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South Pole Water Infrastructure

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Re: South Pole Water Infrastructure

#61

Post by bizzyb »

throwup238 wrote: post #24
theideaofcoffee wrote: post #14

It's always fun seeing these posts, it's a look into such a strange way of living and supporting life. And there's something subtly terrifying about the whole operation too, seemingly teetering on a knife's edge between the ever-forward marching of entropy and all of the energy they need to put in to keep that in check, even more so with it being so cold. How fast it could collapse if, say, there was a generator prob…

Nit: McMurdo uses diesel since its climate is more forgiving but the South Pole station the author was at uses kerosene-based JP8 jet fuel since it comes with additives for subzero temperatures. They even have their own arctic recipe called AN8. There is a lot of redundancy and they're equipped to fix things on site: https://www.jeffreydonenfeld.com/blog/2012/12/the-south-pole...

McMurdo and South Pole both use the same fuel, AN8, for pretty much everything.

Re: South Pole Water Infrastructure

#62

Post by nucleardog »

consumer451 wrote: post #5
perihelions wrote: post #4

One thing not mentioned: McMurdo desalination (the first one in OP) historically used to be nuclear-powered, but they abandoned that and currently use diesel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMurdo_Station#Nuclear_power_...

Diesel sounds much more practical: > “Nukey Poo” began producing power for the McMurdo station in 1962, and was refuelled for the first time in 1964. A decade later, the optimism around the plant had faded. The 25-man team required to run the plant was expensive, while concerns over possible chloride stress corrosion emerged after the discovery of wet insulation during a routine inspection. Both costs and environment…

Maybe nuclear, material, and other engineering just wasn’t as advanced in the 50s?

They had a 2MW reactor designed to run 20 years that cracked and failed after 10 and went through three cores in that time.

Meanwhile, these days the US hasn’t built a non-nuclear submarine or large aircraft carrier in almost 50 years, and globally we have all sorts of nuclear ships including all sorts of combat ships as well as things like ice breakers. And they’re not all running around irradiating everything wherever they go.

The current French reactor produces 50MW and only needs refueling every 30 years.

Seems like it might be worth another go at this point.

Re: South Pole Water Infrastructure

#63

Post by account42 »

akira2501 wrote: post #41
langsoul-com wrote: post #12

To think that beneath the south pole lies a metric shit ton of shit. I think some things are better left unknown.

Or a metric ton of untreated fertilizer. It's always good to have some optimism.

I don't think it's a good idea to use human excrement as a fertilizer.

Re: South Pole Water Infrastructure

#64

Post by ta1243 »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #55
Mumps wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This never made sense to me. What "feels" special about 32, or 98, or 212? If anything this argument is way more applicable to Celsius (0 noteworthy, 100 noteworthy). I once read that it had to do with making a calibrated scale (divisions of 2) - and that felt like it held water - to me.

I don't know the history, but I have to imagine that it was motivated by this sort of reasoning: https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/4j8nq2/fahrenheit_ce... I don't defend any other imperial units. Bring on the kilograms, meters, and liters. But when I saw that thermostats in Europe change by increments of 0.5 my gut reaction was "this is silly".

The sauna I was in last night was over 90C so I'm not sure "dead" would apply. I've seen thermostats set to F move by 2F each increment which felt "a bit silly" to me

Re: South Pole Water Infrastructure

#65

Post by yencabulator »

jimmyswimmy wrote: post #28
photochemsyn wrote: post #23

Fascinating! >"Heating the equivalent of 1 gallon of water from -60°F to a reasonable liquid distribution temperature (50°F) means heating it up by a whopping 110°F. That’s 268 watt-hours of raw energy required just to bring a single gallon of water up to distribution temperature! This is one of the reasons we’re restricted to two-minute showers." Everyone reading this should try to get by on a two-minute shower once…

> try to get by on a two-minute shower once a day This is pretty typical aboard ship for smaller vessels on long voyages. Not so hard as it sounds: get wet, turn off; lather up, rinse off, turn off. You can do with 20-30 seconds of water and be quite clean, with some practice. It's not satisfying though. And I can't imagine how those numbers scale if you have long hair, or use conditioner.

If it's not satisfying, you weren't dirty enough.

I lived for 3 years in a motorhome roaming around the US, taking a navy shower about every other day -- usually after an exhausting hike, run or maintenance work. It was a delight, every single time.

Re: South Pole Water Infrastructure

#67

Post by yencabulator »

consumer451 wrote: post #37
michael9423 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

drying and burning.

There are some smart folks making the decisions for the procedures down there. I wonder how that decision process went, to end up with burial. I would love to know the details.

The article briefly mentions this (search for budget), it's pretty much "we don't want to pay for that".

https://www.nsf.gov/geo/opp/documents/SPSMP_Fed%20Reg%20Draf...

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