Antarctic drilling project hits major problem An ambitious
attempt to drill deep into an Antarctic lake buried by two miles
of ice has run into major difficulties. The British Antarctic
Survey says that over the weekend, there was a serious problem
with the main boiler that is used to generate the hot water
required for drilling down to the lake. The primary burner
controller circuit had already failed upon start up - and, while
the secondary burner ran successfully for four or five days, it
too failed on Saturday afternoon.It had, though, already been
able to melt enough water to start the drilling. "The
replacement component is likely to be with the deep field team
in a few days’ time. In the meantime the engineering team is in
contact with the manufacturers of the units who are helping them
to determine the cause of the malfunction," says the team. "Both
units demonstrated the same problem. When the replacement
circuit arrives the engineers will work with the manufacturer to
go through the set up procedure