From Durham to the South Pole

What’s on your bucket list? An expedition to the South Pole, fuelled entirely by renewable energy? Well, it might not be at the top of your list, but it certainly sounds incredible. That’s exactly what Robert Swan, a Durham University graduate, and his son, have just achieved.

On Monday, the pair completed the expedition, travelling over 600 miles in freezing temperatures.

However, this isn’t the first time Robert Swan has achieved something amazing.

According to a spokesman for the team,

[He] has experienced some of the harshest environments on the planet, becoming the first man in history to walk unaided to both poles in the 1980s. This time he embarked on his last major expedition, an epic trek on foot to the South Pole.

After reaching the halfway point, a major milestone in their expedition, Robert passed on the baton of polar exploration to Barney who walked the remaining 300 miles to the geographic South Pole without his dad, to highlight to younger generations that there is no silver bullet to the challenge of climate change.

It’s Barney’s belief that it is up to all players in society – including governments, industry, entrepreneurs and corporations – to come together to develop a mixture of cleaner energy solutions.

By only using renewable sources of energy, the explorers were able to power their cooking stove and keep warm, dry and fed in temperatures as low as minus 40C.

Before setting out on the trek in December, Robert spoke about how the team had prepared. He said:

We have planned for every scenario but our main contingency for when we’re in an Antarctic blizzard and I can’t see my hand in front of me is the advanced biofuels provided by Shell, which will keep us warm, comfortable and most importantly safe.

The greatest exploration left is our ability as humans to learn how to live on the earth sustainably.

To successfully complete the journey using only renewable energy is pretty impressive. Could you do it?

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