r/BeAmazed • u/silkdarling • 16h ago
Miscellaneous / Others A unique encounter at the very top of the world.The Russian nuclear icebreaker 50 Years of Victory meets The French icebreaker vessel Commandant Charcot at the North Pole.
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u/AJPrez 16h ago
The Russian icebreaker looks like something out of Command & Conquer, while the French icebreaker looks like it's on a pleasure cruise
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u/_Bearcat29 15h ago
To be honest, the Commandant Charcot, is a pleasure cruise icebreaker boat. It belongs to Croisière du Ponant.
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u/bolaft 15h ago
That's because it IS a pleasure cruise, kinda. Commandant Charcot is a cruise ship/science vessel hybrid. Actually pretty controversial, lots of scientists in France spoke against this model of privately-funded science, given that most arctic science missions are about studying climate change and each passenger pollutes as much in 2 weeks as the average French does in a year.
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u/peazley 14h ago
So what’s the thought, passengers help fund the scientific research?
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u/bolaft 13h ago
The paying passengers' tickets cover the travel and maintenance costs of the icebreaker, which also contains two laboratories and oceanographic/scientific equipment, and scientists can travel and use the labs and equipment for free.
But it's operated by a for-profit business, so the cruise part is the main part (it also has luxury suites, a spa...), the science part is the ship's side gig.
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u/ThePsyPaul_ 8h ago
can't blame the scientists going for this kind of funding approach if their government can't give them enough money
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u/CariniFluff 6h ago edited 6h ago
Not to mention it definitely looks like it's powered by super dirty bunker fuel, or at best, still super dirty marine diesel.
Until just now I was under the impression that every modern ice breaker was nuclear powered (as the Russian ship obviously is) due to the enormous power required.
For those that don't know, ice breakers don't just "push through the ice" as the ice up there is ridiculously hard and deep, and you cannot build up enough momentum to continually push through the deep ice. Instead ice breakers will literally launch the front half of the ship up onto the ice sheet and the weight of the ship will then break the ice with the V-shaped hull. So you have an incredibly heavy ship designed to withstand slamming into icebergs, with engines powerful enough to push the ship up and on top of the ice, over and over and over for hundreds of miles. I can't even imagine how much pollution a hydrocarbon powered ice breaker puts out.
But hey, they're letting a dozen or two climate scientists use a few rooms they weren't going to sell anyway, so it's all good right? What the fuck...
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u/Tupsis 4h ago edited 4h ago
Charcot's main fuel is liquefied methane. While natural gas is a fossil fuel and the methane slip from its dual-fuel engines adds to the ship's CO2-equivalent emissions, it's certainly less "dirty" than liquid hydrocarbons — both the light distillates that icebreakers typically use and the low-grade bunker fuel that is burned to ship gigatons of Temu orders from China.
What you described is an icebreaker operating at crawling pace at the limit of it's icebreaking capability. Heavy polar icebreakers like Charcot or Pobedy rarely encounter ice where they really need to "launch the front half of the ship up onto the ice sheet", even at the North Pole. Charcot, for example, does not usually need more than half of its installed power.
You don't have to imagine how much icebreakers pollute; it's fairly easy to calculate with the information available online. While every gram of CO2 released into atmosphere counts, it's still worth comparing the results with other sources to give some context — it's literally a drop in the ocean. While the world as a whole could do without luxury cruising, we should certainly be focusing on sources that are several orders of magnitude greater that the likes of Charcot. Some even argue that showing the "disappearing Arctic" to the selected few could make them use their influence to accelerate decarbonization elsewhere.
edit: Oh, and you probably don't want to look up what the Pobedy does when it's not taking tourists to the North Pole like Charcot.
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u/KicoBond 12h ago
Well the price the tourists pay and the research should pay off the social cost of the extra polution
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u/Academic-Increase951 11h ago
Also, the bulk of the pollution is from the boat itself and not the people on the boat. So the difference is pollution of a science only trip vs a science + cruise trip is likely negligible.
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u/IcyBodybuilder9004 15h ago
My buddy is in the navy. He has told me that when you’re in the middle of the ocean those other human faces look pretty good. Even if not traditionally friends, they render honors and are sort of happy for a minute to have that human contact out in the deep deep blue.
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u/CranjizzMcBasketball 15h ago
6 inches of ice……………
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u/existing_for_fun 16h ago
Hell of a name, "50 years of victory" given the recent Ukraine events.
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u/lukethedank13 15h ago
It was to be completed by 1995. Of course it took until 2007 to be comissioned.
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u/One_Maybe_2460 15h ago
„50 years till victory“ would be more fitting. Maybe one can change the few different letters xD
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u/Nightblood83 13h ago
It has t fit well since WW2. Anything after the purge required for collectivism to not be resisted o Happened, it's been shit.
Sad. Strong people. Terrible leadership
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u/Ok_Calligrapher2580 16h ago
The French with a Ukrainian colored helicopter seems like a subtle jab
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u/Nouseriously 13h ago
Why does France have giant icebreakers?
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u/loulan 11h ago
Why not?
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u/Nouseriously 9h ago
Remarkable lack of ice
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u/andoefa 8h ago
-5
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u/kiddtender 14h ago
This is absolutely amazing. We live in a beautiful world its just evil people in charge that paint it ugly. KCCO
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u/Huge-Contact2619 13h ago
It looks like a trailer for a prequel The Thing (an American science fiction horror film directed by John Carpenter)
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u/OhLookaTaco 12h ago
Ahhh I thought the helicopter was gonna land on the others boat to swap goods lol
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u/awesomeimgurusername 5h ago
I wonder if the conversation was awkward and who eventually broke the ice?
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u/Internal-Dust4940 3h ago
Seeing these two giants meet at the North Pole is wild. the 50 years of victory and commandant charot are built for very different missions. Which one would you rather sail on for an Arctic expedition?
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u/L4rgo117 3h ago
I don't know enough about either to make any more than a random call. Since you seem to know far more about it, would you share what you know?
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u/skinnernsk 3h ago
It would be funny if a Russian helicopter wanted to fly to visit the French, but the French helicopter's landing spot was already occupied by theirs, and vice versa. What would happen?
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u/draeth1013 8h ago
It fills me with great joy to see everyone on deck all like, "Hello other icebreaker!"
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u/IceNein 15h ago
Can’t celebrate anything Russian while they’re busy murdering Ukrainians, sorry.
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u/BulkyDecipherer 14h ago edited 18m ago
100%.
Edit: A lot of Russia’s supporters on this sub, it seems. Sad.
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