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Nord Stream: Tie-ins and hyperbaric welding

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Re: Nord Stream: Tie-ins and hyperbaric welding

#11

The fact that someone actually built this, sent it to the bottom of the ocean, and then put people inside it to weld a 1200km pipeline underwater boggles my mind. Meanwhile we inexplicably struggle to figure out clean/cheap energy at scale.

This IS cheap energy at scale, they just skipped the clean part.

Re: Nord Stream: Tie-ins and hyperbaric welding

#12
post #4

What a giant waste of taxpayer money, built when many - especially in east European countries - were already warning something exactly like this year would happen. Cool technology though.

The Nord Stream pipelines are owned by Gazprom, in partnership with a consortium of privately owned Western European energy companies (Engie, Shell, E.ON, etc)

State owns a significant share of Engie, moreover because oil is a strategic resource, governments often have a right to intervene in corporate governance when it threatens national security.

Re: Nord Stream: Tie-ins and hyperbaric welding

#13
I worked in oil and gas in a previous life. The absolute wildest people I've ever met are saturation divers - divers who live in pressurized chambers on ships for months at a time to avoid having to decompress after dives. Fantastic money but you need a few screws loose to handle the work.

Re: Nord Stream: Tie-ins and hyperbaric welding

#14

The fact that someone actually built this, sent it to the bottom of the ocean, and then put people inside it to weld a 1200km pipeline underwater boggles my mind. Meanwhile we inexplicably struggle to figure out clean/cheap energy at scale.

Wind power is advancing at a rapid clip (cost competitive without subsidies). Solar PV too keeps getting cheaper (same re subsidies as far as the panels themselves).

I'm hopeful that battery research keeps advancing the game (moving from lithium to sodium could lead to significant price cuts IIRC).

It's not enough to wean us but it is headed in the right direction. I think the end of the Russian NG pipelines is going to help accelerate this so it could ultimately be a very good thing (but brutal to start with).

Always look on the bright side of life, ta da, ta da da da dee da!

Re: Nord Stream: Tie-ins and hyperbaric welding

#15

I worked in oil and gas in a previous life. The absolute wildest people I've ever met are saturation divers - divers who live in pressurized chambers on ships for months at a time to avoid having to decompress after dives. Fantastic money but you need a few screws loose to handle the work.

How much money is “fantastic money”?

Re: Nord Stream: Tie-ins and hyperbaric welding

#16

The fact that someone actually built this, sent it to the bottom of the ocean, and then put people inside it to weld a 1200km pipeline underwater boggles my mind. Meanwhile we inexplicably struggle to figure out clean/cheap energy at scale.

Yeah fossil fuel extraction has a lot of engineering behind it (as well as transport, handling, processing, etc): there had been easily accessible deposits, but they've been depleted a long time ago, at least in europe. The issue with technological progress and scaling bringing down costs for renewables is that there is a similar effect for fossil fuels too. On the other hand, technologies originally developed for fossil fuel extraction can also be used for renewables deployments.

Re: Nord Stream: Tie-ins and hyperbaric welding

#17

I worked in oil and gas in a previous life. The absolute wildest people I've ever met are saturation divers - divers who live in pressurized chambers on ships for months at a time to avoid having to decompress after dives. Fantastic money but you need a few screws loose to handle the work.

No post body was provided.

Re: Nord Stream: Tie-ins and hyperbaric welding

#18
post #15

I worked in oil and gas in a previous life. The absolute wildest people I've ever met are saturation divers - divers who live in pressurized chambers on ships for months at a time to avoid having to decompress after dives. Fantastic money but you need a few screws loose to handle the work.

How much money is “fantastic money”?

I think 500k-1mil year guaranteed.

Re: Nord Stream: Tie-ins and hyperbaric welding

#19
Hey. Let me walk you through the Donnelly nut spacing and crack system rim-riding rip configuration. Using a field of half-C sprats, and brass-fitted nickel slits, our bracketed caps, and splay-flexed brace columns vent dampers to dampening hatch depths of one half meter from the damper crown to the spurve plinths. How? Well, we bolster twelve husk nuts to each girdle-jerry, while flex tandems press a task apparatus of ten vertically composited patch-hamplers. Then, pin-flam-fastened pan traps at both maiden-apexes of the jim-joist.

Re: Nord Stream: Tie-ins and hyperbaric welding

#20
post #15

I worked in oil and gas in a previous life. The absolute wildest people I've ever met are saturation divers - divers who live in pressurized chambers on ships for months at a time to avoid having to decompress after dives. Fantastic money but you need a few screws loose to handle the work.

How much money is “fantastic money”?

They get paid while sleeping so a good wage adds up fast
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