[HN Gopher] The big Baltic bomb cleanup
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The big Baltic bomb cleanup
Author : Hooke
Score : 22 points
Date : 2024-09-09 05:42 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (hakaimagazine.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (hakaimagazine.com)
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| The robot can search and survey, and handle smallish munition.
| The rest is up to human divers. Those are some brave sons of
| bitches.
|
| I am happy they are getting bombs, munitions, and explosives up.
| But it is a bit of a disappointment that The most dangerous
| items, most likely to cause the most harm.... Will be left on the
| seafloor since they are too dangerous to handle1. ... which....
| then means these chemical weapon bombs will pop now and then and
| enormous damage will be a likely consequence.
|
| I have no idea if anyone has attempted it but there have been a
| fear that terrorist groups could go shopping among the
| smorgasbord of deadly shit as a shortcut to acquire potent
| weapons.
|
| "" > . Chemical weapons, which contain phosgene, arsenic, and
| sulfur mustard (also known as mustard gas) are too lethal to
| handle, probably ever, admits Guldin. "You can't see these gases
| or smell them," he says, "and their detonation could blow a ship
| out of the water, killing a ship's entire crew in a matter of
| minutes." Those weapons will be left untouched. ""
| cyberax wrote:
| Leave a remotely detonated device next to them, clear out the
| shipping in the area and blow them up?
| leeter wrote:
| Can they be cleaned up? Yes. Is it economical? Probably not.
| But, in theory one could bring them up in a sealed box, then
| incinerate them on the ship. This would require literally
| building a ship for that one purpose with very specialized
| equipment and government supervision so not even a single shell
| walks off. IIRC France and Belgium have successfully disposed
| of equally corroded gas shells from Zone Rouge.
| renhanxue wrote:
| The Baltic has seen some incredible amounts of abuse over the
| years. It doesn't stop at the massive amounts of conventional
| munitions like bombs and naval mines, nor even at the chemical
| weapons. The Swedish nuclear weapons program dumped several
| hundred barrels of intermediate-level radioactive waste in the
| Baltic during the 50's and 60's.
|
| Then there's the environmental problems, where the Baltic has it
| all, really. There are severe eutrophication and oxygen depletion
| issues, but of course it doesn't end there. It's just severely
| polluted with everything from heavy metals like mercury and
| cadmium to persistent organic pollutants like polychlorinated
| biphenyls (PCB's), various other dioxins and dioxin-likes, DDT...
| the list goes on. The Swedish food agency recommends that
| children, adolescents, women who breastfeed or are or intend to
| become pregnant should not eat fish from the Baltic more than
| twice a year.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| I do wonder if a true cleanup is ever possible, worldwide. Think
| about all the land mines and tiny cluster munitions spread out
| all over. I feel sad for all the children who will be maimed or
| killed by these irresponsible and unethical weapons. But I don't
| have much hope for being able to comprehensively clear the land
| of these things.
| Etheryte wrote:
| The war in Ukraine has now gone on for more than two and a half
| years. At one point The Guardian reported that Ukraine has
| become the most mined country in the world, with Russia laying
| down literally millions of mines. In some areas Ukranian forces
| have uncovered five mines per square meter. The estimate is
| that using state of the art technology it would take centuries
| to clear all the mines, and that's not accounting for the fact
| that Russia is actively in the process of putting down more.
| Until we reach a more civil level of society, I don't think a
| true cleanup is possible.
| nradov wrote:
| Ukraine wouldn't have been able to stop the Russian invasion
| without profligate use of land mines and cluster munitions.
| People at risk of being overrun have to use whatever weapons
| they can. They don't have the luxury of being able to worry
| about responsibility or ethics. War is hell.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Are this photos AI generated?, because they definitely look like
| that
| rpeden wrote:
| Are we looking at the same article? None of the photos look AI-
| generated to me. Too many small details are correct in too many
| places.
|
| I realize some AI photos are really damn good, but I don't
| think it would do so well on the photo of the Norppa 300. And
| note that the Norppa's track is visible on the bottom left
| monitor in one of the other photos.
| Loughla wrote:
| It's the hands in the second picture. I get where op is
| coming from. The man on the left is pointing in an odd way
| that makes his hand look distorted.
| grumblepeet wrote:
| My father was involved in this, he didn't have a choice and it
| was dangerous work as even then most of the munitions were
| unstable. Shells etc sweated tnt which got absorbed into their
| skin. He hated it. They also had to contend with the rolling
| North Sea whilst dumping live ammunition overboard.
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