Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Weakest of Links

I haven’t posted anything in a few days and was looking for something interesting to write about that related to submarines. I didn’t want to follow up on the great sea stories that Bothehook, Bubblehead and WillShake posted lately so I came up with this lame attempt to link current technology breakthroughs to possible applications relating to submarines.

The first one is this story I read about the Portuguese Navy purchasing some new Type-209MOD submarines fitted with the latest fuel cell propulsion equipment. But then I ran across this story about jolting bacteria to make hydrogen from human waste. Hydrogen is the FUEL in fuel cells so could SAN #1 someday become a fuel source? No more blowing sanitary tanks at sea. Brings a whole new meaning to all AHEAD FULL.

Here’s a story from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute about recent discoveries in ocean water layering with “salt fingers” and temperature gradients. Seeing how submarines have been known to take advantage of thermocline effects on sonar to avoid detection, a DEEPER understanding of the ocean’s temperature gradients and salinity could help tactics.

Speaking of detection here’s a story about using Muron Radiography to find nuclear materials even within substantial shielding. Could this new technology be adapted to find Nuclear Submarines as sea? Probably not, but at least we could use the technology to find nuclear wantabe terrorist MORONS with a Muron detector.

I did say they were weak.

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