A violent storm on Sunday, November 11th in the Black Sea ripped the Volganeft-139 Russian oil tanker in half, dumping almost 2,000 tons of fuel oil. The heavily refined fuel oil is particularly damaging because of its relative weight and thickness, and is now sinking to the ocean floor. The proximity of the spill to shore also means increased levels of environmental damage. 30,000 birds have already died and the dramatic damage to fish populations can’t even be estimated.
Three days later, the Cosco Busan container ship pulled out of the Port of Oakland, California, only to ram into one of the support buttresses of the Bay Bridge. The gash in the side of the ship’s hull permitted 58,000 gallons of oil to pour into the surrounding water.
Initial Coast Guard reports estimated a spill of about 140 gallons. By the time recovery efforts realized the severity of the accident, the setback to the clean-up mission was irreparable. Prompt responses are crucial in order to recover spilled oil before it disburses. The Coast Guard did manage to recover close to 10,000 gallons, but does not expect to contain much more.
The two instances have many differences including that one ship was transporting fuel, the other was a container ship transporting cargo. Together they serve as an indictment of our consume-and-car-crazy lifestyles. Specifically, driving automobiles means more demand for gas with the accompanying pollution, global warming, wars… and oils spills! Of course oil is used for things other than cars including the plastic products which surround us, and even to keep many of the public transportation systems moving along. But, less driving equates to dramatically less demand for oil, fewer tankers, and fewer catastrophic oil spills.
Keep in mind these spills generate attention because of the scale and quickness of the environmental damage. The cumulative effect of a nation and world full of over-consumers and car drivers is much more serious, although more gradual and therefore less visually shocking than dying wildlife covered in oily sledge. The fact is that we are all contributing our own trickle to a huge oil spill that continues to drip on a daily basis.
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There may be no blame to lay at anyones feet.
We took a good look at hydrogen, it was an interesting idea, but we found it lacking.
We moved on to more promising technologies.
G.M said the fuelcell car is ready, hydrogen can fuel the I.C.E. as well as C.N.G. or L.P. gas using most of the same equipment, and the E.V. is old hat and works very well but no one thought about building the power supply to get hydrogen or charge all the batteries in the E.V.s. Oh well I guess we keep right on getting what we have been getting because we keep putting the same people back in office. Pony up to the pump boys, nothing is going to change in the near future.
It’s simple, at this time Hydrogen fuel cells are not a viable technology for personal vehicles. There’s a decent chance it never will be.
>:( Hydrogen cars will still kill pedestrians and cyclists.
>:( Unless the hydrogen is completely renewably generated it will be produced with electricty from burning coal or nuclear power, both pretty bad options.
;D “biofuel” is the solution but not as many people are talking at the moment. “Biofuelling” will be eating something before you ride your bicycle.