Lithium-ion blaze aboard ship - specialist crews en route

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
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'Sincerity Ace', sister ship of Felicity, car carrier burnt, abandoned in Pacific, 5 dead, year 2018..

Grimaldi line, 'Hoegh Xiamen', 2420 cars, in port Jacksonville, Florida, scrapped, year 2020..

Snowscape car carriers 'Felicity Ace', 4000 cars, Atlantic ocean off Azores, sunk, last year..

Grimaldi line 'Euroferry Olympia', between Greece/Italy, people & cars & trucks, eight passengers missing..last year

Grimaldi line 'Grande Costa D'Avorio', 1200 cars, even though it was in Newark port New Jersey, 2 firefighters dead, weeks ago..

'Feemantle Highway', in Dutch Ameland Island waters, 3000 cars, still burning, under tow, days ago..

('What is Going on in Shipping' YT channel)

Major increase in insurance losses, therefore premiums, and end prices..
Not to minimise the loss of life of course, RIP.

Big factors seems to be a relaxation of ship bulkhead rules, creating big steel boxes without dividers. Packing cars very close and lowering each deck so bad access for firefighting! Bring back Halon? Flag of convenience registrations may also result in lower standards?

This problem may well affect bike battery prices & availability. So I would hope none would be taking it lightly. :-(
The simple answer of course has already been adopted by Nissan and more recently, Tesla; with Tata's Jaguar Landrover following suit now.

Make the e-cars AND their batteries where they are to be sold, not shipping them around the world.

Nissan make them together in Japan, Britain and the USA.

Tesla make them together in the USA, Germany and China, their main markets.

And now Tata are going ahead with a £4 billion battery plant here in Somerset for all Jaguar Land-Rovers to be electric by 2030.

Apart from anything else salt water is conductive and the sea is salt water, so fighting e-car fires with it isn't a very sensible thing to do. One of the e-car fires investigated by the US department of transportation was caused by sea water.

The driver reversed a boat down a ramp and overshot, dunking his e-car. He was able to drive out ok for the car to drain the water, but shortly after it burst into flames when the battery contents all shorted.
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soundwave

Esteemed Pedelecer
May 23, 2015
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that was in the sea and never exploded the batt is toast but there only 100.000 euros plus tax :oops:
 
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MikelBikel

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Jun 6, 2017
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"30 March 2016 EPA Tata Steel has five sites in Wales, employing about 6,800 workers - with the company in the process of reducing that to 6,250.. "
and dropping..

Sept 2, 2019 The Orb Electrical Steels plant in Newport, south Wales, of the Indian conglomerate Tata, is to shut after 121 years of steelmaking..." ..360jobs plus another 26 ..dropping..

"Tata Steel to close Construction Products business in South Wales..loss of 70 jobs". They opened one in Co. Cork, ireland..

"RWE and Tata Steel have committed to work together to support the delivery of floating wind structures in the Celtic Sea".
Were they told not to mention Irish sea or 15year life non-recyclable windmills ? ;-). On shore they are claimed up to 80% recyclable steel, but offshore the energy used to make mooring chain is *more* than it will ever generate?!)

"Sep 2021 The owner of Port Talbot steelworks crashed to a £347m annual loss.. despite £1billion subsidy".. Go Tata!

"Jul 2022 The owner of the UK's biggest steelworks has warned its sites could be shut without subsidies for reducing carbon..". More money please!

"Jun 13, 2023 The chairman of Tata Steel UK has called for a "level playing field" as it seeks UK *government subsidies( to decarbonise its Port Talbot steelworks.".. coz we're so good at biznez!

"SERC and TATA Steel have also formed the South Wales Industrial Cluster. Now made up of 46 industrial partners, it has secured *government funding* to develop a regional industrial decarbonisation roadmap and to initiate carbon reduction deployment projects at Tata Steel, Valero Refinery, Tarmac Cement works, and RWE's Pembroke power station"
Yay, more taxpayers money?

"In January 2020, chairman of the Tata Sons group that owns the Port Talbot plant, said the plant needs to be "self-sustaining." ".
Is it Not a *sustainable* biznez then.?

"Jul 28, 2023 The Tata Steel plant in Port Talbot allows the UK to have a local and reliable source of steel production Mr Sunak gave a similar answer on the prospects of a new Wylfa *nuclear power station*".

'Yes Pinnochio, one day you will be a real boy' ! :---(
 
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flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
53,260
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"In January 2020, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chairman of the Tata Sons group that owns the Port Talbot plant, said the plant needs to be "self-sustaining." ".
But look on the bright side:

Indian conglomerate Tata Group and owners of Jaguar Land Rover have promised to spend £4 billion to build battery cell gigafactory in West Somerset, creating over 4,000 jobs and a much needed boost for the UK's automotive sector.

Natarajan Chandrasekaran, Tata Sons chairman, announced the investment: “Our multi-billion-pound investment will bring state-of-the-art technology to the country... With this strategic investment, the Tata Group further strengthens its commitment to the UK, alongside our many companies operating here across technology, consumer, hospitality, steel, chemicals, and automotive."
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flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
53,260
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See the windmills turning in each others "wind shadow". Are they under external power?
No, they can work well even then when the wind is strong, as it so often is over the flat Netherlands. Just look at how all the people's clothing is being blown about.

You really are so negative, such as trying to convince that this car transporter would sink. It didn't of course.
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matthewslack

Esteemed Pedelecer
Nov 26, 2021
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See the windmills turning in each others "wind shadow". Are they under external power?
If only they thought about that when deciding how far apart they need to be...if only we had science.
 

guerney

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Sep 7, 2021
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All this ranting and a legal solution isn't mentioned once - this thing only weighs 54kg, all it needs is a 250W mid-drive IMHO:


 

portals

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jul 15, 2022
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That's a very cool ebike, I wonder how much kits would cost if it ever got to scale?

Probably an issue is that for £1k you can find an old car at local garage that is taxed and will get you a yr's motoring in the dry with heat, range, passengers and boot. I do very little mileage in my current car (£950 Jetta bargain of the yr), the odd weekend run and a jaunt to Blackpool with kids few weeks back, but mainly short local school runs. We takes bikes whenever we can but that's not a proposition for Jan weather.

Point being you get a lot more for your money with an older car...until that changes and ebike manufacturers step up then second hand cars lots will win until they eventually run out of stock due to regulation but that's easily another decade.

My list of cars owned, probably not that many considering been driving since 17 and am now early 50s:

- Mk1 Golf, white with Italian 2-way blinds in back, white wheel trims and lovely soft seat covers (it was my mother's..she was a boy racer...)

- Rover Fastback, Gold, this thing was a tank, twice I slid in to the back of other cars at roundabouts at low speed and twice the other drivers couldn't wait to get away fast enough....lots of uninsured drivers about in these days

- BMW 323i, dark blue, great car, had it for over a decade before had to scrap it dues to cost to get it through MOT.

- Merc S Class extended wheelbase, silver, only lasted 10months before it spun out on Expressway and did at 270 and rear clipped kerb, it would drive but was write-off.

- Merc E-Class 350 Triptronic, best car I ever owned, had paddles on wheel for gear shifting, it ended up in the barriers at traffic lights outside Baird Police Station on 27th Dec that year after hitting black ice. Front left wheel fell off...write-off.

Given up on nice cars by now.

- Vauxhall Vectra, black, hated this car but it only cost £900 and I got 18months out of it before the exhaust fell of in bits, first muffler so I was a boy racer then the rest of it..scrapped.

- Citroen Xara, silver, £850, lasted a yr, bit longer maybe, then timing belt blew on Expressway, had to abandon it, it got towed away by cops but I never heard anything more back about it. I think I might have left a set of golf clubs in boot though...

- VW Jetta TDI , blue, current motor, cannot fault it for £950 (was owned by couple from Stornaway so it had 160k miles on clock with a full service history). Local garage guy at bottom of street said I won a watch with that car...should be good for another 100k...