Dunkirk: Military historian discusses World War Two shipwreck
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BP has plans for huge renewable energy projects in the UK, such as the potential 2.9-gigawatt (GW) lease area for a wind farm off the east coast of Scotland, and a 3GW area in the Irish Sea. These two major projects reportedly have the potential to power nearly six million UK homes. They also look set to contribute towards BP’s goal of generating 50GW of renewable power by 2030.
But some huge obstacles stand in BPs way, as the company will need to avoid shipwrecks, unstable sand, and unexploded bombs to successfully lay down its new wind turbines, The Daily Telegraph reports.
This includes the 107-year-old Linda Blanche, a 170-foot steamer strewn across the sea floor around 18 miles north-west of Liverpool.
Shipwrecks like this one could pose a major problem for BP, which is why the firm has been searching through an area over of 2,000-square kilometres across the UK and Irish seabed.
BP came across another wreck in its Morven wind farm area after getting picked up by its radar.
The wreck is thought to be a previously unknown wooden lifeboat vessel.
Forth Ports has also invested £50million into the Morven offshore wind hub.
The site is around 60 kilometres off the coast of Aberdeen and could power around three million homes once complete.
But BP will be hoping no to encounter any more shipwrecks or other obstacles, which could throw a spanner in the works, and scupper the goal to open the facility by the end of next year.
Huw Traylor at consultancy DNV warned: “You have to make sure you don’t have any schedule problems.
“That’s a real issue: your installation schedule is based on the schedule for which you get paid.
“There are instances where developers have found things that have really knocked things back, such as bad geotechnical conditions.”
But BP is working around the obstacles, and has sent out fleets of small drone boats and larger crewed boats to collect soil samples and radar data as part of survey work.
This will help the firm to decide where it is safe to place the turbines.
Richard Haydock, BP’s project director for offshore wind, told The Telegraph: “It means we can plan correctly so we know exactly what’s going to happen when we come in with the installation vessels.”
As well as scouring for shipwrecks, the searchers have also come across large objects which could potentially be unexploded bombs.
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Craig Allinson, a senior surveyor at BP, said: “It’s a big issue for the projects.
“We need to make sure we are only contacting the seabed where we are sure we are not going to encounter any unexploded ordnance.”
Mr Haydcok said: “In a past life I’ve seen some unexploded ordnance go up, which was quite dramatic.
“It is something that can happen and we need to make sure we take the right precautions.”
Back in February 2020, bomb-disposal experts warned over a trench in the Irish Sea containing more than 1m tonnes of unexploded munitions, plus chemical weapons and radioactive waste.
The warning came as Prime Minister Boris Johnson came up with the idea of building a 28-mile bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Robin Rickard, a consultant with explosive ordnance advisers Exord, said that “for the most part abandoned modern munitions are extremely stable as they would not have been primed or fused”.
But he warned that pre-second world war compounds like Shellite would be “more likely to explode if they are subjected to shock from falling shipwreck debris”.
Craig Allinson, a senior surveyor at BP, said: “It’s a big issue for the projects.
“We need to make sure we are only contacting the seabed where we are sure we are not going to encounter any unexploded ordnance.”
Mr Haydcok said: “In a past life I’ve seen some unexploded ordnance go up, which was quite dramatic.
“It is something that can happen and we need to make sure we take the right precautions.”
Back in February 2020, bomb-disposal experts warned over a trench in the Irish Sea containing more than 1m tonnes of unexploded munitions, plus chemical weapons and radioactive waste.
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