China's Polar Icebreaker Embarks on First Arctic Mission
China's first domestically built polar icebreaker Xue Long 2 has set sail on its first mission to the Arctic, China's state-run Xinhua News Agency reports.Xuez Long 2 (Snow Dragon 2) departed Shanghai Wednesday with a team of Chinese scientists on board to conduct investigations in areas including the Chukchi Rise, Canada Basin and the central Arctic Ocean, Xinhua reports. The voyage is expected to cover some 12,000 nautical miles and conclude in late September.The expedition is said to be organized by China's Ministry of Natural Resources to study biodiversity and ecosystems, ocean
CNOOC Developing New Deep Sea Gas Block in South China Sea
China's offshore oil and gas producer CNOOC has started developing a new gas field in the South China Sea, the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Tuesday.The Lingshui 17-2 gas field is the first deep sea gas block fully operated by a Chinese company, Xinhua said citing CNOOC officials.The deep sea project, which was discovered in 2014, is 150 km (94 miles) south of China's southern Hainan island, with an average operational depth of 1,500 metres, according to a Reuters report from that year.CNOOC is ready to start building a subsea level platform used for drilling, Xinhua said.(Reporting
China's Giant Floating Solar Plant Goes Live
China's Three Gorges Group started producing power from a 150-megawatt floating solar plant in east China, the largest of its kind in the world, official Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday. The solar power project in Huainan in Anhui province, developed by the new energy unit of state-run Three Gorges Group, is expected to be in full operation in May next year, the report said. The one-billion-yuan Huainan project is a new experiment aimed at cutting the cost of constructing and operating solar power plants, Lu Chun, chairman of Three Gorges Group was cited as saying. (Reportin
China Says Important Glacier is Melting Due to Climate Change
fast retreating because of climate change, state media said. The Jianggudiru Glacier on Geladaindong Mountain in a remote part of the western province of Qinghai has shrunk 34 metres (38 yards) over the past six years, Pu Jianchen, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told the Xinhua news agency. The glacier started to shrink slowly in the 1970s, then expanded between 1989 and 1994 before retreating more quickly from 1995, Pu said, Xinhua reported late on Tuesday. Yang Xin, president of the Green River Environmental Protection Association, told Xinhua the glacier
Chinese Submarine Dives into Indian Ocean
; A Chinese submersible vessel has been conducting its first deep dive in the Indian Ocean in search of rare metals. It will collect samples of hydrothermal fluid and sulfide, which is a kind of seabed deposit that contains copper, zinc and many precious metals such as gold and silver, official Xinhua news agency said. The project, which involves exploring the Indian Ocean for 120 days, reflects China's hunger for resources, sources say. The vessel will also obtain samples of rocks, sediment and water from selected spots in the India Ocean. The project enables researchers to
February 2024
