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The ship carries all the supplies not just the fuel and since the fuel needs to be transported across land on a tracked vehicle it's easier to do that in barrel
by rtkwe 6y ago
The ship carries all the supplies not just the fuel and since the fuel needs to be transported across land on a tracked vehicle it's easier to do that in barrels than to have a specialty sled made and maintain a tank on the slowly shifting glacier.
- sandworm101 6y agoAnother nuance is likely environmental. They probably could transport the fuel in a big tank and then offload it to smaller containers, but that is a bulk fueling procedure that could go wrong/leak/spill. It is environmentally safer to transport fuel in closed containers all the way to the final destination.
- rtkwe 6y agoThere's tons of reasons traditional tanked shipping makes little sense. Volume, they're going to get quite a bit of fuel but it's still a tiny amount compared to the volume of a tanker. They're also sending down a lot of non liquid cargo, so being able to send it all on one ship makes sense.