Keyser_Soze Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 Cargo ship carrying 25 tons of acid sinks in Sri Lankan waters; marks one of worst environmental disasters in decades WWW.NEWSWEEK.COM "The ship has dealt a death blow to our lives. We can't go into the sea, which means we can't make a living," Joshua Anthony, head of a region fishing union. Quote The Sri Lankan government and navy said this is the country's worst marine disaster, as the sinking ship was carrying 1,486 containers filled with chemicals, including 25 metric tons of nitric acid. Sri Lanka's Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA) said in a statement that microplastic pollution could cause years of ecological damage to the Indian Ocean island. Joshua Anthony, head of a region fishing union, told Reuters: "The ship has dealt a death blow to our lives. We can't go into the sea, which means we can't make a living." Local fisherman Peter Fernando told AFP he had never seen such destruction, even when a tsunami rocked the coastline in 2004. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thewhyteboar Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 What's the big deal? Just sink a ship carrying 25 tons of base right? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mclumber1 Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 The headline is clickbait shit. The environmental disaster is not from the 25 tons of. acid that was onboard. It's from the plastics that were released and also the fact that the whole shipped burned for days on end. 25 tons of nitric acid takes up a container the size of 3x3x3 meters. Here is a post explaining why this (the acid) is not as big of a deal as you may think: Quote Well, neutral water will never neutralize the acid. Neutralization is the reaction between an acid and a base. The pH of the Ocean is roughly 8 meaning it is ever so slightly basic. If we assume pure water, the concentration of base is 0.000001 M (M is molar which is a concentration of moles of a substance per liter) 25 tons of nitric acid (using US ton) is equivalent to 22.6 million grams of acid. Nitric acid has a molar mass of 63.012 grams / mole giving us 360K moles of acid (which is quite literally a fuck ton). So how many liters of our base solution do we need to equal this amount? Molarity * Volume = moles We can rearrange this to find the volume: Volume = moles / Molarity Volume = 360,000 moles / 0.000001 M = 360 billion liters of ocean water = 360 million cubic meters of water = 0.36 cubic kilometers or 0.0000001% of the Indian Ocean. So I stick by my initial assertion that minimal impact, but still not fun Edit: I assume pure water to find the base concentration, which is likely higher due to buffering of the ocean by salts, but would require substantially more assumptions. However, buffering would dramatically decrease the effects of this spill as buffered solutions are much more resistant to pH changes. The effects of buffering would not be felt until sufficient dilution had already occurred though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fizzzzle Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 What the articles about this mostly fail to mention is that the crew of the ship had been aware of the acid leak since May 11. They tried to alert both Qatar (where the ship left from, iirc) and India to try and dock before a fire could break out, and both countries told them to fuck off. Now a few of the seafarers will probably face some kind of criminal charges even though they tried to do the right thing, the owner of the ship is going to get a fat insurance payout, and life will go on. The only people to face any consequences for this are the ones that really didn't have anything to do with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CitizenVectron Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 You know, I was hoping to go the rest of my life without having to worry about converting moles ever again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b_m_b_m_b_m Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 1 hour ago, mclumber1 said: The headline is clickbait shit. The environmental disaster is not from the 25 tons of. acid that was onboard. It's from the plastics that were released and also the fact that the whole shipped burned for days on end. 25 tons of nitric acid takes up a container the size of 3x3x3 meters. Here is a post explaining why this (the acid) is not as big of a deal as you may think: This is a bad analysis as it supposes perfect and instantaneous mixing. There's going to be localized effects which are fairly unknown, and problematic given that the boat can't be towed further out to sea. In general, controlled dilution can be a solution for pollution but pretending like there's zero problem with this is just dumb. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mclumber1 Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 39 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said: This is a bad analysis as it supposes perfect and instantaneous mixing. There's going to be localized effects which are fairly unknown, and problematic given that the boat can't be towed further out to sea. In general, controlled dilution can be a solution for pollution but pretending like there's zero problem with this is just dumb. Acid, no matter how strong, will not have a lasting impact compared to things like micro plastic debris, oil slicks, or other forms of pollution. It's clickbait shit. If the headline was "Cargo ship dumps micro plastics into the ocean, and sinks in Sri Lankan waters; marks one of worst environmental disasters in decades" I would agree with it. Acid just sounds more scary to the layman. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b_m_b_m_b_m Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 I'm not disagreeing with that, but in the meantime the acid is harmful to ocean life and humans Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commissar SFLUFAN Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 Speaking of sinking ships... "Iran's biggest warship sinks in Gulf of Oman after huge fire" Iran's biggest warship sinks in Gulf of Oman after huge fire WWW.NBCNEWS.COM Iranian officials offered no cause for the fire aboard the Kharg. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fizzzzle Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 You guys are still missing the point that the crew knew that the boat was a powder keg. Nitric acid is not itself flammable, but is so corrosive that it makes everything else more combustible. The ports at Qatar and India were both like "not our problem," even though they had the means to safely deal with it in port. The Sri Lankan people are now pissed that it's become their problem. It's one of many things that highlights the issue of international shipping, how crews are treated (3 of the crewmates are being brought up on charges in Sri Lanka because of this even though they tried to tell everyone what could happen), and how no one takes any responsibility for any of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyser_Soze Posted June 4, 2021 Author Share Posted June 4, 2021 9 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said: Speaking of sinking ships... "Iran's biggest warship sinks in Gulf of Oman after huge fire" Clickbait shit! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilentWorld Posted June 5, 2021 Share Posted June 5, 2021 On 6/3/2021 at 11:00 AM, Commissar SFLUFAN said: Speaking of sinking ships... "Iran's biggest warship sinks in Gulf of Oman after huge fire" Iran's biggest warship sinks in Gulf of Oman after huge fire WWW.NBCNEWS.COM Iranian officials offered no cause for the fire aboard the Kharg. Quote The fire comes after a series of mysterious explosions targeting ships in the region. Israel and Iran have blamed each other for reported attacks on cargo ships since late February, escalating a yearslong shadow war in Mideast waters between the two countries. Well that could get interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bitgod Posted June 6, 2021 Share Posted June 6, 2021 It would have been cooler if it was LSD 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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