Tag Archives: Cargo ship

We Really Haven’t Perfected Green Energy

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On Wednesday, The Associated Press reported the following:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The crew of a cargo ship carrying 3,000 vehicles to Mexico, including 800 electric vehicles, abandoned ship after they could not control a fire aboard the vessel in waters off Alaska’s Aleutian island chain.

A large plume of smoke was initially seen at the ship’s stern coming from the deck loaded with electric vehicles Tuesday, according to U.S. Coast Guard photos and a Wednesday statement from the ship’s management company, London-based Zodiac Maritime.

There were no reported injuries among the 22 crew members of the Morning Midas.

Crew members abandoned ship, were evacuated onto a lifeboat and rescued by the crew of a nearby merchant vessel called the Cosco Hellas in the North Pacific, roughly 300 miles (490 kilometers) southwest of Adak Island. Adak is about 1,200 miles (1,930 kilometers) west of Anchorage, the state’s largest city.

The ship has been left to burn as putting out a fire in an electric car is not an easy task. How much environmental damage will the ship do when it eventually sinks? How much environmental damage was done in the manufacturing of those electric cars? What is the comparison between the amount of carbon footprint in the manufacture of an electric car versus a car with a gasoline or diesel engine?

The article concludes:

The 600-foot (183-meter) Morning Midas, a car and truck carrier, was built in 2006 and sails under a Liberian flag.

The cars left Yantai, China, on May 26, according to the industry site marinetraffic.com. They were being shipped to Lazaro Cardenas, a major Pacific port in Mexico.

Earlier this month, a Dutch safety board called for improving emergency response on North Sea shipping routes after a deadly 2023 fire on a freighter that was carrying 3,000 automobiles, including nearly 500 electric vehicles, from Germany to Singapore.

That fire killed one person, injured others and burned out of control for a week, and the ship was eventually towed to a port in the northern Netherlands for salvage.

The accident increased the focus on safety issues on the open sea and on containers that fall off the massive freighters, which have increased in size dramatically in recent decades. More than 80% of international trade by volume now arrives by sea, and the largest container vessels are longer than three football fields.

While We Are Preparing To Sign A Nuclear Arms Treaty…

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Yahoo News is reporting today that Iran has seized the Maersk Tigris cargo ship in the Persian Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz. Yesterday the U.K. Telegraph carried the story.

The Telegraph reports:

The vessel had apparently declined to change course and steer towards the Iranian coast. Warning shots were then fired across the bridge and the ship was boarded by personnel from the naval wing of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and steered towards the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.

The container ship was travelling from Jeddah in Saudi Arabia to the port of Jebel Ali in Dubai. It was flying the flag of the Marshall Islands and chartered by Rickmers Ship Management, a company based in Hamburg. The vessel is owned by Maersk, the Danish shipping and trading conglomerate.

…Fars, the semi-official Iranian news agency, described the ship as a “trade vessel” which had been “seized by the Iranian navy” at the request of the country’s Ports and Maritime Authority.

Fars added: “The ship was seized after a relevant court order was issued for its confiscation.” No further explanation for Iran’s actions was offered.

The idea of simply seizing the ship and the innocent people aboard the ship does not seem like the appropriate response to the court action.

Meanwhile, Yahoo News reports:

Iran’s foreign minister told a New York City audience on Wednesday that Tehran respects freedom of navigation in the Gulf, a day after Iranian patrol boats seized a Danish container ship in one of the world’s busiest oil shipping lanes.

“The Persian Gulf is our lifeline … We will respect international navigation,” Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said during a discussion hosted by New York University’s Center on International Cooperation and the think tank New America. “For us, freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf is a must.”

This doesn’t sound like freedom of navigation.

Yahoo News reports:

Maersk said in a statement that it was in communication with the Danish Foreign Ministry and trying to ascertain why the Maersk Tigris had been diverted.

Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization said a court had ordered the ship seized after ruling against Maersk Line in a case about debts brought by Pars Talaie, an Iranian company.

Zarif told the audience on Wednesday that Maersk was required to pay damages on the basis of a court order. He said the legal proceedings had been going on for some 14 years.

“Simply, our naval forces implemented the decision of the court,” Zarif said in New York, characterizing Maersk’s actions as “peculiar.”

Tasnim, an Iranian news agency, quoted a Pars Talaie lawyer as saying the debt involved a cargo that Pars Talaie had hired Maersk to take from the Iranian port of Abadan to Dubai more than a decade ago but which never arrived.

This is another example of what happens when America has a weak President. There were American warships in the area, but Iran had no reason to fear them. This is also an example of the lawlessness of Iran.