGYAKARTA, INDONESIA (BNO NEWS) — With heavy rainfall accompanied by sporadic but strong wind currents, Indonesia’s Yogyakarta was hit by the largest outflow of cold lava and mud, locally known as lahar dingin, since October’s Merapi eruptions, local media reported.

The cold lava damaged several bridges and created chaos as traffic flow was cut off for around 18 hours on one of the city’s main highways, which was flooded under meter-deep lahar in several areas. “In addition to destroying the Gempol main bridge on the Putih River, lahar also destroyed bridges in other villages, leading to the isolation of hundreds of residents in seven hamlets,” Heri Prawoto, head of the Magelang district’s Disaster Management Office, told the Jakarta Globe.

But the resilience of humans is amazing.

The Merapi Golf Course in Yogyakarta, covered in ash. image credit: DigitalGlobe.

In Merapi’s Shadow, a Tourism Boom

The golf courses may be covered in volcanic ash, but tourists are flocking to Indonesia to see devastated villages near the recently eruptive Mount Merapi volcano.

Tourists with a curiosity about the aftermath of earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions are being courted to the central Javanese city of Yogyakarta, Reuters reports.

The eruptions, which began on Oct. 26, killed more than 350 people and created nearly 400,000 refuges. That destruction, it seems, is a selling point for local travel agencies desperate for tourists’ dollars. “In the new volcano tour package, we’ll take customers to explore the closest village to the peak and see how bad the devastation is,” Edwin Ismedi Hinma, of the local tour agencies association, told Reuters. “Then we’ll take them to a river to watch cold lahars flood past.”


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Posted in Business, Environment, Indonesia, Natural Disasters, Volcanos | 2 Comments »

Ozone layer hits record thickness in Sweden: Was there ever an ozone hole problem?

January 9, 2011

Lately there has been an increasing view that some of the catastrophe scenarios about the ozone hole which led to the Montreal Protocol of 1989 were exagerrated and based on poor science. The effects of humans on ozone variations as opposed to natural variations may have been exaggerated. In fact there are now some suggestions that the actions taken were not only unnecessary but that they have not had much to do with the natural increase of ozone layer thickness observed in recent times.

The Local reports:

Sweden’s government weather agency reported on Friday that the ozone layer over southern Sweden reached its thickest levels at the end of last year, surpassing the previous record set in 1991.

Sweden’s Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (Sveriges Meteorologiska och Hydrologiska Institut, SMHI) explained that the weather was particularly favourable at the end of 2010 and it explain why the ozone layer was especially thick at the time. “It is a step in the right direction, but it is still too early to say that the ozone layer has recovered. The favourable weather situation over the last few months has contributed to a record high,” said Weine Josefsson, a meteorologist at SMHI, in a statement on Friday.
The annual value of the ozone layer’s thickness over Norrköping in 2010 stood at a new high of 351.7 Dobson units (DU). The previous record was set in 1991 at 341.8 DU. The November and December values in particular set new records among the measurements regularly made at SMHI since 1988. ……….  Even in Norrland in the country’s north, the values have been positive in the last year. The ozone layer has been measured regularly in Vindeln northwest of Umeå in northern Sweden since 1991 and the latest results were also positive in this area.
However, it is not possible to record complete ozone measurements in the winter, so it is uncertain whether a record was set there as well at the end of last year. In November and December, air flows were affected by a special weather situation over western Europe, resulting in an extra thick ozone layer over this part of the world in these two months.
It is possible that the restrictions on ozone-depleting substances proposed in the Montreal Protocol in 1987 have also contributed to the thickening of the ozone layer. However, this type of measure is effective over a long period of time and it is difficult to distinguish the effect of natural variations in this case.

Related Articles

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Posted in Alarmism, Chemistry, Climate, Environment, Geosciences, Physics, Sweden | 1 Comment »

Sea of Okhotsk rescues hampered by bad weather and thick ice

January 9, 2011

Freeing the ships – and especially the factory ship Sodruzhestvo – trapped in the Sea of Okhutsk is going to be a slow process. In addition to the Magadan and the Admiral Makarov the icebreaker Krasin has also been deployed. (This is the second Krasin and was built in 1976 in Finland – the original Krasin was built in 1916 and designed by Admiral Stepan Makarov)

The Gulf of Sakahalin is still heavy with ice. In addition to the thick ice of upto 2 m reported earlier, local ice thickness can be 2 – 4 m with chunks upto 25 m thick. Bad weather is also hampering the rescue operations.

Krasin on its way to McMurdo

Icebreaker Krasin: Image via Wikipedia

Itar-Tass:

MOSCOW, January 9 (Itar-Tass) — Russia’s Minister of Transport Igor Levitin chaired on Sunday another meeting on the rescue operation in the Sea of Okhotsk.

“The participants in the meeting discussed the rescue operation in the anomalous bad weather conditions with persistent North-West stormy wind of 25 metres per second, zero visibility and heavy ice,” the Ministry’s press service said. On January 9, the Krasin icebreaker is expected to approach the Admiral Makarov icebreaker.

“If the weather permits, they will pull the Shore of Hope refrigerator to ice-free waters,” the source said. Earlier, the Admiral Makarov towed the Professor Kizevetter research vessel into an easily passable ice area and handed it over to the Magadan icebreaker which led it to open waters.

The third ship, the Sodruzhestvo floating base, remains stranded in the ice. Experts believe that it’s going to be harder to take it out to clear waters because its hull is wider than that of the icebreakers. The Krasin icebreaker is expected to widen the canal for the ship’s passage.

Three Russian vessels, the Sodruzhestvo, the Professor Kizevetter and the Shore of Hope got trapped in the ice of the Sakhalin Gulf, the Sea of Okhotsk, on December 30 of the past year. According to scientists who have carried out research, the thickness of ice in the Gulf in various periods may vary from two to four meters. Some chunks of ice may reach the thickness of 25 meters.

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Posted in Engineering, Environment, Russia, Technology, Winter | 1 Comment »

Methane from BP oil spill has vanished – presumed digested by microbes

January 9, 2011
Molecule of methane.

methane molecule: Image via Wikipedia

A new paper online in Science:

Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1199697 A Persistent Oxygen Anomaly Reveals the Fate of Spilled Methane in the Deep Gulf of Mexico, by John D. Kessler, David L. Valentine, Molly C. Redmond, Mengran Du, Eric W. Chan, Stephanie D. Mendes, Erik W. Quiroz, Christie J. Villanueva, Stephani S. Shusta, Lindsay M. Werra, Shari A. Yvon-Lewis and Thomas C. Weber

It adds to the growing body of evidence that the oceans with the help of microbes are much more resilient than they have been assumed to be.

https://ktwop.wordpress.com/2010/09/12/microbes-ate-the-bp-oil-plume/

https://ktwop.wordpress.com/2010/10/20/microbes-consume-methane-10-to-100-times-faster-than-thought/

As Science News puts it:

Methane, the predominant hydrocarbon produced by the BP blowout last year, has all but vanished from Gulf of Mexico waters, a new study reports — presumably eaten up by marine bacteria. That hadn’t been expected to happen for years.

Two-thirds of the hydrocarbons released by the BP accident were forms of natural gas: largely methane, ethane and propane. While Gulf microbes quickly began devouring the larger gas molecules, they initially left tiny methane — which accounted for an estimated 87.5 percent of the gas initially emitted — largely untouched.

Some of the authors of the new paper had reported in the Oct. 8Science finding almost no microbial breakdown of BP methane in June, about a month and a half into the 83-day gusher.

Rates of biodegradation in subsea plumes, where this gas had been accumulating, “indicated methane would persist for many, many years, if not almost a decade,” observes John Kessler, a chemical oceanographer at Texas A&M University in College Station and an author of that earlier report.

To begin quantifying just how slowly that breakdown was proceeding, he and his colleagues returned to the Gulf for three research cruises between August 18 and October 4. Their sampling at more than 200 sites turned up no BP methane. In fact, concentrations of the gas in seawater throughout the spill zone were lower than typical background concentrations for the Gulf, these researchers report online January 6 in Science.

“We were caught off guard,” Kessler says. “But that highlights the beauty of the scientific process. You put together hypotheses based on the information at hand and test them. And whether we’re right or wrong, at the end of the day we’ll have learned something new about the system.”

The new paper’s conclusions “are quite consistent with what we’ve seen,” says microbial ecologist Terry Hazen of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. On August 24, his team was the first to report online in Science that BP oil plumes had disappeared.

 

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Wind turbine manufacturers in trouble

January 7, 2011
Suzlon wind energy project

Suzlon wind energy project: Image via Wikipedia

http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/consolidation-likelyrenewable-energy-sector-ey_510295.html

Beleaguered wind power major Suzlon, may be on the block. Sources indicate that Spain’s Gamesa is looking to pick up a majority stake in the company. Suzlon added in its statement to the stock exchanges that the news was both speculative in nature and inaccurate. Market rumours also have it that Suzlon’s founders the Tanti family may sell its entire 55% stake to Gamesa’s UK unit.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/stocks-in-news/suzlon-investors-wonder-over-the-companys-accurate-picture-/articleshow/7219558.cms

Suzlon is the most leveraged wind company with net debt to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation ratio of 4.2, say JPMorgan analysts. That compares with less than 1 for global peers.
There are two ways out when saddled with Himalayan debt – either sell assets to pay off the debts, or declare bankruptcy. Suzlon is selling off stakes in assets such as gearbox-maker Hansen. But the question is what could be going on in the mind of promoter Tulsi Tanti, who was the nation’s eighth-richest man in 2006. After all, Mr Tanti had picked ‘Suz’ in Suzlon from the word, soojh-boojh, which means intelligence, and ‘lon’ from the word, loan. One part of it, ‘lon’, seems to have run longer than desired. So, will the other inspiration, intelligence, come into play?
If investors bet that intelligence would play a more dominant role than passion, then they may not be wrong in speculating that a possible stake sale could happen. Of course, at what valuation is anyone’s guess.
Mr Tanti, who once delivered fortunes for private funds such as Chryscapital and Citigroup, now heads a company whose shares are down more than 85% from their peak. The company may have created a record in going for seven share sales in five years, but there may be no one to buy in the next issue.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jan/06/wind-turbine-maker-skykon-in-administration

Britain’s nascent wind manufacturing industry has suffered a blow after the owner of Scotland’s only large turbine plant went into administration. The plant near Campbeltown, owned by Danish firm Skykon, has been closed and more than 120 staff sent home without pay after Ernst & Young was appointed as administrators this week.

A spokesman for the administrators said several expressions of interest had been received for the business and that staff would be updated next week. The future of the plant has been uncertain for several years. The Scottish government last year agreed to provide a £9m rescue loan to persuade Skykon to buy it from Danish rival Vestas. But Skykon has been in insolvency proceedings for months in Denmark after a slowdown in wind turbine orders across Europe. Only about £2m of the loan has already been paid. Ernst & Young declined to comment on whether the Scottish government would get that money back.

The prospects of production resuming at the plant are bleak. The number of new wind farms being planned in Europe is falling because governments are withdrawing subsidies to cut budget deficits while energy companies’ balance sheets are becoming increasingly strained.

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Now it’s green vs. green: Sierra Club files suit against Calico solar plant

January 5, 2011

It had to come.

The unholy alliance between the extremists of conservation and environmentalism and global warming is not sustainable. Faith is set against faith. Now conservationists are beginning to find the vast tracts of undeveloped land needed by solar projects objectionable.

Reuters reports:

(Reuters) – A leading environmental advocacy group is suing the state of California’s Energy Commission over its approval of a giant solar plant, underscoring the growing challenge to the nation’s renewable-energy goals from within the environmental community.

The lawsuit, filed December 30 in California’s Supreme Court by the Sierra Club, alleges that state regulators improperly approved the plant, known as the Calico Solar Project.

The suit, obtained by Reuters, charges that regulators failed to fully mitigate the project’s impact on rare plant and animal species, and asks the court to void approval and permits for the plant………. Conflicts between solar proponents and foes are taking on growing importance as the industry experiences a boom, particularly for California. The lawsuit is the latest in a string of suits targeting planned solar plants, potentially setting back the development of solar energy and derailing state and federal commitments to lessening dependence on fossil fuels.

Last week, a group called La Cuna de Aztlan, which represents Native American groups such as the Chemehuevi and the Apache, filed a challenge in federal court to the federal government’s approval of six big solar plants.

In December, the Quechan Indian tribe won an injunction blocking construction of the Imperial Valley solar project, under development near California’s border with Mexico by NTR’s Tessera Solar. The Calico plant was also under development by Tessera until the company sold the plant last month to K Road Sun, a subsidiary of New York investment firm K Road Power. Tessera has been struggling to find funding for its plants, which cost about $2 billion.

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Posted in Energy, Environment, Renewable Energy, Wildlife | 1 Comment »

Rescue operation in Sea of Okhotsk begins but one icebreaker stuck in the ice…

January 5, 2011
The Russian icebreakers Admiral Makarov and Mo...

Icebreakers Admiral Makarov and Moskva: Image via Wikipedia

The icebreaker Admiral Makarov has reached its destination in the Sea of Okhotsk and the rescue operation to free the ships trapped in the ice has begun. One trawler has been escorted to safety. But there are “hummocks” in the ice which is upto 2 m thick in places. The second icebreaker Magadan is now itself stuck in the ice and the Admiral Makarov is racing to its rescue.

Itar-Tass reports:

VLADIVOSTOK, January 5 (Itar-Tass)The Admiral Makarov icebreaker that took the Mys Yelizavety to the clear waters is now moving at full tilt to help the icebreaker Magadan, which took part in the escorting effort but got stuck in the ice itself. Given that the Magadan, too, has stuck in the thick ice filling the spaces of the Sakhalin Bay, the number of ships drifting amid ice floes towards the shore has again increased to five.

A total of three ships – the Sodruzhetsvo floating factory, the Bereg Nadezhny refrigerating ship, and the Professor Kizivetter, all of them registered in the port of Vladivostok – found themselves stranded in the ice December 30. They are located at a distance of eleven to twelve nautical miles away from Sakhalin’s shore. One more ship, the Anton Gurin trawler registered in St Petersburg, joined the trapped ships January 3.

The Magadan, a port area icebreaker, has the technical characteristics largely inferior to those of the Admiral Makarov. It has a length of 88 meters and a capacity of 13,000 horse-powers. The Admiral Makarov has the length of 135 meters and the capacity for 12,000 horse-powers.

A mass of ice floes has been driven into the Sakhalin Bay by northern winds. The ice is covered with hummocks and its thickness reaches 2 meters in some spots. The total number of seamen trapped by the ice at present stands at around 500. The Sodruzhestvo floating factory has the largest crew of 340 persons.

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Posted in Engineering, Environment, Russia, Technology, Winter | 1 Comment »

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