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Donkey: "Secondly, even altough the ship was decommissioned over 10 years ago, the actual layout of the ship may reveal operational specifications of current naval equipment which may be undesirable to give away, on the open market, if the ship were offered for commercial scrapping.:
What are you saying then... that divers are too stupid to understand the secrets of ships?
(grin)
What are you saying then... that divers are too stupid to understand the secrets of ships?
(grin)
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Here's one of link (of many potential ones I'm sure) that indicates there is a future in recycling aerospace style composite materials. http://http://www.letsrecycle.com/info/waste_management/news.jsp?story=5554
I've been seeing increasing articles on the subject recently, and it looks increasingly hopeful that these types of materials can be constructively recycled, though it seems unlikely that the resultant materials will be of the same grade.
I've been seeing increasing articles on the subject recently, and it looks increasingly hopeful that these types of materials can be constructively recycled, though it seems unlikely that the resultant materials will be of the same grade.
No Cap'n, just that even in Canada, there's only a finite amount of space to store used military hardware while it goes fully obsolete. If you dump it underwater, it frees up room on land & makes it pretty damned awkward, but not impossible to do the type of snooping I alluded to in my earlier post. What it does virtually eliminate is the possibility of the opposition, or potential opposition buying up select parts, or whole sections of your former naval pride at scrap value on the open market.
Folks could still remove those self same sections from your pride & joy, but being on the ocean floor, even in relatively shallow water complicates this procedure enormously & makes it helluva noticeable.....
A more subtle point on the metallurgy side is that even in solid metal, components can preferentially leach out of the metal & into solution, and potentially more importantly, vice versa, especially where salt solutions are concerned. So the longer that an alloy has been immersed in sea water, the more uncertain you are about what may or may not be a trace alloying element which adds to the confusion of anyone who salvages a sample of metal from, shall we say "an area of interest to them".
.....and ChristiaanJ, "Oh, and what about a photo in seat 4B, with an FA bending over you... "coffee, tea, or me?" all in scuba gear?
Priceless, as they say. " Oh Dear, Oh Dear, Oh Dear........
Folks could still remove those self same sections from your pride & joy, but being on the ocean floor, even in relatively shallow water complicates this procedure enormously & makes it helluva noticeable.....
A more subtle point on the metallurgy side is that even in solid metal, components can preferentially leach out of the metal & into solution, and potentially more importantly, vice versa, especially where salt solutions are concerned. So the longer that an alloy has been immersed in sea water, the more uncertain you are about what may or may not be a trace alloying element which adds to the confusion of anyone who salvages a sample of metal from, shall we say "an area of interest to them".
.....and ChristiaanJ, "Oh, and what about a photo in seat 4B, with an FA bending over you... "coffee, tea, or me?" all in scuba gear?
Priceless, as they say. " Oh Dear, Oh Dear, Oh Dear........
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Originally Posted by Donkey497
.....and ChristiaanJ, "Oh, and what about a photo in seat 4B, with an FA bending over you... "coffee, tea, or me?" all in scuba gear? Priceless, as they say. "
Oh Dear, Oh Dear, Oh Dear........
Oh Dear, Oh Dear, Oh Dear........
There are people sad enough to don rubber head to toe, strap air tanks to their back and spend hours in cold seawater, just to get one of their freinds to take a photgraph of them sitting in a subway car looking as if they are reading a paper.
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Thank you all for the great replies!
I am not so sure i can see the security side of this in that over the 30 years of the ship's life 10 000 or more people have worked on, lived on, or visited the ship, so the layout itself is most likly 'known'. On the other hand, being able to take a sample of the alloy might provide some reason for this. Yet that would not expain the subway cars. Thus based on the subway cars, i would suggest it is more practicale/ecconomic than security.
Also, as these things are usually sold for 1$ I would guess it is a headache to get rid of them, and thus is ecconomic. The enviromental benefits are of course very good, but lets face it, very few organizations and governments do enviromentally favourable things without there being an overall beneift to themselves.
Thinking of the point of being in salt water and leaching, while I can see that as reasonable, would there not be a lot more uncertainty in the ore dug up than the ship cut up, thus negating that reason? (not disbelieving, just trying to understand )
Just did a bit of research and found that steel prices are about $900 a ton, and the MecKenzie was about 2900 tons. So at a very rough guess the steel to build it would cost over 2.5 million dollers. (I know I know, very rough numbers)
I must admit I still find it surprising that it is not ecconomical to recycle it instead of sink it as I sould expect (wrongly it seems) that someone would be willing to pay at least a million for it. Yet even more surprised at how cheap steel is!
All I can see is that it must come down to aspects such as asbestos contamination that make it actually hard to cut up safely, even in India.
No need to worry about offending re comment about scuba divers sitting in train cars having their photo taken, I rather think that is daft too, but perhaps not as much as standing at the end of a runway on a cold damp day to take photos of planes landing.....
Now, as this is an airline forum, I shall redirect it back to that by reitterating the point made above about 787s and such planes becoing artifical reefs when thier life span if over.
Once again, thank you all for your good and informative replies,
TeachMe
I am not so sure i can see the security side of this in that over the 30 years of the ship's life 10 000 or more people have worked on, lived on, or visited the ship, so the layout itself is most likly 'known'. On the other hand, being able to take a sample of the alloy might provide some reason for this. Yet that would not expain the subway cars. Thus based on the subway cars, i would suggest it is more practicale/ecconomic than security.
Also, as these things are usually sold for 1$ I would guess it is a headache to get rid of them, and thus is ecconomic. The enviromental benefits are of course very good, but lets face it, very few organizations and governments do enviromentally favourable things without there being an overall beneift to themselves.
Thinking of the point of being in salt water and leaching, while I can see that as reasonable, would there not be a lot more uncertainty in the ore dug up than the ship cut up, thus negating that reason? (not disbelieving, just trying to understand
)Just did a bit of research and found that steel prices are about $900 a ton, and the MecKenzie was about 2900 tons. So at a very rough guess the steel to build it would cost over 2.5 million dollers. (I know I know, very rough numbers)
I must admit I still find it surprising that it is not ecconomical to recycle it instead of sink it as I sould expect (wrongly it seems) that someone would be willing to pay at least a million for it. Yet even more surprised at how cheap steel is!
All I can see is that it must come down to aspects such as asbestos contamination that make it actually hard to cut up safely, even in India.
No need to worry about offending re comment about scuba divers sitting in train cars having their photo taken, I rather think that is daft too, but perhaps not as much as standing at the end of a runway on a cold damp day to take photos of planes landing.....
Now, as this is an airline forum, I shall redirect it back to that by reitterating the point made above about 787s and such planes becoing artifical reefs when thier life span if over.
Once again, thank you all for your good and informative replies,
TeachMe
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ChristiaanJ, your idea about sinking composite is not a bad one. But burning is one of the most environmental-friendly way to get rid of non decomposing materials. We here in Switzerland, famous for maybe the most rigid ecological rules, are incinerating nearly all the rubbish - except the recycled one (glas return ratio: nearly 100%!).
The problem with burning is that you have to do it in a controlled fashion, i.e. very high temperature, in a plant, controlled, and exhausts filtered.
Dani
The problem with burning is that you have to do it in a controlled fashion, i.e. very high temperature, in a plant, controlled, and exhausts filtered.
Dani
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I must admit I still find it surprising that it is not ecconomical to recycle it instead of sink it
.. a minor consideration is that sinking often is effected by the military .. the bombers or submariners gain some degree of training value in the exercise.
.. a minor consideration is that sinking often is effected by the military .. the bombers or submariners gain some degree of training value in the exercise.
On the 787 end of life subject, I doubt very much that they'll end up as an artifical reef or scuba diver's plaything once they come to the end of their life for a couple of reasons.
Firstly the surface of fully cured, "as molded" composites tend to have a very teflon-like quality in that it is very difficult for something to attach itself to the surface, such as plankton or other coral forming organism, unless the surface has been abraded to promote adhesion.
Secondly, the resins used in the composite manufacture are fairly to extremely toxic in their unreacted form. They tend to have relatively low vapour pressure, but can be resily soluble in water, so the chance that any might get into the marine environment over the long term is probably higher than might get into the passenger environment over their working life. Also, composites can be permeable to water, allowing unreacted monomer to be washed out of the solid structure over the long term.
Looking at what happened to an RAF Harrier a couple of years ago which crashed in the UK, a signiifcant amount of composite materials were damaged in the crash & contaminated a large area. I understand that the affected area was scraped clean of topsoil to a depth of a couple of inches and this resulting material was thereafter incinerated at high temperature to remove all traces of carbon fibre and resin particles. The remaining material was then analysed and declared safe once no composite material was found. I understand from a freind who worked for BAE on composite structures at the time that the incinerated material was eventually mixed with organic matter & finally used to fill a flowerbed at the RAF base used to recover the wreckage.
Firstly the surface of fully cured, "as molded" composites tend to have a very teflon-like quality in that it is very difficult for something to attach itself to the surface, such as plankton or other coral forming organism, unless the surface has been abraded to promote adhesion.
Secondly, the resins used in the composite manufacture are fairly to extremely toxic in their unreacted form. They tend to have relatively low vapour pressure, but can be resily soluble in water, so the chance that any might get into the marine environment over the long term is probably higher than might get into the passenger environment over their working life. Also, composites can be permeable to water, allowing unreacted monomer to be washed out of the solid structure over the long term.
Looking at what happened to an RAF Harrier a couple of years ago which crashed in the UK, a signiifcant amount of composite materials were damaged in the crash & contaminated a large area. I understand that the affected area was scraped clean of topsoil to a depth of a couple of inches and this resulting material was thereafter incinerated at high temperature to remove all traces of carbon fibre and resin particles. The remaining material was then analysed and declared safe once no composite material was found. I understand from a freind who worked for BAE on composite structures at the time that the incinerated material was eventually mixed with organic matter & finally used to fill a flowerbed at the RAF base used to recover the wreckage.
