ANSWERS for (17 MAR 16) Sub Questions of Week

Related information, photo(s) and links for questions are found in the original posting..

ANSWERS Submarine Questions of the Week

1  -  What is the significance of Ice Camp Sargo's name?  ANS: USS Sargo's (SSN-538) arctic history.

2 -   In the photo of Ice Camp Sargo (here): 
-  (a)  From what direction was the wind coming?  ANS:  Unknown, as we do not know exactly when the photo was taken. However, a subjective guess based upon March winds may help.

-  (b)  Which of the flags shown represent nations who have claimed portions of the extended continental shelf under UNCLOS? ANS:  Canada and Norway. 
- (c) Which flags represent nations who have not made such claims? ANS:  U.S.A.
- (d) Is there an UNCLOS claimant not participating in ICEX 16?  ANS: Russia

 
3 - Two U.S. subs are deployed for ICEX 16; which subs (names & hull numbers)? ANS: The Los Angeles-class submarines, USS Hartford (SSN 768) from Groton, and USS Hampton (SSN 767) from San Diego, are conducting maneuvers, data collection and training matters. 
 
4 -  Which of the following are not assigned ICEX 16 participants: Alaska Air National Guard assets, MIT students, Mobile Diving Salvage Unit 2, Norwegian personnel, SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team, Royal Navy personnel, Royal Canadian Navy and Air Force personnel, Russian contingents, the USCG?   ANS:  Russian contingents may be actively snooping, but not as ICEX participants.
 
5 - What seems strangely out of place in the © Edgar Su / Reuters ICEX-16 unrelated, U.S. submarine photo below (subjective answer)?  ANS:  M.E. has lightened the published photo to underscore issues raised below:

Submarines are always silent and strange.

Unexplained Flying Objects Are Out There

BACKGROUND
Enel North America, a subsidiary of Italy's Enel, operates the Fenner Wind Farm in central New York State. Operational in late 2000, its twenty 1.5 megawatt GE turbines produce 30 megawatts, enough renewable energy to serve at least 7,800 homes. Originally, all of the $2.5 million towers weighed 187-tons.

RECENT FENNER HISTORY

February 12, 2016 | Fenner — 113-foot blade falls off Fenner windmill
A 113-foot blade from a wind turbine in the Fenner Wind Farm came unattached to its tower and plummeted 213 feet to the ground early this morning off Buyea Road. No people were injured and no property was damaged, according to Fenner town officials.

PRIOR FENNER HISTORY
October 24, 2014 | Fenner — Windmill catches fire in Fenner (click to see photo)
 
December 27, 2009 | Fenner — Fall of Fenner windmill remains a mystery
After Tower 18 had suddenly collapsed Fenner Wind Farm was shut down for 10 months to reinforce all 20 foundations with tons of steel and concrete. GE Turbine 18 (the one noted above to have lost a blade) was eventually replaced on a higher tower with a larger turbine of Chinese (Goldwind) manufacture. So, the fallen blade and turbine were not parts supplied by GE.

What Has Gone Wrong Elsewhere?  Plenty ...
Here are just a few examples:

• A blade from a wind turbine at Lister Hospital in the United Kingdom flew off and hit a car in September 2011, the Comet reported.  

• A turbine blade crashed through the roof of a neighbor’s home in Wallaceburg, Canada, the Chatham Daily News reported in February 2009.

• In Norway, a blade from a Suez Energy North American V-90 wind turbine was hurled about 1,600 feet, landing near a home’s back door, the Journal Pioneer reported in December 2008.

• In Western Illinois in 2008, a 6.5 ton blade sailed about 150 feet away, the Associated Press reported.

 Submarines are always silent and strange.

Submarine Quotes of the Month

- 1 -

Background... shower videos of women submariners
A Navy official confirmed to Navy Times in December that investigators suspected seven (7) videos had been taken with a cell phone camera aboard the Kings Bay, Georgia-based ballistic missile submarine Wyoming.   more background


"My information is that the use of the devices was widespread among most of the crew, officers included. I also have information that by the time the sub hit the docks, officers and enlisted men were using the devices."  -  Told to Navy Times in a Jan. 16 phone interview of James Stein, defense attorney for a sailor implicated in  USS Wyoming (SSBN-742) shower videos.

 - 2 -

Background...  60 kilometers from the border to Norway's border

[T] he world is facing a worst case scenario described as "an Arctic underwater Chernobyl, played out in slow motion," according to Thomas Nilsen, an editor at the Barents Observer newspaper and a member of a Norwegian watchdog group that monitors the situation. According to a joint Russian-Norwegian report issued in 2012, there are 17,000 containers of nuclear waste, 19 rusting Soviet nuclear ships and 14 nuclear reactors cut out of atomic vessels at the bottom of the Kara Sea.  more background

Norway has over the last 20 years granted some NOK 1.5 billion (€175 million) into nuclear safety projects related to the military navy’s activities, including decommissioning of four old submarines, development of casks for spent nuclear fuel, radioactive waste management, physical protection of radioactive- and fissile material. In addition, hundreds of millions are granted to civilian nuclear safety projects including Kola nuclear power plant and the nuclear icebreaker fleet in Murmansk. “It is timely to look into what we are going to spend Norwegian money on. Russia must take responsibility.”

“So far we have followed EU’s restrictive measures. When it comes to the possible new measures will this depend on Russia,” says Brende pointing to Putin as the man in key position to stop supporting the separatists in Eastern Ukraine with soldiers, tanks and artillery.

“Sanctions was right, is right and has had an effect.”  -  Norway’s Foreign Minister Børge Brende  source

Submarines are always silent and strange.

"China Won't Be A Big Threat To America's Global Power"

Background
Defying pedestrian thinking, Forbes (June 6, 2014) published Loren Thompson's thoughtful précis, Five Reasons China Won't Be A Big Threat To America's Global Power. 

Doctor Thompson is no ordinary blogger. He is the Chief operating officer of the non-profit Lexington Institute. He has taught at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.  And, as Deputy Director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, he taught graduate-level courses in strategy, technology and media affairs. 

Disagreements
Molten Eagle disagrees with all five of Dr. Thompson's supposedly threat-diminishing rationales.  Rebuttals for only the first 4 are given below, because the 5th, Military weakness, ignores the same Chinese advantages Loren ignores in the first four. In each of these contexts readers may agree that government continuity. steadfastness and patience are actually huge advantages for China.

• 1. Geographical constraints
  "Unlike America, which spent much of its history expanding under doctrines such as Manifest Destiny, China’s potential for territorial growth is severely limited by geography. ...China’s disputes with neighbors over the disposition of minor islands and reefs underscores how little real potential Beijing has for growing its territory the way other powers have."

M.E. rebuttal:  Thompson's comparison gives little weight to China's impressive planning and current overcapacity for vertical expansion (cities built for population growth), which reserves arable land for agriculture. He then ignores the impact of another argument (see Demographic trends next) --- attrition of China's aged population strengthened by decades of limitations on family size. 

• 2. Demographic trends.                                                                                                           "The current fertility rate of 1.6 children per woman is well below the level of 2.1 required to maintain a stable population over the long run. ..."  In the years ahead, a growing population of old people will undermine efforts to stimulate internal demand while creating pressure for increased social-welfare spending.                                  'within a few years, the working age population will reach a historical peak and then begin a sharp decline.'  The vast pool of cheap labor that fueled China’s economic miracle has already begun disappearing, driving up wages and leading some labor-intensive industries to move out. "

M.E. rebuttal:  Thompson's argumentnot only tends to contradict a conclusion of his first bullett, it ignores the massive debt payments owed China by the U.S. Treasury, and a host of countries worldwide benefitting from China's attractive construction projects. Example gratis.

• 3. Economic dependency.                                                                                                          "But even if the low-cost labor that made this possible wasn’t drying up, the reliance of an export-driven economy on foreign markets makes China’s prosperity — per capita GDP is below $10,000 – much more vulnerable than America’s.  China has sold over $100 billion more in goods to the U.S. so far this year than it has bought, but that longstanding boost to the Chinese economy won’t persist if the labor cost differential between the two countries keeps narrowing or Washington decides Beijing is a real danger to its interests.  China is so dependent on offshore resources, markets and investors to keep its economy growing that it can’t run the risk of really scaring its trading partners."

M.E. rebuttal:  On this reason, our objection is largely a matter of degree, but that degree is rather huge.  China's average construction wages, for instance, would have to triple to lose competitiveness with welfare driven Sweden, and quadruple to approach non-competitiveness with similarly driven Norway, Canada, Germany and Japan.  For reference. 

• 4. Political culture.                                                                                                         "Because the Communist Party monopolizes power in China, there is little opportunity for fundamental reform of the political system.  Party officials at all levels routinely leverage that monopoly to engage in epic corruption.  ... [New York’s Tweed] ...was driven from power through democratic processes, whereas China’s political culture offers no such solution."

M.E. rebuttal:  Democratic processes in the U.S. have yielded dramatic policy reversals ushered in by new administrations almost every 4 to 8 years.  The result has been patently wasteful of public treasure and lives, but has encouraged fraud and abuse in management of government programs (e.g. TARP, NASA, DOD, VA healthcare, Solyndra...)..  In these contexts, as well as in the certainty of criminal punishment in China, continuity. steadfastness and patience are actually advantageous.

Submarines are always silent and strange.

Reminder: Most Reliable Indicator in the Ultimate "Chicken Game"

Background

Politics must never be discounted.  Is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) a multinational Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization?

Current Opinions

• November 25, 2013 -

In short, the news for global warming activists is far worse than the survey results showing barely half of meteorologists believe humans are primarily responsible for some global warming. The reality is when you factor in the other necessary components of a global warming crisis, clearly less than half of American Meteorological Society meteorologists believe in the frequently asserted global warming crisis.

According to the Director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at the Danish Space Research Institute at the Danish National Space Center, we have recently experienced “the highest solar activity we have had in at least 1,000 years.”

This led to the Voice of Russia reporting, “Global warming is coming to an end: In the coming years the temperature over the entire planet will fall and the cooling will provide a character of relief. This is the conclusion reached by Russian scientists from the Physics University of the Russian Academy of Science.”

Scientific truth is determined by facts, evidence and observations – not a show of hands.

•  November 13, 2013 -

Majorities of residents in every state surveyed said the government should limit greenhouse gas emissions by businesses and, in particular, by power plants, Krosnick said. Majorities also favored a cap-and-trade system to limit emissions; tax breaks to encourage the production of energy from the sun, wind and water; carbon sequestration; and government regulations or tax breaks to require or encourage improvements in the energy efficiency of automobiles, appliances and buildings. No state had a majority of residents opposed to any of those policies.

 ***********

When will the truth be revealed as to whether man causes climate change that will result in melting polar ice caps and rising sea levels?

The best hoaxes transcend human lifespans, as this question obviously will. Safe for hoaxsters, and scary (the government hopes) for hoi polloi taxpayers.  But, if certain nations with both stakes in arctic resources and evolving submarine forces can be trusted,  here is how their hands may be tipped sooner to reveal what they really believe:

More, here.

Submarines are always silent and strange.

Out of the Submarine Fog

[Color, bold and underlining added for my own emphasis]

(1) Pride

A matter of pride, as well as an empirical fact...

"Israel Navy’s submarine service – For the best, but not for everybody" - says top recruiter.

 “We look for very special people,  a submarine is not for everybody. Errors cannot be made, because of the lives at stake, the important work, the cost – some half-a-billion euros per submarine – and even the diplomatic importance. Doing the wrong thing could lead to a declaration of war on Israel.”  - Lt.-Cmdr. Yohai Zeidman, a psychologist

(2) Silence & Stealth

Fisherman spooked after close shave with unidentified submarine off the coast of Donegal... 

 “We were just lucky to have come across it after it had surfaced.” - John Cunningham, fishing from Killybegs

"In recent years there has been much speculation linking the sinking of fishing trawlers with submarine activity in the area." - Bernard Moffatt, Celtic League Director of Information.   
 
Mr. Moffatt said that from a photograph (not the one above) of the submarine sent to him he was 99% certain it was a Royal Navy Astute class hunter-killer.

(3) No Worries? Cesium-137 Threat to Fisheries

What Threat do Sunken Nuclear Submarines Pose to Fisheries? Dumped radioactive waste and sunken nuclear subs cause radioactive contamination in the Arctic marine environment. Researchers irecently nvestigated the potential effects of leakages from two sunken submarines, containing large amounts of caesium-137 (an isotope with a half life of 30 years) with a potential to accumulate in cod and capelin. 

Researchers evaluated cesium-137 from the sub K-278 Komsomolets, which sank in the Norwegian Sea in 1989, and the K-159 that sank in 2003. Two scenarios were assumed: (i) continuous release of cesium-137 over a five-year period, and (ii) a single, 100% release equal to 100% of cesium-0137 in the subs at time of sinking. 

Neither scenario theoretically raised radioactivity in cod or capelin to levels considered dangerous by Norway's government. However, a hypothetical single release of 100% of the cesium-137 from K-159 would raise concentrations in cod to a hundred times their current level within two years after leakage. 
  
Researchers noted a need for further research to assess effects on the larger ecosystem.

Submarines are always silent and strange.

dumping of radioactive waste and sunken nuclear submarines all cause radioactive contamination in the Arctic marine environment. In this study, researchers investigated the potential effects of leakages from two sunken submarines, which contain large amounts of caesium-137. This radioactive isotope decays very slowly, with a half life of 30 years, and may accumulate in the body tissues of marine organisms. - See more at: http://www.thefishsite.com/fishnews/22098/what-threat-do-sunken-nuclear-submarines-pose-to-fisheries#sthash.HMatLBZs.dpuf