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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“We always prepare for any eventuality so we have emergency procedures in place,” Capper said. “There’s plenty of cold weather clothing, sleeping bags… the focus really is making sure that everyone is safe and well and sufficient heating backup to make life comfortable for them.”
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They do have back up heating and emergency procedures (of course). But then, that wouldn’t make headlines like “crew of 13 in danger of freezing to death”. And it wouldn’t help bolster their image if they said “we are shutting down our winter weather observations & limited science projects to go into hibernation ’till the summer research crew arrives”.
http://mashable.com/2014/08/06/british-halley-station-antarctica-power/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=rss
I find it amazing that no back-up heating system is in place.
One should never bet their life on a single system.
Bob Diaz says: August 8, 2014 at 8:30 pm
I find it amazing that no back-up heating system is in place.
One should never bet their life on a single system.
These stations always have separate buildings with heat and food in case of a fire etc.
Here is an interview with the base commander at Halley Research Station:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26019-what-to-do-when-the-power-goes-out-in-antarctica.html
Fifty below zero and no heat? Sounds like when we get a winter power outage in Canada.
If it is minus 53 C inside? It will take a hell of a time to reheat, don’t you think?
Alan the Brit says:
August 8, 2014 at 3:28 am
Pretty close, perhaps. Propane’s boiling point at 1 bar about -40°. A propane bottle that is in use will be colder than ambient temperature by quite a bit, I sometimes can scrape frost off our grill’s 20 lb bottle in the summer. (Note that wind brings the opposite of a wind chill, it warms the bottle toward ambient conditions.)
I heard of one person in Alaska who spent a fair amount of time outside heating up his propane tank with a hair dryer.
Boling point temperature vs pressure curves are at http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/propane-vapor-pressure-d_1020.html
Wouldn’t it be neat to wander around outside in -50° weather carrying propane and butane in open buckets?
All of us are hoping they will pull through this and be o.k.
This comment (below) is only about official BAS and media communications, not about the brave people trying to survive in such perilous conditions.
Does ANYONE think that if such an emergency could somehow promote the “globull harming/climate catastrophe” agendas that we would not have been immediately blitzed in the media with 24/7 accounts of the perils faced????
The reason it is kept so hush hush is because it is NOT useful to The Cause to highlight just how severe the current Antarctic winter happens to be. If the ice shelf were breaking off under Halley VI we would have BAS feeding the world media constantly with hype and catastrophe.
The double-standards and non-standards for judging appropriate scientific and media assessments continue to amaze….
No one can survive for long in minus 53C. Like astronauts in space need special suits. I hope they get their generators going soon.
Shame Roger Harrabin and a BBC camera crew aren’t also trapped down there with them.
I was at both Halley IV and Halley V. The fuel is not actually diesel – it is drummed “Avtur” (Aviation Turbine) fuel which is, conveniently the same fuel that the Twin Otters use. This contains an anti-freeze ingredient and is, in theory, uncontaminated with water (unlike bulk diesel). The Sno-Cats also use Avtur but the Skidoos require petrol, of course. They also have paraffin for the Primus camping stoves.
The base buildings are raised every year because of snow accumulation and yes, the Brunt ice shelf does grow and snap off, like most ice shelves, which is why they tried to make this base “mobile”. Halley started in 1957 and probably 4 of the previous 6 bases have since sailed off in an iceberg. I don’t know if they are used at Halley VI now, but Halley V had a summer accommodation building and a garage that were both “move-able” and, having been involved in the moving process, I can say that that wasn’t exactly a piece of cake (and they were relatively small buildings).
Anyway, best of luck to my fellow FIDS at Halley. I hope everyone will be OK.
I agree with the comment:
“Life can be cruel without fossil fuels.”
For the current US energy policy I would modify:
“Life will be expensive and cruel without fossil fuels
I am definitely very interested to see if the adaptations for renewable power caused this problem,
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/living_and_working/research_stations/halley/halleyvi/documents/cee/Halley%20VI%20Final%20CEE.pdf
“Changes in future activities at Halley VI, for example the progressive introduction of
renewable energy technology”
“The use of fossil fuels will be minimised and the use of renewable energy maximised
where practical.”
“The electrical distribution system has been designed to allow for “plug and play” renewable devices.”
“Initially at Halley VI, electric power generation for domestic and scientific purposes will
be provided by generators, running on AVTUR. This fuel type is 10% less efficient than
diesel, but is a cleaner burning fuel and better suited to low temperatures.”
“The long-term aim for power generation at Halley VI is to reduce fossil fuel consumption
and to maximise the use of renewable and sustainable energy sources. Renewable energy
will be phased in over the lifetime of the building rather than at the initial construction
stage.”
Diesel fuel varies with engine and climate.
In places like Minneapolis and Winterpeg truck fuel will be thinner either by blend or additives.
In the High Arctic in the 1970s ground generators and mobile equipment ran what was essentially aviation kerosene (Jet A/JP-1 and later variations of that). I don’t know the effect on engine life of lubricity differences, high pressure fuel pumps need some lubricity in the fuel.
And they may have kept engines running, though hot air blowers would have been available to heat an engine that was shut down. (Piston engine airplanes would be supported by such, called “Herman Nelson” in the old days. In the bush of northern Canada airplane people would drain the crankcase and heat the oil in a bucket the next morning. One of the first users of twin-engine bush planes realized they had to have two oil buckets and two fires, as by the time the second bucket was heated and poured in the first engine’s oil was cool so starting harder.)
Pilots and technicians of turbine-powered aircraft had it much easier for starting, but had to use better seals on things like brakes, and heat some things. Pacific Western Airlines added ducting to heat propeller seals from the APU – while the C-130/Hercules was supposedly proven in the Antarctic, suspicion was the US military never shut them down there.)
Ozspeaksup:
Iridium SATCOM service is available everywhere, for a price (last I checked still several hundred dollars for a phone and not much under $1./minute). The US government is committed to about half of Iridium’s capacity, for other than high security communications, so I suspect McMurdo uses it.
Normal SATCOM from geostationary satellites not likely available there as antennas are aimed to areas of most demand.
US military comm satellites I know nothing about (probably wouldn’t say if I did :-).
And there’s good old HF radio, 3-30MHz frequency band, very long range. Today data capable – in 1994 I worked with an aircraft system that supported 1200bps, today its 1800 perhaps more. Due packet ID and time-stamp, as done for bulletin boards using POTS modems and protocols such as X-modem, and fancy processing of signals, HF data really punches through where voice is unusable. Still limited by propagation of course, but aviation HF data uses short chirps to test frequencies almost real-time, and re-tunes appropriately.
Relays are possible, both automatic and operator-managed, there used to be commercial HF relay services with marvellous antennas, such as Rainbow Radio. (The Canadian military could talk to their Canadian base directly from a C-130 on the ground in middle Africa. Mind, the airplane’s transmitter was 400 watts PEP and the antenna farm in Trenton ON is described as a wonder to behold.)
You could have slow Internet in remote areas of AU, but for a price you wouldn’t want to pay.
Keep in mind that a “Tweet” message is very short, that alphanumeric characters do not require much bandwidth, and that messages do not need to be in real-time whereas voice does. (I know people who do much texting with their cellular phones from their residence, because coverage is too weak for voice.)
Iridium’s data rate is not high, INMARSAT’s is higher but for a price.
Keith, I have no problem with them using alternative fuels if they work better at low temperatures, my concern is if the choice was made based on emissions. Based on what I quoted it could be for either reason. The fact that they are not saying what the reason was initially makes it seem to me like they are trying to find a way to spin what happened.
“No one can survive for long in minus 53C.”
Tell that to the early Antarctic explorers, some of who lived in tents at minus 50 and below in between dragging sleds full of supplies across the ice. The people who set out to find penguin eggs on Scott’s expedition had to survive with just sleeping bags in temperatures that reached down into the minus 60s, after the winds blew their tent away.
They have nothing to fear. They should just wait for Global warming which will eventually thaw them out.
Winter Diesel is basically Kerosene. K-1 and D-1 mostly differ in details.
“The pour point of kerosene depends on grade, with commercial aviation fuel standardized at −47 °C (−53 °F).”
So they were a ways below the point where the fuel was not moving…. even if using a very light weight aviation kerosene as Diesel fuel.
AVTUR’s FREEZING POINT is -47 degrees C. They use insulated and heated feed lines to prevent fuel freezing. See the August article in the second link. It was -53 that year too.
http://www.jopetrol.com.jo/images/jet_fuels.pdf
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/archive/Diaries/Halley/2000/index.html
It’s been 5 days. Any recent news from this weather station? Are they still communicating? Have they fixed the problem? Haven’t seen any recent news.
“Poptech” said “Keith, I have no problem with them using alternative fuels if they work better at low temperatures, my concern is if the choice was made based on emissions.”
which isn’t clear.
I presume emissions are lower with cleaner burning fuel, which I think you quote Hally people as saying, especially one that flows well through the system, but keep cost in mind – my impression is that thicker/cruder fuels are lower price.
I don’t remember if some adjustment is needed to the engine control system to optimize for emissions and efficiency.
My point was that thinner “diesel” is available for cold weather, which is what someone else in effect said as well as what you quote – that fuel is in volume production, called “aviation kerosene”.
(While often called AVTUR, that is not definitive as there are two types of fuel for AViation TURBbine engines:
– kerosene (JP-1/JetA and later designations)
– a more volatile fuel designated JP-4/JetB, somewhat in the direction of gasoline rather than kerosene.
The more volatile fuel flows better at low temperatures (Canadian military used to use it in the High Arctic, but it is lower density so kerosene is preferred if tank volume is limiting the mission, and is much risker for ignition thus explosion. When using kerosene, aircraft on long flights over the High Arctic must watch fuel temperatures closely.
“mfdpc” re birds and wind turbines:
– One approach is to stop blades when wind speed is low, as birds don’t fly in strong winds (too risky, and many can’t go upwind as they’d get pushed backward) and little electricity is generated at low wind speeds
– As for fog, I doubt birds fly in fog, because normally they fly to get food (or in spring nesting materials) and need to see to get it. (Migration will be at higher altitudes likely free of fog.)
– Is there much wind when air is foggy? (I’d expect wind would blow the fog away soon.)
As for ground animals, airport experience is they get used to noise, but I’d want to check at pressure fluctuation frequencies under 10.0 Hz as body resonance may occur which would be disconcerting. (For humans upper body resonance is about 2 to 5Hz.)
Facts are very good things, integration is necessary.
The coupled Antarctic modules on skids are neat. I can imagine the high winds and freezing temperatures that they must deal with. I can also imagine a safe and enclosed Turbo-Vortex Wind Turbine mounted onto a sled and used to generate electricity from the wind. The turbine has been test at 100 mph wind and can run safely at higher speeds.
I was looking for this certain info for a very long time. Thank you and best of luck