Polar Pod: an extraordinary maritime and scientific expedition

For several years, Teréga has been committed to the energy transition to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which are responsible for global warming. As such, Teréga launched the internal environmental programme, BE Positif, in 2017. This ambitious programme has already enabled us to contribute to France’s carbon neutrality by the end of 2020. To take our environmental commitment even further, we have included an action line on “Mobilisation for the protection of the environment and biodiversity” in our Teréga Accélérateur d’Énergies endowment fund.

It is through this strategy, that Teréga decided to support the Polar Pod expedition of Jean-Louis Etienne. A project that is committed to the environment and the preservation of biodiversity by exploring the Southern Ocean.

The goal of the Polar Pod expedition is to study the Southern Ocean, one of the most difficult to access and remote oceans on Earth, in order to collect scientific data. As the world’s main oceanic carbon sink, it is of major interest to the international scientific community. Indeed, the scientific data that will be collected will be a precious key to better understanding the climate control, of which the Southern Ocean is an essential part, but also to study the Antarctic circumpolar current.

To carry out this expedition, a new kind of vessel was created, the Polar Pod. The particularity of this ship is to be a vertical oceanographic platform, 100 metres high for a weight of 1,000 tons, which allows it to remain stable, even in case of strong swell or storm. Without engines, the specific feature of this platform is to drift around Antarctica, like a satellite, in order to collect data.