Toxic Chemicals News

Laser systems quickly remove corrosion and scale from metal surfaces with less preparation and mess than traditional techniques.In the maritime industry, corrosion and scale (where rust penetrates a metal surface) can quickly become an issue in an outdoor, salt sea spray laden environment. When sea spray evaporates, it leaves salt behind, leading to saltwater staining and accelerated corrosion.So, most shipbuilders as well as those responsible for maintenance and repair understand the value of treating metal surfaces to remove corrosion…

Classification society Bureau Veritas (BV) has released a new rule note on fuel cell power systems on board ships. The rule note covers safety requirements for ships using any type of fuel cell technology, providing rules for the arrangement and installation of fuel cell power systems and the delivery of electrical energy.Over the last few years, fuel cells have proved to have strong potential to help decarbonize the maritime industry. The technology, which is based on an electrochemical reaction like that in batteries, can run continuously without recharging as long as energy is provided.

More than 22,000 barrels of oil, refined fuels and chemicals spilled at sites across Texas in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, along with millions of cubic feet of natural gas and hundreds of tons of other toxic substances, a Reuters review of company reports to the U.S. Coast Guard shows. The spills, clustered around the heart of the U.S. oil industry, together rank among the worst environmental mishaps in the country in years, but fall far short of the roughly 190,000 barrels spilled in Louisiana in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina - the last major storm to take dead aim at the U.S. Gulf Coast. Harvey slammed ashore in Texas on Aug. 26, unleashing record flooding around Houston that destroyed countless homes, displaced around a million people and killed scores. The U.S.

More than 22,000 barrels of oil, refined fuels and chemicals spilled at sites across Texas in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, along with millions of cubic feet of natural gas and hundreds of tons of other toxic substances, a Reuters review of company reports to the U.S. Coast Guard shows. The spills, clustered around the heart of the U.S. oil industry, together rank among the worst environmental mishaps in the country in years, but fall far short of the roughly 190,000 barrels spilled in Louisiana in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina - the last major storm to take dead aim at the U.S. Gulf Coast. Harvey slammed ashore in Texas on Aug. 26, unleashing record flooding around Houston that destroyed countless homes, displaced around a million people and killed scores. The U.S.

The U.S. Coast Guard and the Environmental Protection Agency are working with Texas state regulators to clean up oil and chemicals spilled from a dozen industrial facilities after flooding from Hurricane Harvey, authorities said. The spills came from oil refineries, fuel terminals and other businesses, but EPA spokeswoman Terri White said it was not possible to provide an estimate for the amounts spilled. "Initial reports were based on observation," White said. Refineries owned by Valero Energy Corp in Houston, Motiva Inc in Port Arthur, and Exxon Mobile Corp in Baytown, were among the facilities that had reported spills, according to White. Representatives for those companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

ABB said it is providing the shipboard systems and systems expertise that will support the research voyages undertaken by ‘By the Ocean we Unite’, a charitable organization whose mission is to highlight the damage done by the millions of tons of plastics that end up in the world’s oceans every year. The group has installed a state of the art Marine Advisory System including SPOS Onboard weather routing software from MeteoGroup, on the sailing yacht Fantastiko to help crew route-plan and monitor weather conditions on a research voyage in waters off Rotterdam…

Heriot-Watt scientists have cracked the genetic code of the marine bacteria which helped ‘eat’ the oil spilled in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, information which could aid clean-up efforts for any future major spill. Dr Tony Gutierrez, Associate Professor of Microbiology at Heriot-Watt, was in the US at the time of the disaster and was able to perform experiments with samples from oil-contaminated waters of the Gulf of Mexico shortly after the spill occurred, samples that contained key species of bacteria that fed on the oil. Experiments with the samples revealed that certain bacteria had thrived on the oil that gushed into the Gulf, devouring the oil as a preferred food source.

A Sinopec Corp -operated refinery in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin resumed exporting diesel this month after a five-month halt following massive explosions in the port area, a Sinopec-run industry paper reported on Friday. Sinopec's unit, Tianjin Petrochemical Corp, loaded 26,800 tonnes (200,000 barrels) of diesel in early February for export, the first such shipment since last August after the blasts led to a halt in fuel exports as the government tightened safety measures, China Petrochemical News said. In August, two huge explosions had ripped through an industrial area in Tianjin where toxic chemicals and gas were stored, killing at least 50 people.

Two huge explosions tore through an industrial area where toxic chemicals and gas were stored in the northeast Chinese port city of Tianjin, killing at least 50 people, including at least a dozen fire fighters, officials and state media said on Thursday. At least 700 people were injured, more than 71 seriously, the Tianjin government said on its Weibo microblog, and the official Xinhua news agency said two fires were still burning. Wednesday night's blasts, so large that they were seen by satellites in space, sent shockwaves through apartment blocks kilometres away in the port city of 15 million people. Internet videos showed fireballs shooting into the sky and the U.S. Geological Survey registered the blasts as seismic events.

Chiness president Xi Jinping promised a “thorough investigation” after huge explosions in the world’s 10th largest port- Tianjin - killing at least 50 people and disrupting operations. The Chinese government faces pressure to reveal the mystery chemical or explosives. The cause for the blasts is being investigated by China while top foreign and local companies are assessing the damages caused to them. A team of 217 nuclear and biochemical materials specialists from the Chinese military began work at the site on Thursday, the official Xinhua news agency said. Investigators searched for clues on Friday to identify what caused two huge explosions ripped through chemicals warehouses.

Two huge explosions tore through an industrial area where toxic chemicals and gas were stored in the northeast Chinese port city of Tianjin, killing at least 50 people, including at least a dozen fire fighters, officials and state media said on Thursday. At least 700 people were injured, more than 71 seriously, the Tianjin government said on its Weibo microblog, and the official Xinhua news agency said two fires were still burning. Wednesday night's blasts, so large that they were seen by satellites in space, sent shockwaves through apartment blocks kilometres away in the port city of 15 million people. Internet videos showed fireballs shooting into the sky and the U.S. Geological Survey registered the blasts as seismic events.

Since the first deployment of in-situ monitoring instrumentation, biofouling has been a problem. Without an effective solution, people have historically had to accept the limits biofouling imposes on ocean sensing work, with significant repercussions. When instrumentation is deployed in-situ, the value of the data taken during the deployment corresponds with the longevity: information gleaned from a longer deployment is often more useful than information from one of a shorter term.

Less than six months before the U.S. Vessel General Permit takes effect, Castrol Marine is working with owners to ensure they are truly compliant within definitions set out for ‘Environmentally Acceptable Lubricant’ in U.S. waters. From December 2013, new requirements come into effect covering the substances deemed acceptable for discharge by ships in US waters. Few operators, perhaps, will be fully aware of what the revised ‘Vessel General Permit’ (VGP) means when it identifies “Environmentally Acceptable Lubricants” (EAL).

The advance of modern marine coatings and related technologies is not unlike other technical sectors of the maritime industry, primarily driven by emerging regulation from the international, national and regional level, usually in regard to environmental concern. But in recent years, an increased focus on the reduction of marine emissions in tandem with the capability to more directly correlate clean, well-maintained hulls with reduced fuel consumption and lower emissions has driven the industry further faster…

Duke University engineers have developed a hull coating that dislodges bacteria when an electrical current is applied. The material works by physically moving at the microscopic level, knocking the bacteria away. This avoids the use of bacteria-killing paints, which can contain heavy metals or other toxic chemicals that might accumulate in the environment and unintentionally harm fish or other marine organisms. "We have developed a material that 'wrinkles,' or changes it surface in response to a stimulus, such as stretching or pressure or electricity," said Duke engineer Xuanhe Zhao, assistant professor in Duke's Pratt School of Engineering. The researchers tested their approach in the laboratory with simulated seawater, as well as on barnacles.

Toxics Watch Alliance warns imminent arrival of end-of-life German ship 'Northern Vitality' breaches Indian Supreme Court Order. "This is to inform you that in violation of the Supreme Court order dated July 30, 2012, Northern Vitality, a 15-year-old ship owned by German company “Norddeutsche Vermögen Holding GmbH & Co” and chartered by Swiss company MSC is headed for the shipbreaking beach of Alang, Bhavnagar, Gujarat. I am copying this message to Mr Michael Steiner, German Ambassador to India besides other concerned authorities. I have learnt that in the ongoing saga of Alang's existence as a graveyard of ships and migrant workers last month four workers died in Alang beach.

A roundtable discussion will be held on January 21 at the Hilton Hotel at Harbor Island, in San Diego, Calif. The discussion, sponsored by Pacific States/British Columbia Oil Spill Task Force, will focus on preventing pollution from cruise ships. discharges from passenger cruise ships can be just as damaging to ecosystems and deadly to wildlife. into marine environments. regulatory agencies, environmental organizations, and the cruise ship industry. prevent future pollution incidents.

The Ocean Conservancy is releasing Cruise Control: How Cruise Ships Affect the Marine Environment. Cruise ships can carry up to 5,000 passengers and produce waste equivalent to that of small cities, yet they are not governed by the same anti-pollution laws as municipalities of comparable size on land. The Cruise Control report recommends a series of necessary governmental actions, including: Regulating all cruise ship discharges; Amending the Clean Water Act to to prevent discharges of raw sewage and toxic chemicals; Requiring the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop effluent limits, stronger air emission limits and mandatory ballast water treatment programs…

As the International Maritime Organization grapples with the issue of the phasing in of safer tanker tonnage around the world, local political pressure in France is pushing the country towards acting within the confines of the EU to ensure safer ships, ala the OPA 90 regulations enacted in the wake of the Valdez disaster. The sinking off the coast of France of a tanker carrying toxic chemicals could push the European Union to speed up a planned crackdown on shipping safety, local media was reporting in the wake of the latest downing of a ship carrying environmentally harmful materials off the coast of France. The Italian tanker Ievoli Sun sank in the Channel with 6,000 tons of toxic chemicals aboard.

Environmental disaster has been averted for now but France is taking no risks after a tanker carrying thousands of tons of toxic chemicals sank off the Normandy coast, Reuters reported President Jacques Chirac as saying. Visiting an emergency operations center in Cherbourg, northwestern France, Chirac said information was still being gathered on how best to recover the chemicals that officials said were already leaking from the Italian tanker Ievoli Sun, which sank in the English Channel on Tuesday. "It's escaping in bursts," Cherbourg maritime captain Jean-Francois Choquart said. "It has to be styrene that has escaped from a forward storage tank…

Investigators said a bizarre combination of factors, including possible human error, had sunk an Italian chemicals tanker off France on October 31. The 7,300-ton Ievoli Sun, carrying 6,000 tons of toxic chemicals, went down in rough seas in the Channel 30 km (17 miles) from France's northerly Cotentin peninsula and close to the small British island of Alderney. It was the second large tanker to sink off France in a year and sparked accusations that owners were compromising safety. However, a preliminary report by the maritime arm of the French Accident Investigation Bureau (BEA) gave the Italian owners Marnavi an initial clean bill of health.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced a series of scientific and infrastructure projects to help bolster Canada’s Arctic sovereignty. At a scientific research and education facility in Churchill, Manitoba, Prime Minister Harper unveiled the final 26 projects selected by the Government of Canada as part of its $150m commitment to International Polar Year (IPY). Launched in March 2007, IPY is bringing together thousands of scientists and researchers from more than 60 nations to conduct scientific research focused on the Arctic and Antarctic regions. In total, 43 Canadian-projects are already underway. Topics to be studied include: how polar bears…

A court-appointed panel has questioned French officials and environmental activists over the amount of toxic chemicals in the decommissioned Clemenceau, whose planned scrapping here raised strenuous objections from green groups. The Supreme Court Monitoring Committee has ordered the Clemenceau -- the former pride of the French navy -- to stay out of India's exclusive economic zone until the final report is ready. The committee chairman, G. Thyagarajan, said the body would present its final recommendations to a bench of the Supreme Court by February 13. Thyagarajan said his team was examining whether the Clemenceau, which left the Mediterranean port of Toulon on December 31…