Nov 15 2013

McMurdo Station, November 15 2013

Today we stayed on McMurdo Station and toured the operation of the station.  

First, the support for the scientific research in the field is utterly enviable and unmatched anywhere.  Sometime in northern hemisphere spring, scientists who will be in the field in the southern summer fill out a form of all their requirements - tents, sleeping bags, axes, crampons, ropes, drill bits, batteries, cookstoves, ... whatever.  When they arrive in McMurdo, all their gear are in their "cage" waiting for them!  Imagine that!

A cage of equipment ready for a scientific party.

Every one offsite is tracked, and needs to report every day - or else a helicopter is dispatched to check if everyone is OK...

Wow!  McMurdo Station is truly a prototype in sustainability.   Needless to say, recycling and re-use is ferocious.

Fuel is brought in, and held in tanks, each of which is surrounded by berms so that any accidental spills will be contained and not contaminate the ocean.  There is a great demand for fuel - not only for powering residents, laboratories etc., but also for the planes, vans, snowmobiles, fire trucks etc... All fuel lines are insulated, and lie on top of the ice - miles and miles of it.  Waste heat is used to heat the water.  There are solar panels, but obviously they are not much use in the winter.  Scott Research Base, the New Zealand station "next door" has several wind turbines, and they share power with McMurdo.  On a good day, the wind power supplies 40-50% of the energy at McMurdo.

Sea water is pumped from the ocean, and salt is extracted via reverse osmosis.  This supplies freshwater for the entire station of about 2000 summer residents.  25% of the "fresh" water is held back from use, and the extracted salt is put back into the water (and the waste water) and returned to sea.  This way there is no injection of extremely salty water that may damage marine life.

The sewage treatment plant was fascinating.  The nitrogen cycle in action - nitrification and denitrification.   UV light is used to disinfect the clarified water, which is returned to McMurdo Sound.

One end product of the sewage treatment -
clarified and disinfected water - is returned to McMurdo Sound.

What surprised me is that the final nutrient-rich "sludge cake" is dehydrated and packed in cartons for shipping to an incineration in the US (via the tanker that arrives in the summer).   Tomato seeds sprout in the sludge cake.

Sludge cake being dehydrated for shipment to a US incinerator.

We ended the tour at the Chapter of the Snows, with a very unique stained glass window.

See the penguin?