Cargo ship carrying burning lithium-ion batteries reaches Alaska, but kept offshore for safety
By Paul Homewood
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A large cargo ship with a fire in its hold is being kept 2 miles (3.22 kilometers) offshore of an Alaska port as a precaution while efforts are undertaken to extinguish the flames, the U.S. Coast Guard said Saturday.
There were no injuries to the 19 crew members aboard the Genius Star XI, which was carrying a load of lithium-ion batteries across the Pacific Ocean, from Vietnam to San Diego, the guard’s Alaska district said in a release.
The fire started on Christmas Day in cargo hold No. 1, a spokesperson for ship owner Wisdom Marine Group said in a statement. The crew released carbon dioxide into the hold and sealed it over concerns of an explosion.
Ship’s personnel alerted the Coast Guard early Thursday morning about the fire. The Coast Guard said it diverted the 410-foot (125-meter) cargo ship to Dutch Harbor, one of the nation’s busiest fishing ports located in Unalaska, an Aleutian Islands community about 800 miles (1,287 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Media ?????
The media , [ under instructions ,] will always try to ignore any stories about batteries catching fire because it shows how expensive and dangerous the whole Net Zero insanity really is .
The Luton car park fire was immediately blamed on a Diesel car to try to cover up any idea of batteries causing it .
But with enough information from sites like Paul,s here , enough people might eventually get to know the truth .
I’ve been from Vietnam to California, but I didn’t go via Alaska. Do cargo ships really normally go that way ?
Many do — its currents and the Great Circle Route.
https://benmuse.typepad.com/ben_muse/2007/01/the_great_circl.html
Here is the Great Circle route map from Ho Chi Minh City to San Diego.
https://www.greatcirclemap.com/?routes=SAN-SGN
Dutch Harbour is right on the tip of the Aleutians though I must admit it does seem rather weird.
Adding to the GC — Great Circle concept
Such lines yield the shortest distance between two points on the globe.
If you have a globe and a piece of string, you can demonstrate this by choosing two places and stretching the string from point A to point B. It will naturally make the shortest path as you stretch it tight.
Not fit for purpose!
The fact that atmospheric CO2 was once 500x higher than it is now, but we are here to discuss it, says it all?
Yes, CO2 is a Greenhouse Gas, that is indisputable, however a thermal inconsistency that was disproved when algae and green leaved plants converted CO2 to O2 and organic material.
So please tell me how atmospheric CO2 created by mankind will create Armageddon?
It’s supposed to cause a big increase in water vapour. Anyone seen actual evidence supporting that?
When carbon is oxidized CO2 and water are the byproducts.
C + O2 = CO2 + H2O ????????
When ORGANIC carbon is oxidized CO2 and water are the byproduct… CH2O + O2 = CO2 + H2O.
What is disputable, is the term “greenhouse gas”. My undergraduate plant physiology text properly refers to CO2 and the rest as “atmospheric gases”.
The “greenhouse gas” moniker was developed to make the disliked “gas de jour” seem scary and unnatural.
I tell folks that the only place you find a “greenhouse gas” is within the confines of a greenhouse.
Dutch Harbor is along the Ring of Fire.
Coincidence? I think not.
AP had already issued an update today before this post
“Lithium-ion battery fire in a cargo ship’s hold is out after several days of burning
The U.S. Coast Guard says a lithium-ion battery fire on a cargo ship is out after days of burning off the coast of Alaska.
Updated 7:08 PM GMT, December 31, 2023″
https://apnews.com/article/cargo-ship-alaska-fire-batteries-coast-guard-565d51c76e958097d44216a7365655b6
It’s headed to dock now
The irony is that Carbon Dioxide that came to the rescue.
They filled the hold with carbon dioxide and that extinguished the fire.
In the past battery fires have sometimes restarted after going out.
CO2 removes oxygen and extinguishes the fire. The trouble is once that dissipates and the oxygen returns the fire can restart if there’s enough latent heat. In this incident I suspect the crew was able to seal the cargo hold effectively for long enough.
Up to a point. Apparently the electrolyte in the battery itself releases oxygen when the battery is damaged so the fire is self sustaining. In my brief research into lithium fires I came across two other interesting factoids: lithium batteries will almost certainly explode when hit by a projectile – e.g. a bullet – so electric tanks on a battlefield are a bad idea. Also lithium batteries stop working below -20 degrees so don’t use an EV if this level of cold is likely!
Time will tell if it re-ignites when they open the hold.
Carbon dioxide as a fire extinguisher is used in all electrical incidents by simply snuffing out the fire (depriving it of oxygen) when water would make things worse. But my understanding from previous posts is that these batteries are subject to self-sustaining fires that don’t need oxygen, like chemicals used in explosives.
I don’t think CO2 extinguishes LI battery fires.
It will stop flammable materials nearby from catching fire, so flooding the hold with CO2 was a good precaution to take.
But it won’t put out the battery fire itself, because all the reactants are present in the battery already, like a firework. It does not need air to burn.
Useful stuff Carbon dioxide. It has other uses too.
The US use it as a welding shielding gas where we use Argon.
“Useful stuff”
Yep. Carbon dioxide was also used as a coolant for the UK Advanced Gas Cooled Reactors (AGRs)
Is anybody keeping a record of the number of EV fires on ships?
Some folks seem desperate for that number to be zero. Witness the convolutions around the Fremantle Highway.
I suspect that Lloyds of London might have a good idea how many.
+1
On YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@wgowshipping has detailed stuff
( see also video Chinese Nuclear Containerships ..and ammonia fuel ships)
There’s also a few strong anti-EV accounts
.. https://www.youtube.com/@GeoffBuysCars his pal https://www.youtube.com/@TheMacMaster
In Oz https://www.youtube.com/@MGUYTV and https://www.youtube.com/@AutoExpertJC
It seems straightforward then that LI batteries can be safely shipped. It requires rigid, air-tight containers, to prevent physical damage, and limit available oxygen should a fire start. You can’t treat them as bulk cargo.
Note that a Tesla is not a rigid, air-tight container.
File this under “what could possibly go wrong”.
Li-ion batteries setting fire to Li-ion batteries must have been a sight, perhaps on CCTV?
The jet of flame from some of the fires involving Li-ion batteries in cars visually resembles a plasma torch. Perhaps not hot enough to cut through steel but certainly hot enough to cut through aluminium.
It’s pretty obvious what’s going on here.
Increased ocean heat content and an unprecedentedly wavy winter jet stream – triggered by Arctic warming caused by humans burning fossil fuels, have combined to ignite those batteries via spontaneous alarmist combustion.
Experts at the Guardian have been warning of this possibility for decades.
It’s simple physics. If you disagree you’re a denier.
Toronto : E-bike fire sets subway train on fire
Sunday : Emergency responders say they responded to reports of an e-bike on fire around 3 p.m.
The bike was on the first car of a train heading northbound, police said.
According to Toronto fire, the flames were put out, but smoke and one fire-related injury caused part of the line to shut down.
The station was evacuated for the safety of subway riders
News story plays it down, but looks like inferno
https://globalnews.ca/news/10197732/toronto-subway-fire-sheppard-yonge-delays/
At least with the old slam-door trains (UK) you could get out quickly in the event of fire in the carriage.
Is the fire due to climate change, or Brexit?
Gamecock did some research, and came up with this excellent article posted by MDPI:
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/19/5117/htm
See Section 4: Thermal Runaway and Fire
Looking a little further, I found that the common electrolyte is ethylene carbonate, which can burn. It, and some cathodes, can emit oxygen during combustion, sustaining fire. Also found companies which claim to have electrolytes that are not flammable, suggesting the problem is fixable.
Gamecock got a headache. It’s a bit broad and technical. It appears things can be done, but aren’t being done.