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Deep-sea explorer
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Tim Ratcliffe coordinates the divestment campaign for climate activist group 350.org in Europe
One minute interview
Deep-sea explorer Designing a vehicle that can explore the deepest ocean means knowing how to cope with pressure, says engineer Victor Zykov James Cameron’s Deepsea Challenger sub, which took him to the bottom of the Mariana trench in 2012, could fill the gap, but it was never intended for long-term use.
Profile Victor Zykov is director of research at the Schmidt Ocean Institute in Palo Alto, California. He heads a team developing a remotely operated, full ocean depth robotic vehicle. They aim to improve on a similar vehicle recently lost at 10,000 metres
You are building a successor to the deepocean research vehicle Nereus, lost off New Zealand this year. What happened to it? It imploded in the Kermadec trench. The formal investigation is still under way, but the preliminary findings suggest that parts of the vehicle meant to maintain atmospheric pressure may have failed. It was about 10,000 metres down, where the pressures are immense – like having three Humvees stacked on top of one another pressing on a thumbnail. And the pressure is applied and released over and over again as the vehicle goes up and down in the water. That creates stress fatigue and over time small cracks can spread. What does this loss mean for ocean science? It was the only vehicle active and available to the international scientific community to conduct research in water deeper than 6000 metres, also known as hadal depths. There were five projects planned for Nereus; 2014 would have been the first year of really advanced operations, so its loss was a major blow. You might think the film director
Now you are designing an improved version. What will make it more robust at great depth? For buoyancy, instead of ceramics or hollow glass spheres we plan to use an advanced material called syntactic foam – an epoxy resin with tiny hollow glass microspheres in it. The latest version of this can survive at depths of 11,000 metres, and even if some of the glass spheres fail under pressure, they don’t usually all fail at once. Also, our camera enclosures will be much smaller, using miniaturised technology deriving from Deepsea Challenger, and will be made of either sapphire or acrylic. Compared with glass, both materials are more consistent and have more predictable mechanical properties. Are there other improvements? As well as a navigation system that will be precise to within 10 metres – even at 11,000 metres down – and better batteries that don’t require a hefty pressure protection chamber, the support ship will have a control room with a nearly 180-degree field of view using high-definition screens in positions that match the placement of cameras on the vehicle. We are also installing 3D video so that the pilot can perceive depth of image, too. We believe this will provide the operators with the best possible illusion of being in the deep ocean – without exposing them to the great risks of diving to hadal depths. What is the new vehicle called, and when will it be ready for undersea exploring? The current title is N11k, but that is more of a working vehicle designation than a name. I anticipate that we will have a competition with input from researchers, students, scientists and so on to come up with something appropriate. The plan is to have it ready for ocean trials in early 2016 and for scientific projects later that year. Interview by Jon White
15 November 2014 | NewScientist | 27
Schmidt Ocean Institute
incompatible. Public institutions that continue to fund this are complicit in wrecking our climate. The IPCC made it clear that we have the solutions at hand to move to a low-carbon economy. The cost of renewable energy technologies has dropped dramatically and is projected to continue to decline, opening up huge potential to tackle energy poverty through decentralised, community-owned projects. Carbon capture and storage has not been deployed on a large scale and is not economically viable. But the question of whether the world will keep within the remaining carbon budget is not one of technological or economic feasibility. It is all about power. The fossil fuel industry is the most profitable in history. It has lobbied to block action on climate change for years. Every institution that divests weakens its stranglehold over our political process. That is why more and more leading figures – from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon – call on institutions to divest. Many have heeded this call: the Rockefeller family, who made their fortune from oil, the World Council of Churches, the British Medical Association and numerous cities and universities. Divestment from fossil fuels is not only a moral imperative, it is also financially advisable. The International Monetary Fund and the Bank of England are just a few of the voices warning that carbon assets are grossly overvalued and risk becoming stranded assets. Instead of fuelling climate change, public institutions have a duty to take a long-term stewardship approach to the money they are entrusted with. They have a responsibility to support a just transition to a low-carbon economy. n
Tim Ratcliffe coordinates the divestment campaign for climate activist group 350.org in Europe
One minute interview
Deep-sea explorer Designing a vehicle that can explore the deepest ocean means knowing how to cope with pressure, says engineer Victor Zykov James Cameron’s Deepsea Challenger sub, which took him to the bottom of the Mariana trench in 2012, could fill the gap, but it was never intended for long-term use.
Profile Victor Zykov is director of research at the Schmidt Ocean Institute in Palo Alto, California. He heads a team developing a remotely operated, full ocean depth robotic vehicle. They aim to improve on a similar vehicle recently lost at 10,000 metres
You are building a successor to the deepocean research vehicle Nereus, lost off New Zealand this year. What happened to it? It imploded in the Kermadec trench. The formal investigation is still under way, but the preliminary findings suggest that parts of the vehicle meant to maintain atmospheric pressure may have failed. It was about 10,000 metres down, where the pressures are immense – like having three Humvees stacked on top of one another pressing on a thumbnail. And the pressure is applied and released over and over again as the vehicle goes up and down in the water. That creates stress fatigue and over time small cracks can spread. What does this loss mean for ocean science? It was the only vehicle active and available to the international scientific community to conduct research in water deeper than 6000 metres, also known as hadal depths. There were five projects planned for Nereus; 2014 would have been the first year of really advanced operations, so its loss was a major blow. You might think the film director
Now you are designing an improved version. What will make it more robust at great depth? For buoyancy, instead of ceramics or hollow glass spheres we plan to use an advanced material called syntactic foam – an epoxy resin with tiny hollow glass microspheres in it. The latest version of this can survive at depths of 11,000 metres, and even if some of the glass spheres fail under pressure, they don’t usually all fail at once. Also, our camera enclosures will be much smaller, using miniaturised technology deriving from Deepsea Challenger, and will be made of either sapphire or acrylic. Compared with glass, both materials are more consistent and have more predictable mechanical properties. Are there other improvements? As well as a navigation system that will be precise to within 10 metres – even at 11,000 metres down – and better batteries that don’t require a hefty pressure protection chamber, the support ship will have a control room with a nearly 180-degree field of view using high-definition screens in positions that match the placement of cameras on the vehicle. We are also installing 3D video so that the pilot can perceive depth of image, too. We believe this will provide the operators with the best possible illusion of being in the deep ocean – without exposing them to the great risks of diving to hadal depths. What is the new vehicle called, and when will it be ready for undersea exploring? The current title is N11k, but that is more of a working vehicle designation than a name. I anticipate that we will have a competition with input from researchers, students, scientists and so on to come up with something appropriate. The plan is to have it ready for ocean trials in early 2016 and for scientific projects later that year. Interview by Jon White
15 November 2014 | NewScientist | 27
Schmidt Ocean Institute
incompatible. Public institutions that continue to fund this are complicit in wrecking our climate. The IPCC made it clear that we have the solutions at hand to move to a low-carbon economy. The cost of renewable energy technologies has dropped dramatically and is projected to continue to decline, opening up huge potential to tackle energy poverty through decentralised, community-owned projects. Carbon capture and storage has not been deployed on a large scale and is not economically viable. But the question of whether the world will keep within the remaining carbon budget is not one of technological or economic feasibility. It is all about power. The fossil fuel industry is the most profitable in history. It has lobbied to block action on climate change for years. Every institution that divests weakens its stranglehold over our political process. That is why more and more leading figures – from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon – call on institutions to divest. Many have heeded this call: the Rockefeller family, who made their fortune from oil, the World Council of Churches, the British Medical Association and numerous cities and universities. Divestment from fossil fuels is not only a moral imperative, it is also financially advisable. The International Monetary Fund and the Bank of England are just a few of the voices warning that carbon assets are grossly overvalued and risk becoming stranded assets. Instead of fuelling climate change, public institutions have a duty to take a long-term stewardship approach to the money they are entrusted with. They have a responsibility to support a just transition to a low-carbon economy. n