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( ICE ROOM AT UW LAB ‘"‘This may not be much of a probiem on the open sea, but one wonders what the solution will be in the harbor, where ships move in and out of the same docking area many times over, during the freezeâ€"up season," Dr. McBean Dr. McBean says they have already learned a number of things and verified others that had been known or suspected beâ€" fore. For instance, he can show that as the top layer of ice is broken it sometimes moves up onto and beneath other layers, becoming thicker ... and consequently harder to rebreak. Thus if you have a fourâ€"foot thick layer of ice in the Arctic, the use of an ice breaker to clear the way for a tanker will convert fourâ€"foot thick ice slabs into much thicker ice segments. What this means is that a ship travelâ€" ling through the Arctic to pick up a load of LNG has to continually take different routes. Probes inserted into the exâ€" periment at different levels reâ€" cord ice and water temperatures and their findings are automatiâ€" cally charted with the use of a microcomputer . This is what Dr. McBean is doing. He has had a special "ice room‘"‘ constructed in one of UW‘s engineering labs, containâ€" ing a 24â€"foot long water trough, and he is testing to see what happens when this water is cooled to form a thin layer of ice and then when this ice is broken by a simulted ice breaker. He is also looking into what happens when heated water is discharged under the ice. A much less expensive way is to do smallâ€"scale lab studies and extrapolate from information these studies reveal. Shipping it down in huge LNG (liquified natural gas) tankers is being seriously proposed as the best way to transport the gas. A gas pipeline down along the coast of Hudson and James bays is one possible alternative. If LNG tankers are to be used, however, they‘ll have to be able to navigate through ice, and Dr. Ed McBean, UW civil engineerâ€" ing professor, is studying the problem. Arctic navigation is becoming increasingly attractive because it‘s one potential way of getting the immense quantities of natuâ€" ral gas believed to be available in the Eastern Arctic down to popuâ€" lated centers on the North Amerâ€" ican continent. A specially designed laboratoâ€" ry on the University of Waterioo (UW) campus is being used to help solve ice problems faced by ships trying to navigate in the Arctic waters. One way to do this, of course, is to go up into the Arctic with a huge test ship and experiment. Such a scheme would cost milâ€" lions of dollars ... to build the vessel and to operate it. Engineer helps : solve Arctic _ 4 ice problems W â€" By Josee Duffhues He feels they may prove both cheaper and safer than a pipeâ€" line. He notes that the explosion risk is not as great with LNG as with LPG (liquid petroleum gas). (Other sources have indicated that LNG is 100 times more difficult to ignite than LPG.) If it does prove feasible, howâ€" ever, and if some day we are heating our homes, factories, and supplying our needs for plastics and other things from Arctic natural gas safely, at minimum dollar cost, and without destroyâ€" ing fish and wildlife populations in the Canadian Arctic, Dr. McBean‘s current studies may well prove to have played an important role. According to Dr. McBean, abilâ€" ity to mine energy from the Arctic, as well as current plans to build an LNG harbor there at Bridport Inlet, are both still a number of years away from becoming reality. Whatever technology ultimateâ€" ly proves most advantageous, he says LNG tankers may yet prove to be the best way to get the gas to markets in the more buiitâ€"up parts of the continent. An aiternative to bigger and better ice breakers, he feels â€" and a â€" possible solution to the Arctic port problem â€" might be to find a way to melt the underside of the ice in the region of a harbor facility. If this were done, he says, destruction of wildlife would be minimized. He says, incidentally, that there is far more aquatic life in the Arctic than most people realize .. more than anywhere else in the world, in fact. Dr. McBean says Canada‘s most powerful ice breaker is capable of continuous movement through a fourâ€"foot layer of ice but that new designs have been developed for an ice breaker capable of such movement through a sevenâ€"foot layer. ‘"One way to handle these thicknesses is to discharge heat under the ice, thereby keeping it at an acceptable level. Extensive research is, however, still reâ€" quired to design a method which would accomplish this at an acceptable cost." If this is the bad news, Dr. McBean can say his research has also produced some good news. This has to do with the potential impact of an Arctic oil spill ... which sooner or later would seem to be almost inevitable if oil and gas operations on a large scale ever take place in the far north. Dr. McBean finds the ice coatâ€" ing over the Arctic is ridged on the bottom, and that spilled oil tends to collect in the ridged channels. He feels, then, that it may well be possible, in the event of an oil spill in the north, to bore holes through the ice, and in effect vacuum up the spilied oil before it spreads. says. ‘"The ice there could build up to enormous thicknesses. Dr. Ed. McBean (ieft) and student Hugh Cook check temperature probes in tank in specially constructed ‘"‘ice room" lab at the University of Waterioo. FITZGERALD BROTHERS LTD. 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