• @[email protected]
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    671 year ago

    The ship is expected to keep burning for weeks.

    Actually, it might also sink and release up to 2,000 tons of heavy fuel oil (plus molten plastic, metals etc.) to the Wadden Sea which is on the UNESCO World Heritage List as an important biosphere reserve.

    • @coffeebiscuit
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      21 year ago

      This is also the reason why they aren’t extinguishing the fire as normal. Because flooding the boot with water will guarantee it to sink.

  • Cegorach
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    451 year ago

    “Of the 3000 cars onboard, 25 are electric and one of those has apparently set light to the whole cargo”

    BULLSHIT!

    Nobody said so.

    But “journalists” nowadays are full of shit and all reporting “currently there’s no proof that some electric car started the fire” (always with #electriccars) - what everyone reads as “yeah, sure the electric car was it!”

    meanwhile electric cars are actually LESS likely to start a fire and still nobody in the know has actually claimed electric cars had ANYTHING to do with it.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      501 year ago

      The article linked in the post says:

      A spokesman for the Coast Guard said earlier today that the fire is believed to have started in one of the electric cars. Later in the evening, the Coast Guard said that nothing is yet known about the cause.

      So yeah they aren’t sure but it’s coming from the coast guard not the journalist.

      • Cegorach
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        401 year ago

        Other people actually reported that coast guard not only responded with “we don’t know anything yet”, but also with “nobody of us would have told you a cause and we don’t know who did”

        I’ve not seen any proof apart from wild speculation by owner/journalists yet.

        And yes, the owner too pointed at electric cars - but neither people on board nor anybody near the ship was telling about that. So I’d guess that’s just repeating headlines too.

        My point was: don’t claim “maybe it was electric cars”! because people don’t understand “maybe”

      • @azdood85
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        21 year ago

        Its easy to put out car fires but when it comes to the batteries EVs have its a different game. Entirely possible it started with one or with something else. But once an EV is on fire and the batteries go, theyll need special equipment and training to put that out. Likely they didnt have those.

    • @[email protected]
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      121 year ago

      because it’s impossible that the other 3000 cars filled with an explosive liquid could have ignited the fire. No, it’s definitely impossible, those fuel tanks never leak, and gas vapor never explode

      • @vaultdweler13
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        91 year ago

        Pretty sure they don’t ship cars with gasoline in em, thats extra weight that doesnt need to be there let alone the fire hazard.

        The electric cars on the otherhand most likely have the batteries built into the fucking frame.

        • @[email protected]
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          21 year ago

          Tbh all cars have at least one battery. Or it might have been some order random accident that has nothing to do with the cargo. I think we need more info on this

          • @vaultdweler13
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            11 year ago

            While that’s true I was more pointing out the falsehood in the other commentor, and while most cars have batteries lets not pretend a batter the size of a cinder block is the same as one the size of a mattress.

            • Cegorach
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              11 year ago

              well that and it’s different chemistry (lead vs lithium)

              …aaaand EVs have those old lead-acid batteries too. (btw: we should finally ditch those for LiFePo or similar)

    • @ghariksforge
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      21 year ago

      Dutch authorities have said that the fire was started by an electric cars battery.

      • Cegorach
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        11 year ago

        yeah, right now there’s a lot people claiming that it was probably some electric car.

        it’s now a different scenario to right at the start, when we had nobody in the know giving that claim.

        it will be another scenario again, when we finally have people look at it scientifically - after everythig has settled down. But then again that’s the point when nobody will care anymore.

      • Cegorach
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        41 year ago

        If you read the actual article by a journalist they don’t say it’s a certainty. Maybe the problem is people like you who can’t tell a journalist from a random guy.

        did you even read what I wrote?

        I specifically said that journalists are writing “there’s no proof that it wasn’t” and that other people are reading “it was” into it.

        It’s exactly that. People are unable to read/understand.

        • @[email protected]
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          -21 year ago

          Your message is that journalists are full of shit, I’m calling you out because you couldn’t identify a journalist if they were writing an article in your face.

          Stay mad.

  • @Ilovethebomb
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    201 year ago

    Whether you like it or not, our modern society can’t function without cars entirely, we still need delivery vehicles etc. Focusing on the fact this vessel dares to carry cars, rather than the fact the fire was able to spread between presumably multiple decks, and cause the entire cargo to burn.

    Sprinkler systems on vessels is very much a thing.

    • @Necronomicommunist
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      261 year ago

      Nobody here wants everything with rubber wheels banned. We just want cars to be a form of personal transport to be the lowest prioritized compared to other forms like buses, trains, etc.

      • Dinodicchellathicc
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        51 year ago

        Hey it looks like your comment got quadruple posted. Do you happen to use liftoff for lemmy? I do and multiposting happens to me occasionally.

        • @Necronomicommunist
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          11 year ago

          Wefwef/liftoff actually! Kept getting errors and refreshing didn’t show anything. Thanks for the heads up

      • @[email protected]
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        -21 year ago

        imagine a nationalized train system where you essentially own and park your own traincar. shit could be so efficient you could replace power lines and roads with one

        • azdle
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          11 year ago

          That just sounds like cars with extra steps.

          • @[email protected]
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            11 year ago

            I mean like minus the massive inneficiency of small scale combustion engines, plus it takes away all but production pollution (rubber from the tiresz exhaust, literally anything in a car that spills out)

    • @[email protected]OP
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      221 year ago

      If we only had cars where they are needed, for emergency and delivery vehicles etc, then the demand for these sorts of things would reduce massively and the likelihood of something like this happening would plummet.

      • @nxfsi
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        161 year ago

        Yeah but then rich people will have to ride public transit together with the poors. Obviously we can’t have that

      • @Ilovethebomb
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        31 year ago

        The aim of a sprinkler system is to contain a fire, not necessarily to extinguish it. A sprinkler system can, will, and has kept a burning EV from spreading to other vehicles.

        Now, gasoline on the other hand, that floats on water, which is very annoying to put out.

      • Cegorach
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        -21 year ago

        good luck doing it with a burning gas powered car!

          • @[email protected]
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            11 year ago

            They transport cars with no gas in them. When I was going to school I used to work part time for a service center that prepped cars for the dealer after overseas transport. There were a lot of things that had to be done. The cars didn’t even have oil in the engine.

            They transport EV’s with a 40% charge which is the industry standard storage charge for Li-Ion batteries. At storage charge a Li-Ion battery is greatly less likely to spontaneously combust due to a manufacturing defect. It can still happen, but a lot less of a chance. More likely an internal short will drain the battery to zero charge before catching fire.

            In any case they don’t know the cause for sure. They’re stating an EV as a possible cause, but it could be anything at this point. They can’t know the cause for sure without an investigation and that won’t happen as long as it’s burning. If the ship sinks there may be no investigation at all.

          • Cegorach
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            -21 year ago

            that’s the fun thing - unless you remove every last drop, emptying the gas tank makes it MORE dangerous, not less.

            liquid gas in enclosed containers is actually pretty harmless. But leaking fluids mixtures of gas and air are explosive.

            • krolden
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              31 year ago

              If they’re brand new cars they shouldn’t have gas in them yet. All of the final touches are done after they unload them at port.

        • @Ilovethebomb
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          21 year ago

          Fuel and other hydrocarbons float on water, which makes them very difficult to extinguish.

          • Cegorach
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            11 year ago

            and a burning car is a whole lot of burning material

            it’s not a tiny piece of wood - in many cases you’ll detect it first, when there’s actually a whole lot and flames/smoke escaping from the car.

    • Cegorach
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      81 year ago

      can’t function without cars entirely, we still need delivery vehicles etc.

      yeah, okay. But we need far fewer than we have. So producing them and shipping them around the globe needs to be reduced dramatically. So that point still kinda stands?

      And yes “this should have been made safer” is another point - but that doesnt invalidate the other.

      • @[email protected]
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        31 year ago

        So producing them and shipping them around the globe needs to be reduced dramatically. So that point still kinda stands?

        The supply side is the wrong place to tackle this problem though. If you limit the amount of new cars that may be produced, people will simply drive their older ones for longer.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 year ago

          Driving an older car, and by extension not buying a newer car, decreases demand and would improve the amount of these cargo ships on the sea, thus lowering the opportunity for this to happen. I’m not sure if your comment was for or against people driving their older cars, but I think driving an older car is better than upgrading and buying a newer car

          • @[email protected]
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            01 year ago

            An older more polluting car migth not be the better option. But if the new car is one of those giant murde boxes then it’s not going to be an upgrade either.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      141 year ago

      Fewer shipments would be needed for more efficiently sized vehicles, so it would happen less.

      • @[email protected]
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        -111 year ago

        Cargo containers are a standardized sizes and they fit a certain number of cars, the only way to fit more is to make cars small enough that they’re simply unsafe in an accident.

        • @[email protected]OP
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          131 year ago

          Smaller cars are great. “Unsafe in an accident” is dependant on speed, and if you’re just driving in a city you don’t need a vehicle designed for highway speeds.

          Also other vehicles do exist.

          • @[email protected]
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            1 year ago

            If you only drive in a city then you don’t need to own a car at all, so that point is moot.

            Small cars from the 80s/90s are a death trap even at slow speeds and making them safe requires them to be bigger, even if it’s only for slow speed accidents. Heck, speed limits in cities can go as high as 55mph/90kph, that’s pretty freaking fast and not a speed I would love getting hit at in a Kei car (my brother has one, you’re safe in it because of how small it is and how thin everything is around you).

            • Cegorach
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              1 year ago

              Small cars from the 80s/90s are a death trap even at slow speeds and making them safe requires them to be bigger

              it’s probably not the 90s you’re thinking about.

              90s cars had airbags, large crumple zones and seat belts. Those were pretty safe already. Maybe you are thinking 60s and 70s?

              Yes, 90s cars were fucked if hit by 3t of steel at 180km/h, yes. But so are current cars.

              And less heavy cars that run into you, made less safety needed. So if we were to build only light (say sub 1t and driving 80km/h max) cars to modern standards, we would all be way better off. But people are assholes, so that won’t happen.

            • Adlach
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              1 year ago

              I absolutely need a car in my city. Poor public transit isn’t a purely rural phenomenon—thus this community.

        • @[email protected]
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          51 year ago

          You’re on fuckcars, the argument isn’t that these cars specifically are an issue. It’s that all cars are.

  • Redex
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    21 year ago

    This is probably the most braindead take I’ve seen in a while. Fuck cars but this dude is presenting it as if Satan himself was in the cargo hold.

  • @[email protected]
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    1 year ago

    …alright, maybe this is a stupid question, but how is it we can’t get 8 ships out there meant to suck up sea water and blast it onto the fire until its out? How is it that waiting for it to burn out our best option here?

    • @[email protected]
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      1 year ago

      Water stops fire because it spills over the burning mess and starves it of oxygen.

      A burning lithium cell releases both oxidizer and fuel, which, because of the temperature, can now burn more of the lithium cell and release more oxidizer and fuel.

      Which essentially burns down to LiPos can burn underwater and water won’t quench them.

      Also, blasting a ship with water means that it will, eventually, sink. Spilling its own heavy fuel, and all the cargo onboard into the sea.