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Robots To Clear the Baltic Seafloor of WW-II Mines
An anonymous reader writes "A Russian company is building a massive natural gas pipeline that will run across the Baltic Sea floor. But first, they must clear some of the 150,000 unexploded bombs sitting at the bottom of the sea, left there by the Russian and German armies in the 1940s. About 70 of these mines, each filled with 300 kg of explosive charge, sit in the pipeline's path, mostly in its northern section just south of Finland. And so the company contracted to remove the mines is bringing in robots to do the dirty work. Here's how it will work: A research ship deploys the robot to the seabed, where it identifies the exact location of the explosive. After sounding a warning to surrounding ship traffic, scaring fish away using a small explosive, and then emitting a 'seal screamer' of high intensity noises designed to make the area around the blast quite uncomfortable for marine mammals, Bactec's engineers erupt a 5 kg blast, forcing the mine to detonate. This process ensures the safety of humans plus any animals living in the surrounding environment. The operation concludes with the robot being redeployed to clear up the scrap of the now-destroyed bomb."
One day robots will use humans to dispose of mines...won't be so funny then...
Hey, it could be worse. I envisioned the robots to be like underwater roombas. The machines would roll over to the mine, and hit it really hard with a comically shaped hammer. Bam-Splat, no more mine or robot. Very Wile E. Coyote style.
There probably aren't a lot of plants that far down, but there would be lots of invertebrates. Poor invertebrates have all the bad luck. Perhaps one day they will learn the evolutionary advantage of being cute and furry.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
"Although this decision is by no means unanimous, the Human feel that the seafloorlacks the necessary characteristics to take upon this task on their own," said Prostetnic Human Smith, a captain with the fleet. "Demolition will begin soon."
"As the proper paperwork has already been appropriately filed, resistance is useless!" Smith added. "This detonation had been discussed for several decades and the plans were available in a nearby continent for review and/or complaint. We regret the loss of lives, but we can't be blamed if you won't take the trouble to get out and get involved in your neighborhood"
Life isn't fair.
Seriously, what else are they going to do? If they try to reclaim the bombs and blow them up at another location, the project just got massively more complex, they are going to still damage the surrounding area when they dig it up and drag it away, the stuff that breaks if one goes off in-place just got a lot more expensive, you have the risk of someone getting hurt or killed during transport, and they've still got to blow it up somewhere. Some life forms are going to be extinguished when the bomb goes off, and no one in their right mind is going to design something to try and keep the bomb from going off. Unexploded ordinance is just nasty stuff that may or may not still be viable - the only effective way to make it safe is to let all the boom out of it.
They try to scare off all the critters they can, then they blow up the mine. It's as cheap, efficient, and about as minimally invasive as such a project could be. That's not to say it's not invasive, only that (short of transporter technology where we can beam it all into space) it's about as good as we're going to get.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Are you suggesting that the mines not be placed where they are? Very well. I'll call a meeting with Hitler and Stalin and see if we can get this un-done.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Or more explicitly, would *you* personally (the original poster) take the chance?
It is easier to wave away risk when someone else is taking it.
I was present when a plumber was fixing a small, on demand water heater wired directly to the mains so you could not unplug it. (probably a building code violation) I switched off power to the bathroom at the breaker box and told him it was off. The plumber asked: "Are you sure it's off?", I said yes, he said "Then you wont have a problem touching those terminals yourself."
At that point I grabbed my meter and verified it was off and then shorted the terminals with a screw driver to be doubly sure.
Any pollution from the remains of these mines would only be temporary, the sea claims all things in the end and it will eventually filter out/destroy toxins on its own once its in flow is stopped.
Conservation of mass is still the rule of the land. Pollution doesn't "disappear" it just dilutes. That being said, from my memory of a week of hands on US army explosives training in the early 90s as an ammo specialist 55B:
1) All unexploded military grade explosives are somewhat toxic. In the movies, or during wartime, people mush C-4 with their bare hands, but its quite poisonous so we wore gloves in training. We were told you'll throw up in the short term, and get cancer in the long term. Best case is probably ANFO, the AN is harmless, but the FO part is literally pouring raw diesel fuel into the water, not all that nice of a thing to do. Just touching nitro dynamite gives an amazing headache, the RDX stuff is way better but still not exactly baby formula. TNT is oily gritty semisolid stuff that partially liquifies when its warm, probably not an issue in the baltic sea...
There are explosives that are non toxic like gunpowder that are not used as a military explosive but only as a propellant in naval guns (modern ones use nitro based smokeless powders). There are exotic mining explosives vaguely involving charcoal and liquid oxygen, which are not used by the military.
2) Generally speaking, the fumes/smoke/whatever of an explosive are WAY less toxic than the explosive itself. Given the choice of breathing the smoke from 1 lb of TNT, or eating 1 lb of TNT, the smoke is WAY more healthy. The smoke from C-4 is nasty and will kill you, but eating or touching unexploded C-4 will kill you WAY faster. The environment is way better off with the stuff exploded than unexploded.
3) Pest control was not an issue in the bunkers, as far as I know, aside from termites in the crates. Unexploded ammo is not good eats.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The cheapest, fastest, and safest way is to just blow them all up.
That's your solution to everything.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
No, they were dumped there after the war, and not just normal bombs but chemical ones as well. Common practice at the time.
Germany had large stockpiles of these (including neurotoxic ones), but they feared if they used them the allies would use them too. Hitler was temporarily blinded in WWI by chemical warfare, so that might have played a role.
Nobody wanted to look after or defuse these, so they just dumped them in the Baltic sea.