Posted on 08/07/2023 2:14:57 PM PDT by george76
EEMSHAVEN, Netherlands — Tugboats towed a freight ship that burned for a week on the North Sea while carrying thousands of cars into a Dutch port on Thursday for salvaging, laying to rest fears that it could sink close to shipping lanes and a protected habitat for birds.
The Fremantle Highway was taken to the northern port of Eemshaven, the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management said. A boat that has special booms to clean up oil spills accompanied the nearly 200-meter-long (around 650-foot-long) vessel as a precaution.
The ship with 3,784 new vehicles, including 498 electric ones, on board caught fire on July 25 while traveling from the German port city of Bremerhaven to Singapore.
Much of the gray paint on the ship’s sides was gone, apparently scorched off by the heat inside the ship when the fire was raging.
The fire on the Fremantle Highway burned out of control for a week as it floated near busy North Sea shipping lanes and the shallow Wadden Sea, a UNESCO World Heritage-listed migratory bird habitat. Dutch authorities did not attempt to spray water onto the ship for fear of making it unstable.
The blaze put nerves on edge in the Netherlands and Germany, which shares the Wadden Sea with its neighbor.
...
One crew member died and others were injured when the fire erupted.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Buy an electric car they said...it will be good for the environment they added...
I wonder how much frivolous and unnecessary CO2 was produced in the burning of this ship.
Regarding ship salvage, this episode of The Naked City.
The SS American Dream and the ideas of a salvage man.
The Dutch oven has arrived.
I wondering this loss alone is enough to raise the cost of insuring this cargo such that sticker price shock is noticeable?
More like oh Lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Burns.
If Mercedes had a North American plant, they would not have to put their cars on a ship and transport them across the ocean.
SOOOOOOOOOOO— A burning ship—including EV’s is OK-—BUT DAIRY COWS ARE NOT?????
I can see ships refusing to transport EVs not far off in the future.
Last sentence of the AP article: The cause of the blaze has not been established.
Betcha at least on EV was involved.
If ships wont take them I can’t imagine cargo planes would fly them either. Also prohibitively expensive. That leaves domestic production for domestic consumption and rail carriers or being driven to destinations. Do car ferries still allow them aboard?
This chance of EVs going up in smoke is going to raise the insurance rates. What a punch in the gut these EV owners are going to get, down the road, when the chickens come home to roost.
Unfortunately the lithium batteries as currently formulated release oxygen as they burn, thus fueling the fire. That and the thermal runaway are why they are so hard to extinguish.
CC
Some ferries now refuse to carry EVs.
Man, you are bitt er
Our company bought a brand new car off the show room floor. One day when walking past it I noticed the paint on the trunk and right wheel panels was just a slight different shade of color, not noticeable to most people.
A quick examination by our in house mechanical team showed this brand new automobile had severe hidden damage to the back half of the car and had been bondoed and repainted. Definitely not hail damage. Much worse.
I bought a truck which I later found had been submerged in a lake, when everything began to fail on it. No warranty.
Given the amount they may have to pay out for this disaster I would guess very quickly once they know for sure.
Could you imagine if a train loaded with a bunch of EV’s caught fire in a railroad tunnel? It would be hell on earth.
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