British polar scientists to get new £200m icebreaker ship
Government to commission world-leading research ship for Antarctic and Arctic scientific research
GEORGE OSBORNE announced today that the government is to spend £200m on a new icebreaker polar research ship. The ship will be a boon to UK science, supporting researchers in both the Arctic and the Antarctic.
The vessel is expected to be 430ft long, says the BBC, and will come equipped with a helipad, cranes and onboard laboratories. It will have the capability to transport and deploy submarines and other ocean sampling equipment.
The vessel, which will be completed in 2019, will be among the most advanced and capable in the world. With a specially reinforced hull, it will be able to push deeper into the icepacks than any other British ship.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Current plans suggest that the ship will be able to maintain a speed of three knots while breaking through ice floes. Up to 60 scientists and research staff will be able to live aboard and the ship will be self-sufficient for up to 80 days, during which time it could cover 24,000 nautical miles.
Alarm has been sounded that the long-term plan may be to replace the UK's two existing polar research ships - one built in 1990, one in 1995 - with just one super-ship.
However, the National Environmental Research council, which funds polar science in the UK says there is no current plan to do this - though one of the two existing ships is owned by Norway and leased to the UK, and is likely to be returned after 2019.
It has not yet been decided where the ship will be constructed. The funding is drawn from the government's capital investment fund for science, to which the Treasury has committed £1.1bn a year in real terms until 2020-2021.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Lebanon hit again with exploding devices
Speed Read 20 people were killed and over 450 injured after Hezbollah-issued walkie-talkies detonated in second attack attributed to Israel
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Teamsters decline to endorse Trump or Harris
Speed Read The 1.3-million-member labor union broke three decades of precedent by choosing not to endorse a candidate
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
The Reeds at South Lodge: lakeside hideaways are the perfect country escape
The Week Recommends Take a dip in the lake, a few steps from your own private sanctuary in the South Downs
By Irenie Forshaw, The Week UK Published
-
Shell’s North Sea oil U-turn: ‘a first victory in a longer war’?
Speed Read Controversy after oil giant pulls out of proposed Cambo project
By The Week Staff Published
-
Fires, floods and storms: America’s ‘permanent emergency’ has begun
Speed Read This summer of climate horror feels like the ‘first, vertiginous 15 minutes of a disaster movie’, says The New York Times
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Hot air and empty rhetoric: is the UK acting too slowly on climate change?
Speed Read ‘Every day, new evidence accumulates that humanity is on an unsustainable path’
By The Week Staff Published
-
Germany floods: what led to this ‘once-in-a-century’ disaster?
Speed Read Nearly 200 people died in Germany and Belgium; hundreds are still unaccounted for
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Penguin colony at risk as Somerset-sized iceberg bears down on British overseas territory
Speed Read Several species face starvation if the icy giant blocks access to feeding grounds
By Aaron Drapkin Published
-
‘Full of hot air’: climate experts exposed as academia’s most frequent flyers
Speed Read Study results trigger calls for environmentalists to ‘look in the mirror’
By Chas Newkey-Burden Last updated
-
Mystery of millions of migrating birds dropping dead from US skies
Speed Read Some experts believe the West Coast wildfires may be to blame for ‘unprecedented’ mass bird deaths in New Mexico
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Americans warned not to plant mystery seeds being sent to homes nationwide from China
Speed Read Officials say the unsolicited packages have been mailed to residents in at least 27 US states
By Joe Evans Published