Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
The University of Gothenburg has deployed three underwater robots in the Baltic waters around the leaks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines. This is done to be able to follow how chemistry and life in the sea changes over time due to the large release of methane gas. In addition, research vessel Skagerak is set to deploy on a new expedition to the Baltic Sea to test run the large, unmanned vessel Ran.
The expedition with R/V Skagerak was not the only measure the university's researchers took when the Nord Stream pipelines began to leak methane gas. With the help of the Voice of the Ocean foundation, VOTO, three remote-controlled underwater robots were placed in the area. They will move around the sea and record water data continuously for the next 15 weeks.
"They are called gliders and are provided by VOTO, who also manages their operation. The robots can give us measurements over a series of time about how the chemistry and quality of the water is affected by the natural gas leak," says oceanographer Bastien Queste at the University of Gothenburg.
Since March 2021, VOTO has had two gliders in the area which functions as one of the foundation's ocean observatories and where the water quality is measured non-stop. The robots go down to the bottom and then turn up to the surface, something that is repeated over a preset distance. Every time the glider is at the surface, the latest measurement data is sent to the researchers via satellite. Thus, plenty of data from this area already exists from before. One of the three additional robots that was dropped into the sea last week has been equipped by the manufacturer Alseamar with a special sensor to be able to measure the change in the methane content over the next 15 weeks.
"Last week's expedition provided valuable data and a snapshot of the state of the ocean immediately after the leakage occurred. With the new robots in place, we receive continuous reports on the state of the water near the Nord stream pipeline leaks. They are deployed solely for this purpose," says Bastien Queste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2022, @06:56AM (3 children)
The robots did it. L-Ron Muck's StarLink became conscious months ago and started War Games with the Kremlin. Vladimir Putin is a repurposed Real Doll - ever notice his mouth is perfect for your pleasure? Put in Putin, it's marketing scam.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2022, @09:08AM (2 children)
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/if-russia-invades-ukraine-there-will-be-no-nord-stream-2-biden-says-2022-02-07/ [reuters.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2022, @10:54AM (1 child)
Biden is a robot too?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2022, @01:35PM
But at least he's _our_ robot.
Their robot bad, our robot good^Wless bad.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Sunday October 16 2022, @04:51PM (1 child)
I'll bet you one shiny nickel the real mission of these ROVs is to grid search around the blast zone to collect evidence of the perpetrators.
On a related note, I would like to understand why there was a large natural gas leak from pipelines that had been "shut down" for months.
(Score: 2) by legont on Sunday October 16 2022, @06:39PM
One can't shut down a gas pipe line without serious consequences. It's got to be filed with gas and under serious pressure. Separately, all the time pipelines were not operational due to Germans not approving stream 2 and sanctions on stream 1, Gazprom would burn extra gas at the station on Baltic sea next to Finland.
So, I guess the answer is Russia keeps pumping gas to protect the project.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Sunday October 16 2022, @07:57PM (1 child)
They are not "notable" enough to have Wikipedia pages, neither in the English version, nor in the Swedish one (their offices are just outside of Stockholm) - yet they list 18 seemingly full-time employees ( https://voiceoftheocean.org/meet-the-crew/ [voiceoftheocean.org] ) and have a network of autonomous underwater drones collecting data and were able to pull off the survey mentioned in TFA? With their founder having a backstory of being a historian salvaging a crashed DC-3 from the sea floor ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalina_affair [wikipedia.org] ) to find missing proof that the DC-3 was shot down by the Soviets.
Mr. Douglas must be a very wealthy historian to pull that off, and also a little bit shy.
(Score: 2) by http on Monday October 17 2022, @01:20AM
To get a page on wikipedia (and keep it) a company/org has to not only be notable, but citeable, and (here is the tricky part) have volunteer editors motivated to maintain it over time.
But it sound to me like you just won the interview for the top position.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Sunday October 16 2022, @11:42PM
The solubility of methane in water is rather low, so most of it is going to rise to the surface and dissipate. I'd guess that the environmental significance is going to be negligible. Does anybody know otherwise?
Methane is a common result of biological decomposition. Huge amounts released all at once from storage at the bottom of African lakes have lead to many deaths by asphyxiation. If the pipeline break were to have had this effect, it would already have happened.