From CFACT
Thirteen members of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) were trapped and in danger of freezing to death when their base, Halley VI, lost power. Power went down on July 30th and is now partially restored. The BAS waited to report the incident until power came back up, however now reports that the incident was so serious that all science activities have been suspended and emergency contingency plans to abandon some of Halley’s eight modules and attempt to shelter in a remaining few have been prepared.
The incident is particularly serious, as the station is likely completely cut off from rescue for months.
The incident occurred during the height of the Antarctic winter while southern sea ice is at or near record highs (Marc Morano has details at Climate Depot).
One Survey member, Anthony Lister, managed to send a out a “tweet” when power came back up, reporting that the outage occurred while the station was experiencing record cold temperatures of -55.4° C (-67.72° F). (h/t Rai news)
It is not possible to survive for long at the station without power, placing the 13 members of the expedition in danger of freezing to death, although they remain safe while they can keep the power running.
Halley VI is located on the Brunt Ice Shelf on 150 meter thick ice, just off the coast of Antarctica. Temperature there never climbs above freezing and this time of year the sun never climbs above the horizon.
Halley VI became operational in 2012 and consists of eight modules supported by hydraulic legs on skis. The skis are designed to permit the BAS to periodically reposition the station using bulldozers in the hopes of escaping the fate of past stations which were lost when they became buried under vast accumulations of ice and snow. In the past the station was a major source of reporting on the Antarctic “ozone hole.”
The Halley VI power loss serves as a stark reminder of the incredibly harsh and dangerous cold conditions Antarctic researchers brave. It also can’t help but remind us of Chris Turney’s ill-fated Antarctic expedition which became trapped in rapidly expanding sea ice last 
December. Drama ensued when both the ice breaker carrying the expedition and the ice breaker initially sent to rescue it both became trapped. A third ice breaker was ultimately able to evacuate the passengers using a helicopter.
While the BAS researchers stationed at Halley VI have a higher degree of professionalism and are better prepared, their situation will be far more dire should they lose power again. Halley VI is located beyond the likely ability of rescuers to reach it until this year’s particularly cold and harsh Antarctic winter subsides.
Let’s all send our hopes and prayers that the BAS team at Halley VI will be able to keep the power running and remain safe until conditions improve and they can be reached.
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– See more at: http://www.cfact.org/2014/08/07/british-antartctic-survey-trapped-without-power-during-record-cold-55-4-c/#sthash.FTzHfe1g.dpuf
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SteveC says:
August 7, 2014 at 3:34 pm
> This site seems like a good location for a nuclear reactor!
Especially Rossi’s E-Cat! Antarctica was one of the first places I thought it would be a great fit.
Damn! Lank (@4:59) beat me to it!
No back up system? One thing goes wrong and they die?
FFS!
Still, they would have died like heroes. Ice-blue paint could be their memorial.
If “environmental design considerations” (or any other design constraints) have left this station’s inhabitants with no survival alternative but electric power as the writeup implies, someone should be shot. I can’t quite bring myself to believe it is actually true.
Millions spent and they don’t have the foresight to include a small stove and a supply of coal in an emergency shelter?
Oh wait. The Brits have converted their thermal coal to wood pellets from the U.S.
OK. Then why didn’t they include a pellet stove? Or any one of many other cold weather heating devices? Odd.
Are we sure there isn’t more information on emergency procedures?
This video of what it’s like at the station shows them unloading diesel drums. But it could be a number of things like a sensor, throttle valve or injectors. They have four generators, maybe only one provides heat, etc.
MSM will report this and in heaps if the situation turns dire again. The MSM is so desparate to save their failing business model, the pictures of bodies and wreckage and mayhem, and dying tweets they’ll go continuous live if they can. CNN is now by far in the worst shape.
These are the very “scientists” who have helped promote artificial energy rationing based on junk science so obviously fraudulent that not a single one of them can possibly claim they are unaware that it’s an open secret as to being a scam. When their own research station is designed exactly to survive *growing* ice, lest it be forever buried, don’t ask us to believe they are fair players in science when each and every one of them fails their most basic scientific duty to loudly condemn the climate alarm crime against honest science. Given half a chance these people would righteously enable a new scientific Stalinism to encompass us all via worldwide green party police state in which as Dave Appell quoted Michael Mann, this web site would become illegal. Not a single one of these “scientists” has contributed to the cure of a disease or the invention of a life saving advance. Instead, these adventurers regularly appear on documentaries and give seminars with deeply anti-human themes. Antarctic scientists are all profiteering off of vastly inflated government funding and actively destroying the careers of any student who criticizes the known scam that journalists help cover up instead of expose. Have any of them expressed even a sliver of sympathy for those billions of people their authority as Antarctic scientists is now helping to energy impoverish? Now they also prove themselves to be incompetent in the extreme, which likely explains why they pursued Antarctic science where funding goes to the biggest frauds and enablers of it. Which one of them spoke out against Eric Steig’s cover of Nature that dishonestly smeared Peninsula warming over the whole continent? Could they have afforded such an advanced installation at all were they not at the very epicenter of climate related emergency level funding? These incompetents should have done what Phil “Hide The Decline” Jones did recently which was to get an appointment at a balmy Saudi university.
Keith Willshaw says (August 7, 2014 at 4:25 pm): “Let us remember that over a century ago the men of Scott’s 1910 expedition survived the winter in a base camp without single watt of electrical power.”
Victor Campbell’s six-man party from that same expedition survived the 1912 Antarctic winter in a snow cave with little but seal and penguin meat for food and blubber for fuel.
https://antarcticdiscovery.wordpress.com/category/scotts-northern-party/victor-campbell/
Of course the Inuit routinely survived Arctic winters with only Stone Age technology, but hey, they were natives, not visitors. 🙂
The mainstream media tells us on a daily basis that the western peninsula of Antarctica is scorching hot and well above the freezing point of water. What’s the problem?
Overheard, down at the beer joint:
Wise guy #1: “Bet as soon as power comes up they’ll tweet Prince Charles, asking for some global warming.
Smart aleck #2: Ah, that’s so lame. They’ll be so bored and antsy with nothin’ to do… I bet a fist fight breaks out over who gets to play Kurt Russell in the base production of “The Thing”
Wisenheimer #3: Geez, you guys are a pair. I’ll bet they’re regrettin’ that biodigester thingy… “Hey Basil, throw another log on the fire”.
At least they’ve got entertainment to pass the time… DVDs of Carpenter’s “The Thing”… as long as the power holds..
copied from posts above:
From the BAS at http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/living_and_working/research_stations/halley/halleyvi/?page_id=13 :
One of the major aims of the Halley VI project was to minimise the environmental footprint of the station. To achieve this the new station makes use of the latest technology, such as a bio-reactors for sewage treatment and two-stage incinerators for the clean burning of certain types of waste. Because of the station’s remote location it will still depend on reliable diesel generators for power and heat, but the power generation infrastructure has been designed to allow for the subsequent incorporation of renewable energy sources. Solar-thermal and photovoltaic cells systems have been designed that can supplement the supply during the busy austral summer, when power usage is at its peak (because of the increased number of people on site).
——
It is worth noticing what kind of “environment” the greenies want to protect: one that is almost totally devoid of life.
We are not just trying to preserve our nations’ economies at skeptic sites. We are trying to preserve the Earth as a habitat for living organisms.
What little waste this station produces compared to the vastness of the Antarctic continent and they are worried about storing and hauling out waste? Do the penguins remove their waste?
One Survey member, Anthony Lister, managed to send a out a “tweet” when power came back up, reporting that the outage occurred while the station was experiencing record cold temperatures of -55.4° C (-67.72° F).
.
Heresy…..
Wait a moment. Lost in a frozen wasteland without hope of rescue. Power was out, partly resumed, may go out again then they’re all dead. There’s a crew member named Lister. Where they are looks like a blocky functional version of a Starbug…
Holly, where’s Rimmer?
Diesel? In that temperature and that wind? They not only need a winterfront but wintersides, wintertop, winterbottom and a winterback! That engine needs to be isolated from everything.
Speaking as one who got to choose between the defrost and the cab heat while traveling through Montana in -40F weather. Another driver wasn’t as fortunate, his tanks jelled and he had to walk back to a truck stop for alcohol and a jump.
No solar panels? Oh of course it is winter there and hardly any sun? Well I do hope they survive.At least they won’t need to refrigerate their food. Keep us in touch with developments Anthony.
There is nothing we can do right now to help them directly until late September.
But please keep Al Gore far, far, far away.
Maybe those could be dropped by parachute. (Plus an E-Cat–what a PR “win”!)
Surely they have lots of wind turbines and solar panels to save the planet. What could possibly go wrong?
Building high on stilts in the Antarctic doesn’t pass the common sense test.
That form of construction is suitable in hot humid climates to take full advantage of air movement, not -120F 200 mph Antarctic blizzards no matter how good the insulation.
phillipbratby says:
“Surely they have lots of wind turbines and solar panels to save the planet. What could possibly go wrong?”
Actually Antarctica is one of very few places on Earth where wind turbines might be a practical power source. The catabatic winds coming off the icecap blow most of the time. Adelie land where Turney had his “ship of fools” adventure isn’t known as “the home of the blizzard” for nothing. Of course building a wind turbine that works reliably at -60 or so isn’t trivial.
Christopher Hanley says:
“Building high on stilts in the Antarctic doesn’t pass the common sense test.
That form of construction is suitable in hot humid climates to take full advantage of air movement, not -120F 200 mph Antarctic blizzards no matter how good the insulation.”
I think it makes a lot of sense. Ever try to shovel your way out in -120F after a 200 mph blizzard?
I wonder, was the record temp a result of the reduction in UHI?
I don’t know what the fuss we’vbe all been told that the science is settled and Antarctica is warming rapidly , I mean for goodness sake they are not too far from the Antarctic penninsula which is wonderfully toasty this time of year
http://www.poletopolecampaign.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/2.14-2.png