Princess Elisabeth Polar Science Station
On September 6, 2007, Belgian-based International Polar Foundation unveiled octagonal spaceship-like Princess Elisabeth station, the world's first zero-emissions polar science station in Antarctica to research on climate change. Costing $16.3 million, the prefabricated station, which is part of International Polar Year, will be shipped to Antarctica from Belgium (to monitor the health of the polar regions, using icebreakers, satellites, stations and submarines). Belgian polar explorer Alain Hubert stated that "This base will be the first of its kind to produce zero emissions, making it a unique model of how energy should be used in the Antarctic," Johan Berte is the leader of the station design team and manager of the project (which will conduct research in climatology, glaciology and microbiology), and the project unified scientists from 63 nations in 228 studies.
This polar station was the main motif in one of the most recent commemorative coins issued by Belgium: the International Polar Foundation commemorative coin minted in 2007, with a face value of 10 euro. In the obverse of the coin, a view of the polar station with it three wind turbines can be seen.
Read more about this topic: International Polar Year
Famous quotes containing the words princess, polar, science and/or station:
“We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In time your relatives will come to accept the idea that a career is as important to you as your family. Of course, in time the polar ice cap will melt.”
—Barbara Dale (b. 1940)
“Everything is becoming science fiction. From the margins of an almost invisible literature has sprung the intact reality of the 20th century.”
—J.G. (James Graham)
“[T]here is no situation so deplorable ... as that of a gentlewoman in real poverty.... Birth, family, and education become misfortunes when we cannot attain some means of supporting ourselves in the station they throw us into. Our friends and former acquaintances look on it as a disgrace to own us.... If we were to attempt getting our living by any trade, people in that station would think we were endeavoring to take their bread out of their mouths.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)