Syria ’s understanding with the UN to extirpate its stockpiles of chemical war agents in exchange for the US not curb bit - stomp its Air Force is cash in one’s chips about as well as you ’d expect . That is , it ’s woefully behind schedule with little hope of actually being completed . But , if and when the Assad regime does ultimately wrench over its chemical arms , they ’ll be knock off aboard this ship .
Christened the MV Cape Ray , this 648 - fundament prospicient , 32,000 - ton vas was originally built in 1977 and spend its first two decades in commercial military service to Saudi Arabia ’s National Ship Company before being purchased by the US government in 1993 , when it was win over into a military vessel . Late last year , the US Navy installed a pair of Field Deployable Hydrolysis Systems — equipment designed specifically to put down the active compounds in both Sarin and Mustard gas — as part of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons , the international attempt to disarm Syria of its chemical stockpiles .
These FDH systems cost $ 5 million apiece and work by heating and mixing the chemical agent with pee , sodium hydroxide , and sodium hypochlorite in a 2,200 congius atomic number 22 reactor to break them down into smaller , less severe chemical components . At the end of processing , 99.9 per centum of the chemical federal agent has been destroyed and rendered about as harmful as most home cleaner . These systems can process up to 20 tons of chemic agents day by day .
The destruction process will be convey below deck under a 5,600 - cfm chemical agent filtration system , containing multiple bed of HEPA filtration , just in fount something lead unseasonable . And to avoid violating international treaties regarding artillery of aggregated destruction , the Cape Ray will accept the chemic weapon from anundisclosed Italian port , then sail out to external waters in the Mediterranean , where some 40 locomotive engineer and expert faculty will execute the actual processing .
In all , the entire ocean trip should take around four month to nail . That ’s 90 days of processing plus travel time , though the timetable calculate on both the prevail weather condition in the Mediterranean — the process ca n’t take spot in violently rolling sea — and the Assad government ’s cooperation in really hand over the weapon system . And so far , the Syrians do n’t seem to be in much of a hurry to follow . [ Foreign Policy – Navy Site – DTRA – Images : AP Images ]
military
Daily Newsletter
Get the best tech , science , and culture news in your inbox daily .
word from the hereafter , delivered to your present .
You May Also Like
