Brest (AFP) – The Polar Pod project, a vertical oceanographic vessel designed to drift around Antarctica, has been on hold for several months and is not expected to launch before 2027, at least four years behind schedule, according to multiple sources.
“We’re growing desperate, but for now, it hasn’t been abandoned,” Elsa Peny-Étienne, director of expeditions, told AFP during a stopover in Brest on Friday by Persévérance, the Polar Pod’s support vessel. The project is currently stalled due to a dispute between Ifremer, which is managing the project, and the Piriou shipyard, responsible for building the Polar Pod in Concarneau (Finistère).
Contacted by AFP, both Ifremer and Piriou declined to provide details about the nature of their disagreement. According to sources close to the matter, the conflict likely involves construction costs, which were revised after the call for tenders.
The French National Research Agency (ANR) allocated €28 million to Ifremer to cover the Polar Pod’s construction costs, its shipment to South Africa, and part of the post-construction trials.
Studying the Southern Ocean year-round
A resolution was expected during an interministerial meeting in June 2024, but the dissolution of the French National Assembly has further delayed the project, according to a source familiar with the matter. Questioned by AFP, Ifremer said it had “considered various scenarios for the project’s continuation and submitted them to the ministries” of Research and Ecological Transition. “We are now waiting for feedback from our supervisory authorities,” the Institute added. The two ministries did not respond to AFP’s requests for comment.
“It’s a bit exhausting,” said physician and explorer Jean-Louis Étienne, the project’s initiator. “There are 43 institutions from 12 countries committed to this scientific project. We have partners involved, and we’ve borrowed €7 million to build Persévérance,” he said. “It makes you wonder whether Ifremer actually wants this project.”
“We have truly fulfilled our part of the contract,” added Peny-Étienne, referring to the expedition funding and the construction of the support ship. Persévérance was christened in June 2023 in Marseille — the original target date for Polar Pod’s launch.
By late 2022, Piriou and Ifremer still hoped to start the expedition in the last quarter of 2024. Peny-Étienne now hopes that the start of construction will be officially announced during the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice this June, with the vessel launching in June 2027. The Polar Pod is expected to complete a full circumnavigation of Antarctica in 18 months, moving without an engine, propelled solely by ocean currents. Crews will rotate every two months via Persévérance.
The Southern Ocean — “the planet’s main oceanic carbon sink” — remains largely uncharted, Étienne emphasized. “It’s mostly studied during the summer, but there are virtually no missions outside that period. Polar Pod will make it possible to study this ocean across all four seasons — and on top of that, it’s a zero-emissions vessel. »
Source: goodplanet
