Big things stirred on the sidelines of the NATO summit, where National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan announced the intention to have the democracies lead world production of icebreakers and capabilities, to better counter Russian and Chinese moves in the Arctic. Once again the U.K., the U.S. and NATO are hoping to rule the waves!
That’s quite a challenge! The United States has only one heavy icebreaker, which dares to leave port once a year. The Russians have as many as all the rest of the world combined.
The magic bullet will be the Finnish shipbuilders, so they think, and here is the wizardry they stir up in the cauldron. Wrote MarineLink in November 2023: “The first ships may be the first methanol-fueled icebreakers in the world, as maritime stakeholders seek new ways to minimize their environmental footprint.” But in reality, every time biofuels have been tried on cold missions it was a spectacular failure—they froze at 32° F!
