Work out how to remove munitions from lakes - win £45,000

Work out how to remove munitions from lakes - win £45,000

Author
Discussion

Leithen

Original Poster:

12,122 posts

274 months

Sunday 18th August
quotequote all
How hard could it be? Switzerland will pay you 50,000 Swiss francs for coming up with the best idea of how to remove tonnes of munitions that have been dumped in its lakes.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdd7y3nm09lo

So, collective PH brain, this is a chance to submit the winning solution and buy a few sheds.

Personally, I think it's got to be almost entirely remotely done, because there is the suggestion that much of what has been dumped is still live....

spikeyhead

17,978 posts

204 months

Sunday 18th August
quotequote all
Add one extra large munition with remote controlled fuze and stand well back

Tango13

8,921 posts

183 months

Sunday 18th August
quotequote all
Then you have the question of how to transport the live and potentially highly unstable munitions to somewhere where they can be made safe and/or disposed of?

There was a series of documentaries on BBC 4 a while back about how Portion Down operates, one of them detailing how poison gas shells from WW1 were made safe. It's a very slow, methodical process that costs a lot of money to do safely.

Getragdogleg

9,105 posts

190 months

Sunday 18th August
quotequote all
Freeze the whole lake, then using a few big helicopters lift the lake, bombs and all, up out and fly it to a remote location that no one cares about like Russia and drop it there.

If you want to keep a lake there then you might have to freeze another similar sized one and do a swap.

While the water is out go and pick up any bombs that didn't stay in the giant ice cube.

Turtle Shed

1,762 posts

33 months

Sunday 18th August
quotequote all
Nukes from orbit.

Gordon Hill

1,299 posts

22 months

Sunday 18th August
quotequote all
Assuming that contact causes detonation why not empty Whitehall and drop em all out of a plane from a great height, sort of kill 2 birds with one stone.

eliot

11,727 posts

261 months

Sunday 18th August
quotequote all
Has anyone asked Tom Cruise ?

CoolHands

19,451 posts

202 months

Sunday 18th August
quotequote all
In modern times ‘common sense’ is much ridiculed.

Yet common sense would tell me this was a fking stupid thing to do from the get-go. Yet it only dawned on them many thousands of tonnes later. Clever.

Scrump

22,939 posts

165 months

Sunday 18th August
quotequote all
Seems to be a similar problem as the munitions from the SS Montgomery wreck.
A lot of money has been spent looking at that and no easy answer found.

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=18...

valiant

11,346 posts

167 months

Sunday 18th August
quotequote all
I’m going for the “munitions? What munitions?” approach.

If everybody just decides that they don’t exist then everybody can simply get on with their lives.


For a while at least whistle

Milkyway

10,066 posts

60 months

Sunday 18th August
quotequote all
Load all the ammo onto an old barge, sink it in the middle of the lake... Light blue touch paper.
(Some old shipping containers might come n handy)

NB: IF all else fails, contact International Rescue... Brains & TB4 would sort out this dilemma.


Edited by Milkyway on Sunday 18th August 11:29

shed driver

2,359 posts

167 months

Sunday 18th August
quotequote all
Buy a lot of buckets and empty the lake. Then refill it. Return buckets to Amazon for a full refund and gain £45,000. I can't see any flaws. Even better if you get a free Prime trial, you can start even sooner.

SD.

mac96

4,432 posts

150 months

Sunday 18th August
quotequote all
CoolHands said:
In modern times ‘common sense’ is much ridiculed.

Yet common sense would tell me this was a fking stupid thing to do from the get-go. Yet it only dawned on them many thousands of tonnes later. Clever.
Not credible, is it? They may have believed it would not explode but they knew it would,eventually, pollute the lakes as the shell casings etc decayed. They didn't care.

Jader1973

4,289 posts

207 months

Sunday 18th August
quotequote all
Carefully.

Very carefully.

Hill92

4,570 posts

197 months

Sunday 18th August
quotequote all
Tango13 said:
Then you have the question of how to transport the live and potentially highly unstable munitions to somewhere where they can be made safe and/or disposed of?

There was a series of documentaries on BBC 4 a while back about how Portion Down operates, one of them detailing how poison gas shells from WW1 were made safe. It's a very slow, methodical process that costs a lot of money to do safely.
idea "Contract Porton Down to dispose of them".

I'll take my cheque in Swiss Francs please.

ChocolateFrog

28,659 posts

180 months

Sunday 18th August
quotequote all
Leave them there.

Removing them will likely cause more damage.

I can think of many better ways of spending billions and billions of Francs.

EmailAddress

13,567 posts

225 months

Sunday 18th August
quotequote all
Tell Trump, Obama and Harris put them there.

Gareth79

8,039 posts

253 months

Sunday 18th August
quotequote all
It's actually 50,000 francs divided between the best three entries. If they use a novel solution that nobody has yet thought it would deserve far more money, especially if the idea is from somebody who is an "inventor" type but has no commercial operation to exploit the idea being put into action.

ChocolateFrog

28,659 posts

180 months

Sunday 18th August
quotequote all
What a totally stupid thing to do in the first place though.

Best way to get rid of munitions is to use it. Even if there was no training benefit they could have dug a hole, chucked it in and lit the match. A few tons at a time, job done.

It reminds me of those tyre reefs, which fking idiot thought that was a good idea.

I despair at the stupidity of humanity.

Roofless Toothless

6,127 posts

139 months

Sunday 18th August
quotequote all
ChocolateFrog said:
What a totally stupid thing to do in the first place though.

Best way to get rid of munitions is to use it. Even if there was no training benefit they could have dug a hole, chucked it in and lit the match. A few tons at a time, job done.

It reminds me of those tyre reefs, which fking idiot thought that was a good idea.

I despair at the stupidity of humanity.
When Singapore surrendered during WW2, the commander there signaled Whitehall to ask what should be done with their ammunition stockpile. Churchill signaled back that the traditional method was to fire it at the enemy.