I've worked on car carriers as navigation officer for 10years. A deck fire is a serious issue. The foam and CO2 system is incapable of dealing with a battery fire as its self sustainable. When we start to carry the first teslas the only thing that changed regarding firefighting was the use of a blanket that was suposed to be put on top of the burning vehicle to contain at least the spreading to other vehicles. The problem is these fires will shoot flames like a flamethrower and the blanket weights something like 20 or 30kg and you need 4 crew to deploy the thing and as said, our standard clearances was 15cm between mirrors and 30 to 50cm between bumpers depending on the client... really hard
@@wgowshipping the older ships had a foam injection that worked in tandem with the decks ventilation fans to spread the foam. The system was effective but it was a pain to mantain as the foam was highly corrosive and there were frequent small leaks on the valves that left a corroded stain on the decks and fan ducts. The tanks were made of glassfiber usually. More recent ships usually used CO2 banks with automatic closing ventilation.
Foam or CO2 won't stop an EV fire. You can't starve it of oxygen. Fire suppression does not really work. Fire fighting for EVs is really containment and trying to prevent if from spreading by isolating the burning vehicle. Can't really do that in a car carrier.
I worked in the airline industry a few years back when lithium-iron batteries first started to appear. The problem with all EVs is that a fully charged battery contains an immense amount of power just waiting to get out. When a fire starts involving one of these, it is self-fueling and generates so much energy that conventional fire-fighting techniques no longer work. Basically the old rule was that if you neutralised or isolated one of the three components that allow a fire to burn (heat, fuel or oxygen) then it would extinguish. This doesn't work with lithium-iron batteries because in the process of burning they generate oxygen and intense heat from within. All you can do is let them burn themselves out and keep a constant spray of water on them to cool the fire.... but you can't extinguish it until all fuel (the material of the battery and the vehicle itself) is consumed by the fire. Here in Europe there have been a number of bus fires (particularly in France), the firefighters have been told by their commanders to 'let it burn'.... close off the street and just spray water onto it for hours if necessary until the fire eventually burns itself out. There is very little left of the vehicle, just chared powder on the street.
The Technical Department in Denmark have been involved in testing and research on board ships with EV and fires, they are the experts and operate Electric Ships, Ellen, Norway and Sweden also have electric ships. It could benefit firefighters ashore to discuss with the experts in Denmark how to deal with EV fires. The US could benefit to, Good wishes to everyone in the EU as we move forward to a dynamic future using intelligence.
Something similar just happened to a a non-traditional powered transit bus in California. Amazing how little was left of a $1.2 million dollar bus, just a few little metal ribs left, like 95% gone.
@@rogerstarkey5390 Do you know that for a fact? Having the battery charge that low for a couple of months hurts the battery lifetime. But that is only part of the story as a discharged battery is still extremely flammable due to the electrolyte. That would be a great research topic to correlate battery charge vs the ability to put a fire out. Relevant to shipping.
@@rogerstarkey5390 It's the lithium that burns, the charge in the battery doesn't add to that. The charge just increases the chance of a short causing a fire.
If by “could very easily come to an end” you mean less fires, you couldn’t be more wrong. EV fires are nearly impossible to extinguish. The ships would burn to the waterline.
The implications for car ferries, long road tunnels and the Channel Tunnel (Le Shuttle) are frightening. Imagine being on the channel tunnel and one of these EV’s goes up?
A lot of people don't realize that these cars are loaded systematically in a way that maximizes space, and then the ceiling (the deck above) is then lowered to the height of the highest vehicle on that deck. So if you have all sedans and sports cars on a deck (which they would do for best use of space) you wouldn't even be able to stand up on these decks. Cars are systematically parked as close as possible and you won't even be able to open a door far enough to squeeze into a car. Let alone if you could, there would be no where to drive it. For example, the first vehicle parked on the ship when loading would be the absolute last to come off because almost everything else would have to be moved to allow you to get to it. Sardines and cars on transport ships are quite similar.
I saw a documentary about car carriers years ago of which everyone who doesn’t have a curiosity shall be in danger because everyone must take personal responsibility against idiots.
I don't know how I came across this channel, or why 'the algorithm' may have recommended it, but it really is fascinating. Clearly you are an accomplished individual that knows this subject inside and out. It's a pleasure to get info from an expert with deep knowledge. Thanks for your work.
@@thesergiorevengeshow I'm a criminology student and when I was on my university computer the algorthm decided that this channel was related to corporate harms caused by poor health and safety practices and the selective enforcement of existing laws by governments. Which is somewhat specific but I have to conclude that it's not wrong.
We use lithium polymer cells in RC cars pretty frequently these days. In this environment, they get run extremely hard, very hot, and often experience physical damage from jumps, rolls, crashing into curbs and what have you. Folks in the hobby kill LiPo packs pretty regularly due to all this aggressive and physically damaging use, and battery fires are, if not common, frequent enough that the hobby community has some standard practices for dealing with burning batteries. Basically, the recommended methods for dealing with a battery once it has hit the point where it is smoking or has an open flame is to bury it with dirt or sand, or to submerge it in water, and come back the next day to see if it is still warm. Stopping a dead short that is causing a thermal runaway isn't a realistic option, so the best you can do is cover the entire battery with something that will protect the surrounding area from heat while the battery burns its self out. The hobby community also commonly recommends storing batteries in nomex bags while not in use so that a battery which has started a thermal runaway but wasn't noticed right away is less likely to set things around it on fire when it does finally ignite. So, I guess what I'm saying is that the RC car community solution to a fire like this would be to sink the ship and then raise it again once the batteries finished dying!
@@Thyalwaysseek Probably not as stupidly dangerous if they bring back bulkheads. They can't completely fill the vessels to capacity anyway due to the extra weight the batteries represent.
Many of us store our batteries in steel ammo cans, the hope is that it'll at least segregate the burning batteries from the rest of your house well enough that you could push it out the door with a broom handle or something. I know I charge mine inside one of those fire resistant bags and any battery that gets dented, bent or has a cell resistance go way out of whack gets discharged with a light bulb and thrown out.
With regular gasoline cars, you don't need to fill the fuel tanks to capacity, and I'm sure that they are not full for transport. The total energy therefore is greatly reduced.
It's going to be interesting to see what the insurance companies do. These are massive losses. They will not be ignored. I predict the insurance costs for transporting electric cars is about to go though the roof. That's going to force changes before any safety regulations. The only changes I can think of are not cheap.
Probably one idea is to ship cars without batteries and bolt them on at the port. Yes, impossible to "drive" the cars without a battery pack. There has to be a way with logistics. The reason I won't have an electric car at the moment.
@@kennixox262 But depending on where the packs originate from, you've got the same problem of trying to transport them. If just one cell shorts out, there goes the pack, setting off the packs next to it. Perhaps what they need to do is send just the individual packs in something that can contain a fire without spreading. The smaller the pieces, the easier it is to contain it as it's less fuel.
The insurance risk would be far too much. They will have to be transported on their own in smaller vessels (making sure they have plenty of life boats!) That's if company will insure them to begin with.
Car producers also need to improve safety for batteries and build warning systems that give an acoustic alarm when it senses an overheating/defect battery that is about to ignite, so it can be extinguished earlier before it gets out of control.
I strongly agree, change will come swiftly forced by the insurance carriers. A possible collapse of the industry is possible if insurance becomes unavailable. Shipping batteries separately will disrupt the EV manufacturers business model. Shipping EVs overseas may not be a viable option and may have to be abandoned.
hmmm an ev would make a serious fire since they have huge battery's which burn hot enough to melt steel plus it could cascade to the rest of the ev's very quickly and co2 probably makes a ev battery fire worst since that is part of the issue sadly you see lithium battery's react violently to oxygen and co2 it makes them short out and burn hotter which does explain why those ferry's have troubles with fighting fires with co2 if a ev or hybrid battery goes up
At some point we have to differentiate between fire and thermal runaway. Fires are secondary with EVs, the primary issue is that failure of the batteries causes a self-sustaining reaction which cannot be stopped in the same way we look at the fire triangle or tetrahedron. We cannot look at it as combustion but rather a large and difficult to stop release of heat which progresses through the cells and can only be stopped by applying enough cooling energy to stop that progression. The cells which have gone into that reaction are irrevocably damaged and will continue to generate heat and toxic gasses until their internal energy has been released. This is the scary part that people don't realize, we cannot effectively stop that thermal runaway at its origin but can only try to use cooling to protect the other cells and any resulting ignition of other materials exposed to the fire is both difficult to stop as the heat being released from the batteries overwhelms all but larger volume attack lines and fails to prevent the damage caused. Its not just cars either. The statistics are very clear, the percentage of fires we are seeing caused by all kinds of lithium batteries is noteworthy and its everything from EVs down to power tools. Just had a job in the past week that was started by name brand tool batteries from an electric lawnmower, left to charge in the basement which led to a ripping basement fire which despite us getting a good knock had caused a likely constructive loss between smoke and heat and pipes that came unsoldered causing a water leak to add the final blow.
Exactly....EV runaway thermal reactions within the lithium cells are self sustaining, not requiring an external fuel or oxygen source. The first very clear and graphic photos of a load of Fiskars on the NJ docks displayed how intense the heat was....this was a few years back. They were parked in the open air exposed to the weather in two clusters a fair distance apart, unusual for an unloading to give up that much real estate. Each group had its own incident...ie. there was no jumping of flames IIRC. Don't recall an NTSB report being publicized.
Is the LiFePO4 battery chemistry subject to thermal runaway? My understanding is that these are much safer and don't contain their own oxidiser as the oxygen atoms already have strong bonds.
@@akot4935 All ICE vehicles of ALL types CAN and HAVE burned at some point in time...and in huge numbers. They've burned down garages, houses, buildings and many, many other structures and transportation methods. The Problem with Internal COMBUSTION Engines is that they ALL poison the world with their fumes, particulate carcinogens and Volatile Organic Compounds. Their Fuel Burns, their Fuel Carriers Burn and can catch fire and their Fuel Transport Pipelines can burn, and so can their Refineries, Their Storage Areas, etc. THAT is the problem(ss) with with ICE.
FDNY is having a big issue with battery fires also. Electric scooters and bikes and such catching fire inside buildings and being very difficult to extinguish.
@@jayjaynella4539 here in Oz, of the 450 fires in the last 18 months suspected to be linked to Lithium batteries, all of those batteries are the older fire prone NMA type, and include phone fires. None were linked to LFP batteries, the type installed in most new evs shipped.
According to Dutch news the crew who got picked up by the first rescue vessel got hurt jumping from great height (but was not clear if this relates to the fatality). Also in the latest update the fire died a little bit and some recovery personnel has been on board to attach better lines, but then left because if was still to dangerous to do anything else.
Sea Survival needs to include diving from a height as jumping from a height wearing a life jacket that exceeds the maximum can cause injury. It is worth noting as this ship is in European waters, data in relation to safety and security is monitored by European Security. The comments made should be polite and not in breach of European Law. Thank you on behalf of European Seafarers.
@@blueocean2510I feel like I'm usually polite, but I'll make an exception for you....wtf????? The location of the fire is not relevant to my ability to use language to communicate whatever I wish to communicate. You don't need to read it. Personally I'm glad I read your communication because that is the funniest thing I will observe today. Sincerely, the internet, 2023.
When jumping into the sea, even if trained properly, timing is crucial. Jump just as a wave is beginning to receed, and you can find yourself falling much further than intended. Hit the water wrong, you're going to get hurt. Get slapped against the hull, you're going to get hurt. Fall too far, you're at risk of getting hurt. Any or all of these can get you dead.
Hopefully no more lives will be lost due to this incident. Such extensive damage. I’m assuming this ship will be a write-off? Really appreciate your coverage Sal!
@@wgowshippingit’s fun to speculate which country would allow the hulk to enter their waters. It’s a big toxic mess. If it can’t be beached or berthed what then?
Thank you for your explanations Sal. My first thought when you mentioned getting rid of the vertical bulkheads, allowing for unobstructed vehicle parking decks on these ships my first thought was "boy, that was dumb." Then I remembered the Navy did basically the same thing with the LHA / LHD assault ship vehicle stowage decks (remember Bonhomme Richard?) although we didn't pack the vehicles as tightly as these commercial car carriers do ... and we DID NOT HAVE EVs aboard, just fully fueled and armed military vehicles in the care of Marines and Navy sailors. I'll take that over a commercial car carrier any day.
Another informative video Captain Captain Sal, the closest that I ever got to a shipboard fire during my career as a Firefighter was actually Never,and for that I am Very grateful. Although I did work in my cities High-rise district for over half of my career and my station, station #1in downtown Phoenix was staffed with a 5th Firefighter per truck for manpower in case of an High-rise incident, I would think that you could take 6 High-rise building's,wrap them together and lay them down length wise,and it would still be dwarfed by a car carrier, but the contents of a High-rise may make-up for a little, but start adding Lithium and it turns into a situation similar to as if we were getting Diesel fuel coming out of the stand pipes and being sprayed around in attempting to extinguish the fire. And I doubt that during the rest of my lifetime, I will ever see EVs overtake the internal combustion engine. We need to be constructing many more Nuclear Power Plants instead of massive solar farms and other forms such as wind. Those are fine and dandy as a secondary means of power generation, but will never replace what we have been doing for the last 100 years.
Indeed, same me as a chief engineer ( 40 years on the Sea), sailing on several car Carriers. Stoping the fire in time in the begining...all the rest is usless. Testing the firefighting equipment offten, if all works properly, ....
I agree with you and respect your position and rank but as cargo amounts of these E.V ,s increase the potential risk rises to. I think stowage /access and the normal cargo compartment containment (bulkheads ) not possible on the vessels with current designs place a almost deadly circumstance on even the best trained crew. This cargo has to be shipped with a higher risk labelling than it currently enjoys. ex Engineer officer , safety rep/inspector and now retired.
I very much like your library background! Lose the fake tree. Great info! As a prior USN sailor, and part time duty firefighter this channel's coverage is bringing back to mind the danger faced at sea. Thanks for the details on just how insane the safe handling and transport of EV's has become.😢
IATA and ICAO have constantly adjusted the requirements for carriage of Lithium Ion Batteries and or Appliances with these batteries nearly every year since the UN 3480 was issued. Many Cargo Aircraft have burnt on the ground and or in mid flight. 2 Airborne disasters that come to mind are the Asiana Cargo Flight 991 B744F Crash near Jeju Island July 2011, and the UPS Flight 6 B744F Crash in Dubai Sep 2010.
Insurance carriers can't absorb these catastrophic losses indefinitely, plus premiums will become unaffordable for shippers. I see major changes coming. Carriers could prohibit carrying EVs on these ships. If shippers violate terms, & even haul a single EV, your policy is null & void. Drastic action seems inevitable.
insurers will make good business with the change to EV and mandate new rules for shippers plus: if the ship doesn't sink and there is now major environmental damage to total damage value is not that bad
I agree, insurance companies will force a change in ship design to enable fire containment and limit their losses. If insurance is not available, or at a price that cannot be tolerated the industry will change quickly. Great analysis, very good video on this topic.
No doubt the insurers are scrambling to figure out if there are practical ways to transport EVs with manageable risk. Clearly, the existing fire protection systems were not designed with EVs in mind. Ultimately this might require a complete conceptual redesign of the EV and its battery.
2 first hand experiences, on a much smaller scale. Rechargeable AA battery went into runaway. Way too hot to touch, we dumped it on dirt, and left it until the next day. Melted the battery case it was in. Laptop battery heated up, fortunately an early laptop that you could remove the battery. Left it outside on dirt. Those 2 small lithium batteries were a scary problem.
Friday evening here in the Netherlands. Your update is spot-on. Including the 'numbers magic...' Lot more cars, lot more electric cars and... 2 more rescued men than were listed on the ship's crew manifest. "There are 21 crew members!" "Well, we rescued 23..." The idea is that one is German 'Superintendad' who knows the exact route of the shipping lane. No confirmation on that yet. (One other member sadly passed away as is now widely known). The Fairplay 30 is a German ship with enough 'Bollard Pull' for controled movement of the ship. The German ship is contracted by Dutch companies who're responsible for the salvage. It's interesting to see and read the German side of this story. As a journalist wrote:"... it's a bad dream for the Dutch, but a nightmare for the Germans!" The Germans feel total responsibility about what has happpened: German harbour, German cars. And the numbers not adding up... well that's very, very un-German! A handful men has 'stepped on' the ship ('stepped on is the exact translation from Dutch where in English one says 'went on board'). And managed to secure a better, firmer line to the Fairplay. In my book, these men are nothing less than heroes. It takes a lot of courage to step on the ship and make a connection!
Bremerhaven, where the car carrier left Germany, is the main haven for overseas export of german car manufacturers. Some have dedicated car trains transporting from the plants to Bremerhaven. The Fairplay 30 is run by major tow firm Fairplay towage, operating in all major Northsea havens.
@@dr5290 I drove cars onto these ships in Bremerhaven up until 2021, chances are I've even been on the Fremantle Highway before. These ships really operate like a giant, swimming parking garage, dropping some of their cargo at ports, adding new cars and leaving again. BLG (the company responsible for loading the cars in Bremerhaven) has stated they loaded 2500 cars onto the ship. How many of these were EVs was not communicated. Therefore it's very possible that there were other cars on board, however they didn't make up the majority.
@@dr5290 here's a hot take: honestly I'd bet on a VW ID.3 being the root cause. Those things were somewhat riddled with problems since their announcement. The VW core brand has been a sinking star for years now or so it seems.
The Wadden Sea between the Dutch islands and the mainland is a nature preserve and a unesco world heritage site, as are the islands themselves. A few years ago the MSC Zoë lost containers overboard and the area suffered damage from plastic pellets, this is part of the reason why the Dutch are very nervous about the environmental risk of losing the ship. There are two shipping routes from the North Sea to the German Bight, the Fremantle Highway is currently in between the TSS lanes of the southern, shallower route. This is also the route where MSC Zoë lost the containers, she actually hit the sea floor in heavy swell as the water is only 20 to 30 meters deep. There are calls for closing the southern route entirely.
Water won't put out EV fires. The Chinese have been learning this the hard way. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zS6dwGFv5HI.html I can hardly imagine all the toxic crap polluting that area, especially if the ship sank or the toxic chemicals make it into the sea.
@@captainwin6333 - Because he said that is too shallow for safety when the waves are high (which can cause the bow and stern of a long ship to plunge alarmingly BELOW the surface), and I trust his word. And I think a meter is ~39", so closer to 65-98 feet. But what do I know? Only that dredging too-shallow waters is COMMON.
@@StarShine-RanchThe Dutch are experts at dredging, and provide International consulting services and equipment. So they probably already thought of that idea, and rejected it. Many of the islands themselves (and one connecting mini railroad between islands) are only maintained as functional & habitable by the decades-long efforts of dredging and sand management upon the fragile Islands. Closing that shipping lane is a smart idea. But for sure, it will only create more traffic congestion and navigation challenges elsewhere in the overall system, so it will be very unpopular from a pure economic perspective.
Glad you pointed out that the EVs might not be the start of the fires. The problem with them when they are involved is real though. You also made it clear that money/profit is the main factor in doing something to make these situations less dangerous! Condolences to the families and friends of the lost crewmen!
@@tinknal6449 Even when the fire starts when the car is not running, the fire itself is much less intense. Unlike a battery fire, an ICE car fire is always limited in its speed and intensity by the availability of oxygen.
@@Crosshair84 Another factor is that current EVs have overly massive batteries to combat range anxiety. Early EVs had smaller batteries with a range closer to typical in-city driving.
Great reporting . I have 19th century mariner great grandfathers and great uncles perished on colliery tramp steamers caught fire or capsized off coast Australia Poor negligent loading practices
Thank you for such informative videos! Very educational! Yes, please do more on shipboard firefighting, not just on car carriers. There have been numerous fires aboard passenger ships over the centuries, so there is no one source to blame for these fires. The Scandinavian Star ferry fire was thought to have been arson. Small boats catch fire too, as I have seen. Your description of shipboard vs. land-based firefighting is intriguing!
Always super information - with a side of passionate delivery from you Sal; always a pleasure. I hope those in a position to make changes - WILL do so and I hope they ask for your contribution. You have a lot of valuable information to share!
Just a thought, since so much of these carriers are above the water line (I know in stormy seas water can get to the weather deck). Wouldn't now be the time to discuss redesign of car carriers altogether. Perhaps in terms of containerization but utilizing bulkhead seals basically making the upper decks seal by locking containers against a water tight outer hull, but literally have an ejection procedure where they can be ejected to protect the bulk of the cargo and vessel. This would require loading from the sides, likely with a
When we ship cars, we have to remove all the fuel to below 1/8 tank, so there isn't a lot to burn... EVs-- I don't know what they do. But I do know that they sit on dealer or auction lots for months or years with few thermal events. The problem here must be the loading process, since the cars catch fire soon relatively soon after loading. The drivers likely get paid by the number of cars they get on the boat, so they likely hustle every chance they get if they want to be paid. I imagine that the abrupt ramp going on the boat- or between levels- makes the cars bottom out. Since the EVs have the battery packs under the car, that is what takes the impact. If the battery pack gets damaged on the ramp, that damage could start a fire a few hours later- which is exactly when we are seeing these boats experience a thermal event. The solution seams to be to fix the ramps so they aren't so steep that the underbody gets damaged when the drivers speed onto- through the boat.
Uh, if a car is so fragile that bottoming out can cause it to combust uncontrollably, I think the solution would be to make a better car, rather than a better loading process.
This series of PCC are equipped with foam generator for fire suppression system for the car decks and the engine room. The low pressure CO2 was used on the older series before 2008.I left the manning company for K-line in 2011 and they were speaking for the newer ships to implement mist system, but I don't know if they did it.
Thank you for the update. Prayers for them and their families. Ship fires are horrific when they are anything more than a small, controllable barbeque or galley fire. Seems to me safety is an issue. Thanks for talking about the Halon systems. Burning lithium and plastic that burns most everything can't be much better for the environment. At least Halon works to put out fires. No O2, no fire. These EV fires are very dangerous. We've lost quite a few homes locally due to EV fires. After seeing what it did my neighbor's houses, and nearly mine, I'm not an EV fan. There needs to be more work on safety and EVs. I'm not convinced they are roadworthy or sea worthy.
Halon wouldn't have helped against a Lithium ion battery fire - the problem is that the chemistry breaks down and provides everything needed to sustain the reaction. EV fires are quite rare - it takes a manufacturing defect (like with the Bolt) or physical damage (puncturing the isolation between the layers in a cell) for a battery to catch fire - but of course when it happens you have a couple hundred kg of battery burning very hot and being almost impossible to put out... On the flip side it's quite hard to set fire to a battery; there have been car fires where the rest of the car burned but the battery survived...
Please look up how many thousands of home fires have happened because of the Internal COMBUSTION Engines that catch fire and burn. OR Fuel Stored in the garage...or dirty rags, cloths or other flammable items that have Fuel or OIL on them that catch fire. It's a huge number...and by the way, EVERY Time you run an ICE they spew poisonous fumes from their tailpipes and carcinogenic particles and volatile organic compounds. Every time.
To clarify the EV issue, the batteries don't "burn", they undergo a very violent chemical reaction, which does not require external oxygen, and is immune to normal firefighting tactics. The extreme heat of the chemical reaction can cause conventional fires in the materials of the vehicle, but extinguishing those fires leaves the battery still reacting.
Sal, The difference between EV's and ICE (IMO) is the fact that you can put a ICE vehicle on the ro/ro with just minimal fuel in it. The same can't be said of EV's. The lithium ion battery is just as lethal whether it is fully charged or not.
Fuel is "Energy". So is "charge". Same applies. Have you never seen a torch battery dim as the battery gets low? I suppose the argument could be made that an almost empty fuel tank may contain more vapourised fuel, which may be more explosive?
@@blueocean2510 I'm not answering for Sal. In BC Canada we have a provincial ferry system. We are just starting to see new hybrid ships enter the fleet that have a combo ICE and battery /electric motor in them.
@@rogerstarkey5390you are right and wrong once the battery goes into thermal runaway a chemical reaction starts between the components of the battery and that resultant fire has no relationship to state of charge.
@@robward7662 A fully charged battery is more likely to reach thermal runaway due to an electrical short though. V=IR -> i=V/R P=IV -> P=(V^2)/R So if the resistance is 20 Ohms: 480V: P= (480^2)/20 -> 11.5kW 380V: P= (380^2)/20 -> 5.1kW As the cell level, more likely to be 4.2V (882mW) vs 3.6V (649mW).
When looking at the coast guard footage it looks like the smoke is mainly coming out of the ventilation ducts on the weather deck. These ducts lead to the car decks to get the exhaust out during loading. So it could be that they did not shut down the vents properly
Sal, you haven't mentioned that the decks can be adjusted vertically. This allows vehicles of the same height to be loaded in groups. It also creates a real access challenge for anyone attempting to fight a fire in that area -- assuming they try. For any land based firefighters, these ship fire will instantly become a campaign fire. Commanders should be planning for a days long event.
The Chinese have learned you can't put EV fires so they let them burn. They will hose surrounding flammable objects like apartment buildings. Fresh news from China about EV fires, even an explosion (car) along with a wide range of other EV problems. They have leap years more experience with EV than any other country, in years of use and sheer numbers. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zS6dwGFv5HI.html
This vsl is built by Imabari Shipbuilding in Japan if i understand correct. The company i worked for had 15 vsls built by that yard between 2007-2013. They actually had foam for fire fighting in the cargo hold not CO2 so it migh.t very well be that this vsl has the same. K-line is not famous for spending a lot of money on their ships so the design is probably very konservative. If they do have CO2 the tanks are in the engine room normally but is released from top deck. Then for the bulkhead issue older vsls have the same design with open decks from maindeck and up thats normally dk 5 or 6 counted from below. The older vsls have bulkheads with doors but only in the lower hold so that would not have helped in this case. Modern vsls built for European company's do have a lot of movable ramps but this type its not very likely that they have more than a few. Stability wise car carriers are better than other types of roro vessels but like any other vsl you need training and knowledge to operate them safely. During my 25 years on car carriers in one of the largest company's in the world we had only a few fires and of them maybe 20% started in the cargo hold the rest was mostly engine room fires. For the decks above main deck they are self draining but of course those drains could have been damaged or blocked by the fire and the capacity could be limited. These vsls have what we call fan houses with multiple fans and big hatches that are opened manually and they are closed before departure. On more modern vsls you have individual fan casings and they opened and closed remotely. This type of vsl is a pcc and its designed to load cars and vans but with some ability to load trucks and excavators etc on 2 decks and the ramp is not very strong normally 80 or 100 tons. But i agree that the electric cars are a problem as it seems and the makers need to look into this.
Always a pleasure viewing your videos. As a long term blue water boater, and a scientist, I appreciate the clear and concise info...fascinating issues. I don't have any issues with EVs pro nor con, but I wouldn't park one in my garage. It'd be out at the end of the driveway. I've seen battery fires take lives... volatile and rapid.
If I am not mistaken, but isn't a Lithium Ion battery fire caused by an internal short between the cathode and anode, creating a plasma fire which doesn't need oxygen to burn, and cannot be extinguished with water?? I may be wrong.
A lithium battery fire is most often caused by a cell held at a high state of charge. Cars are shipped from the factory with minimal charge. . IF a new cell fails it's highly likely to be in the first charge when tested at the factory, or when fast charged to its maximum capacity. The "internal short" you referenced is caused by "dendrites" which are equivalent to stalactites, they "grow" if certain types of cell are held at high charge and *eventually* (NOT immediately) puncture the separator between Anode and Cathode, causing a short. . This is why fires in new EVs are unlikely. If there's a mechanical assembly issue, that can cause an external short.... But that's just as (or more) likely in an ICE car (as in leak, fuel, boom)
If I understand it correctly the electrolyte used (commonly Lithium cobalt oxide LiCoO2 or similar Lithium salt) is flammable and generates its own oxygen when heated. It doesn't need oxygen from the air to burn, therefore you cannot cut off the oxygen supply. It also generates a lot of heat. Theoretically you could try to cool it down to put the fire out but practically this only works as long as the reaction has just started up. Once it is going, it is next to impossible to dissipate the heat faster than it is generated. But perhaps somebody finds a way, that would be very welcome. Research is focusing on using non-flammable electrolytes instead.
Really informative content from someone who knows the subject. These types of batteries are unable to accept any damage to their structures with out the risk of thermal runaway. So where do locate batteries in EVs ,between the wheels under the floor. Limitations to size and weight prevents manufacturers putting them anywhere else. Could an EV have sustained damage on the underside from the loading ramps. Hope there something left for forensic investigators to work out the cause. Thoughts are for the families that have suffered as a result of this incident.
There is no evidence at this point to say that an EV caused the fire. They certainly complicated the problem. The problem, if it was an Ev cause, may be that the crew are storing them in such a manner that, while perfectly fine for ICE, may be problematic for EV's. It may also be a particular brand that is causing the issues due the manufacturing process used. For most manufacturers this is a totally new process and they may, inadvertantly, be doing something in the manufacturing process that increase's the likelihood of a fire.
@@Agnemons The issue is not what started the fire here but the fact the vessel had 500 potential chemical thermal meltdowns on board which once a certain temperature is reached, this runaway starts and is impossible to extinguish The resulting toxic emissions are horrendous, at least this disaster was at sea away from any human population areas. Trying to push the blame to manufacturers and processes doesn't help here. Bottom line is these batteries types what ever they are fitted to be it your mobile phone, laptop, electric bike have the potential to self destruction in a dramatic way. What we should be asking is how do we manage the risks before another tragic incident incident occurs with even further loss of people's lives.
What we have off the Dutch coast is an example of the potential multi storey car park fire ashore when the majority of cars will be EVs. I sincerely hope the authorities on land study this very carefully, take note and not just dismiss it as a "sea" thingy.
@@stephenboyington630 Actually a multi storey car park would be an even worse case senario as you couldn't "batten" it down like a ship. But as someone who has experienced a fire on board a ship with a fatality. Perhaps you would like to explain the "Chicken littleism" comment?
A lot of parking garages are under suburban apparmentbuildings and under major city structures. What if this happens under a stadium filled with people.
@@humbuccaneer84 Parking under a stadium is stupid even with ICE vehicles. The fastest way to move crowds out of an area is rail (20,000-80,000 people/hr.direction), followed by closing down the streets and having people walk (15,000 people/hr.3.5m-wide-path), followed by cycle tracks (12,000 people/hr.3.5m-wide-path), followed by busses (9,000 people/hr.lane), finally followed by personal vehicles(2,000-4,000 people/hr.lane).
Surprised you didn't mention that SMIT also was responsible for the salvage of the Kursk. They have an excellent video on RU-vid of how they did it. Absolutely amazing work those guys did.
As to the car carrier cross-section, there must be a similar fire suppression challenge aboard an aircraft carrier, except worse. Of course, less concern about cost in dealing with it. I imagine cutting gun-ports in the sides, and wonder how many 18, 24, 36, and 42 pound cannon could be mounted on that ship? I imagine a 1,000 gun broadside.
Military ships are usually highly compartmentalised to aid damage control in time of war. As Sam said container ships bulk carriers etc as well as passenger ships are the same just fewer compartments as warships so flooding/ fire control doesn’t spread as easily within the housing and hull. It was interesting to see how isolated and hot the Fremantle Highways funnel trunking / uptake was in that thermal image - either the engine room is on fire or the uptake trunking has been damaged and heat is escaping up the exhausts. I read on a recent paper that an ICE car on fire burns at about 1000Celcius - a Lithium ion battery burns at 5000Celcius once it is has gone into rapid burn out…………… Here in the UK we have had a spate of house fires caused by e-bike and e-scooter lithium batteries have gone into breakdown mode while being charged both indoors and outside destroying houses.
@@machintelligence But the mega line-of-battle ship could easily disguise itself as an innocent car-carrier, pull-up alongside, and overwhelm the retro-built battleship by boarding her with a 10,000 man crew.
@@herbiemitchell9156 I bet they have some machinery that does though. Interesting question, a hanger deck seems like a good place to have electric driven tows. Besides, a warship has to worry about exploding things aimed at them.
Hi sal, nice video as usual lots of info. Thanks. A question to the rules of firefighting equipment on board of ships, how often are those methods checked, because CO2 is not a good tool for EV-Car fires , for gas/diesel yes, that works but EV - no, the chemical reaktion dosn´t even need oxygen, with water its going to create some, and co2 reacts with the lithium to - and if i remember correctly - under production of additional heat - not cooling. So the question is, if we see more EVs transported, do they need to change the firefighting equipment/gear/chemical, as the old one is no longer working as intended. Or will there be to much fight against any change - because profit trumps all ?
Ask the Danish Technical support for EV fires on ships as they have been involved in a study and research. They have fully electric ships, Norway, Sweden.
From your insights its seems the ship must inevitably sink. No country would want the ship beached on their shores. I've crossed the Atlantic on a ConRo vessel and as you say the roll on spaces are vast.
Just looked at the coastguard sites again and it seems the hull below the waterline is still watertight so possibly more salvage operations now present themselves.
Sal, I was thinking about your comments about flooding the decks with water and creating a free surface, resulting in a list. I believe there may be a simple solution. Car carriers have an extreme area above the load waterline. Why not fit ball check valves, similar to Winel vent check valves? You could arrange them so the vented overboard through suppers in the hull along the length of each car deck port and starboard. The vent checks would stop water from coming in through the suppers and would allow water to drain if the decks were flooded with water from a sprinkler system or a fireboat. Winel vent checks have been around for at least 50 years. They are used on tankers to vent ballast tanks. As a tanker rolls air is exhausted from the vent and, if the roll is significant ballast water may come out. If the Winel vent is close enough to the side shell and it becomes submerged the ball valve prevents flooding. Sometimes a simple solution is lurking in the background. Bob
Our son leased a new Mazaroti and it burnt down his house. According to the fire marshal and inspector, most of the new autos never fully shut off when you turn off the ignition. They often have a short of some type and start burning. In this case, it was determined that the Mazaroti was the source of the fire. The insurance inspector, fire marshal and fire inspector all concluded this but the Mazaroticompany had so many attorneys it would have taken decades to get them to pay out for the home to be rebuilt.
No different to the devices in your house and why some safety folks tell you that unplugged is safer than leaving things on standby, though almost every device in my house is on standby and none of it has ever went on fire. In fact I don't think even cars have been able to be turned completely off since the 1970's or else every time we got in our car we would have to re-set the clock.
Normally your household insurance would pay for house and then sue the car manufacturer's insurance. What is needed is a really professional check on your policy to make sure all events are covered. Most industries have public liability cover.
Yes badly designed low power systems can cause fire. However, for 10 euro's more cost this stuff does need to happen. While an EV this self combusting problem can NOT be fixed. Also regular/petrol/diesel NOT-hybrid car. for transport you can simply disconnect the battery and have zero self-combustion risk.
Very interesting video ! Thank you. I've seen videos of "top quality" cars made in China catching fire while they parked. Then they burn up cars parked nearby. With 400 of these EV's on one ship, you have a real potential for disaster.
I work in the port of Bremerhaven where the Fremantle Highway was loaded before the disaster, our job is to drive the cars onto and off the ships. I didn't load the Fremantle Highway but saw the ship in the port a few days ago. The cars are parked very tighly, around 20 cm side to side and maybe 40 to 50 cm bumper to bumper, which makes it difficult to access them for extinguishing. They can be accessed between the bumpers but can't be moved away from other cars. Car producers need to develop safety systems that give an acoustic alarm when the battery is starting to overheat/ignite so ship crews can notice it earlier and can extinguish/cool it before it gets out of control, and shipping companies need to develop better strategies to be prepared to extinguish burning cars fast and keep them cooled down to prevent them from reigniting. In Germany, firefighters are already starting to use a big "bag" that is wrapped around extinguished electric cars and filled with water to prevent them from reigniting. I wonder if this could be used on ships as well to prevent extinguished electric cars from reigniting, the biggest difficulty would be to get the bag under the tires. The would need to lift up the car for that.
Perhaps one way to cut down the amount of ship fires due to transporting cars is to make the cars in the countries they are destined for instead of shipping them around the world from cheap labour plants just to make the corporate dollar profits bigger.
I was thinking along the same lines. Maybe set up battery manufacturing in the target countries and ship the EV cars (san batteries) to have the domestically-produced batteries installed. Never ship EV batteries again, independent or installed.
You're not seeing the bigger picture. EVs increasingly are being parked in multi story car parks, beneath residential buildings. travel on ferries, on trains, in tunnels etc. A ship is probably the best place a large EV fire could take place.
Hello I enjoy your coverage of these events,as a retired Master and marine fire fighter who has lived through a ship board fire at sea I have been advocating for the use of foam generators on the ventilation fan systems the fan speed is reduced and foam injected to fill the space and can be continuously added it is also survivable by crew and fire-fighters needing to enter and investergate sauce of fire ,and best of all its easy to clean up with no damage to cars or cargo
So the industry compromised the passive fire resistance by excluding steel separations (bulk heads), but never did anything to improve the Active Fire Suppression system (Fire Sprinklers). When you weaken one level of fire protection (Passive Fire Resistance), you have to compensate by beefing up another level (i.e., Active Suppression) of fire protection.
Conventional bulkheads aren't possible as the floors move as well as the need for ventilation cuz exhaust fumes. Sprinklers run the risk of flooding the ship.
@@randacnam7321 my point was that the Active Suppression system needed to be beefed up. Pumping water into the sprinkler system is not my idea of A “beefed up” active suppression system. Pumping Compressed Air Foam that has the capability of expanding water 20:1 means each sprinkler head uses 19 times less water while making each gallon of foam 3 to 5 times more effective than a gallon of water at extinguishing a fire. Read NIST research notes with the NWCG circa 1988. Also see UL Fire Safety Research Institute study on air entrainment of exterior and interior fire streams 2017.
Lithium is a highly reactive element, and spraying water on lithium is not recommended. It is one of the flammable metals and reacts with water. That leaves you with Co2, Halon, or another chemical method like PKP to try and put the fire out. Fires involving EVs usually ended up contained until they burn out by keeping enough cooling water between what is burning and nearby fuels like buildings and other cars. The energy stored in the batteries isn't a help either, Did you notice Musk has built factories within markets instead of shipping his vehicles (or at least lowering the number that need shipping)?
Sal... I think you need to find some pictures of an open carrier and loaded carrier. I don't think most people understand the loading process or the condition of the deck when loaded. It would help explain the fire spread issues.
That totally depend on the country the ship is flagged under do you think Panaman or Libera where most cargo ships are flagged under care about regulations
Not really, there are fine for Internal Combustion Engines. EV's need there own transport vessels, but that will make them to expensive for the avg customer as a result.
Notice that the color of the smoke is white, which means it is NOT diesel or gas fire - it IS a lithium fire. The materials that produce white smoke, paper, straw, leaves, or wood, are not on this ship in quantity.
New EV regulations requiring EVs to be transported in individually closed fire rated containers. With its own fire control system within and external hose attachments on the outside of the individual container that is connected to the internal system as a backup.
Whose regulations? Who is monitoring and enforcing this regulation? How is this going to be economically implemented? Even if an EV didn’t start the fire (which there are suggestions that it did), once the fire gets to an EV battery, it is the KISS OF DEATH for a ship with 500 of these fire-bombs!!
Will also add thousands to the cost of a new EV. It seems that it would be more cost effective and more practical to only load the EV's on deck mounted racks that can be released in the event of any fires.Or in separate lower sealed holds that can safely and without compromising the ships stability, be flooded with sea water in emergencies.
Or we could wait for the facts before flying off into hysteria. There's also hundreds of tanks of fuel on board, all partially filled (meaning full of explosive vapour), yet nobody's talking about that.
It has been proven time after time the dangers of current EV battery technology and thus regardless of the cause of this fire I am shocked there are not fail safe systems in place for ship transport of EVs
1) We don't know the root cause. 2) The current method of cramming cars in tightly, even lowering deck to roofline may not be compatible with EV transport. 3) Many folks are against the "heavy push", even when there were no fires.
@@Alvan81 The “root cause” doesn’t matter, the physical presence of EVs are the issue. Once a perfectly good EV catches fire is the same disaster as if one started the fire, it is just science!
From your video it appears that shipping EV's on RORO ships is a proven receipe for more fire disasters because the lithium battery fires in EV's cannot be successfully extinguished on a ship once the fire starts. Are there any examples of a lithium battery EV fire on a ship being successfully extinguished or contained?
Chemically speaking, lithium battery fires are incapable of being extinguished. Once the seal is broken, the lithium will react until there is no more lithium. You can pump a bunch of water over it to prevent the hydrogen gas from catching fire and/or exploding, but that also makes the lithium react more intensely so it really has to be quite a lot of water. Carbon dioxide, foam, or any other method will also not stop the chemical reaction. You just have to keep containing it until it's finished and try to keep everything around it from catching fire.
The Danish Technical support for EV fires on board ship have been involved in research and testing. They are the experts, Denmark, Norway, Sweden have fully electric ships.
@@Miyuki2319 To add to that, it has been reported numerous times that Teslas that are damaged and catch fire and the fire is successful suppressed will catch fire again some times repeatedly due to the residual chemical energy in the battery! On a ship it probably just burns till there is nothing left to burn!
@@blueocean2510 Literally just a few electric ships, most likely experimental extreme short distance ferries and maybe tugs. Also, there has been some fires due to the batteries, still a very immature technology and not the low hanging fruit like EV cars. More likely things like harbor tugs could be hybrids. Also there are some small boats but you said ships.
@@Miyuki2319 I'm a long way from h.s. chemistry [and even college] but as i recall, water on Li reacts violently --kinda like gasoline on a burning tire I forget the actual chemical formula, but it's something like :: the Li grabs the O from the water molecule, giving off intense heat and giving off H gas, which prettymuch explodes [on its own right]. Thus, pouring firehose water on a burning Li battery is like pouring gasoline on an open flame. Perhaps Sal would do us all the favor of meeting with a Chemical Engineer or Chemist to flesh this out some [and set me straight].
I work at the Naval station in Newport RI, as a federal firefighter. And at least twice a week a very large car carrier will come up the bay, past Newport, head over to the Quonset seaport and unload a lot of cars and head back to see after a couple of days of unloading. It is is just a mater of when the area fire departments will have to deal with a car fire aboard those of those boats.
There were 13 car carrier fires reported in 2022, according to a report from insurer Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS). Of that total, 10 occurred on car carriers carrying electric vehicles (EVs). There have been at least 2 car carrier fires reported so far this year. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-IUTiJsoFNgE.html
@@captainotto From China's experience the EV cars on fire ignite anything near them like petrol cars, other EV (nightmare made worse) and buildings especially with inside parking.
What about the use of the roll-a-door, a roll-up curtain placed strategically along the decks. In case of fire in a compartment, the metal curtains are lowered to isolate the area on fire and high density foam is pumped into the isolated space to douse the fire. Similarly, this can be done to flood adjacent spaces with foam to prevent fire from spreading to other parts of the vessel. I didn't hear about the use of this type of fire-fighting method in this case.
How, EVs are not designed to allow that and even if the battery is physically disconnected (vs just disconnected by a relay, which many are) it can still have a thermal runaway due to a manufacturing defect.
That's easier said than done. Pretty much all EV's are not designed to have their batteries removed. Which is why if your EV needs a new battery you basically have to go to the manufacturer and they have to disassemble and reassemble your car to change the battery, you're basically getting a new car by the time they're done. It would be nice if EV batteries were plug-and-play like a lot of consumer electronics but the tech just isn't there, and probably won't be for some time.
@@killman369547 Dealers can remove the batteries but it is a royal pain in the @ʴse. Reference the issue with the Ford Mach-E with the need to pull the battery pack to change a defective relay (design flaw) that was internal to the battery pack casing. There is a youtube video that goes through the process and it is very difficult and requires special Ford software to complete the process.
The EVs are far more dangerous than ICE vehicles. The inability to put the fire out makes it so. Imagine a parking garage in an apartment building. The destruction of these car carriers clearly demonstrates the hazard.
On all fronts this is not true. Gas cars, even new ones, catch on fire all the time. Please try not to give into the propaganda both sides are putting out there.
