The dive hole is on its way - it might be large enough to dive in by tomorrow! Melting the hole is quite a process! I explained the drilling yesterday, now let me explain the melting.
We have several pieces of equipment to melt the hole: a generator, a hotsy, 2 hurdy gurdy's, a hot finger, cables filled with glycol, and fuel to run the generator and the hotsy- both Mogas and JP8. Here's how it works...
The generator is basically our power supply for the process. We need the generator to run the "hotsy." The hotsy is basically a big drum that has a burner and glycol contained within a system of cables. We turn the generator on in order to power the hotsy. Then we turn the hotsy on; the hotsy will heat the glycol that is inside the cables. The glycol is then pumped through the cable system. Hot glycol passes out of the hotsy into the cables going into the lake. The cables obviously get warm since they have glycol in them, and thus melt the ice. As the glycol pumps through the cables, it is cooled because it is in very cold lake water. The glycol is pumped back to the hotsy, reheated, and sent around again! It is an endless cycle of heating and cooling! It is important to also note that this is a closed system; no glycol actually enters into the lake! That would be an ecological disaster!

We also have two hurdy gurdy's which are used to get fuel from the fuel drums to the generator and hotsy. We have these machines running 24 hours a day while we melt, so we need to have the fuel close by in order to refill them "easily" (very few things in Antarctica are actually easy!). The hurdy gurdy's are basically hand-cranking siphons that suck fuel out of the 55 gallon drums and into hoses which are put into anything being refueled. The generator uses Mogas, the hotsy uses JP8; it's best not to get those two mixed up!

The hot finger is attached to the cable that the glycol is circulating through. It is a long coiled up piece of metal that also gets hot. Between the hot finger and the cables, the dive hole is coming along nicely.

The "Hotsy" set up: the orange drums in the back are the fuel drums. You can also see the hurty gurdys coming out of the fuel drums - blue metal circles with handles. The actual "hotsy" is the machine on the left - inside a wooden box. You can see the cables coming out of the hotsy. The generator is the box in the middle of the picture. You can see the cables going down the dive hole, but you can not see the hotfinger - I'll get a picture of it sometime soon.

 

 The cables going down the dive hole - it's not quite large enough yet!

 

Maciej gets ready to remove the jiffy-drill from the drill augers.

 

Ian sorts out the lights for an experiment that is being deployed this year.

 

A look up Taylor Valley!

 

A view of the Canada Glacier!

 

You can also check out my journals and pictures from previous seasons at:
http://www.ryejrhigh.org/ellwood