<
https://grist.org/international/the-race-to-defuse-an-oil-time-bomb-disaster-threatening-the-red-sea/>
"Ten days ago, the crew of a ship called the Nautica lifted anchor in Djibouti
and motored north in the Red Sea. Two tugboats met the vessel about five and a
half miles off the coast of Yemen, then guided it into place alongside the FSO
Safer, a crumbling, abandoned oil tanker thought to hold 1 million barrels of
crude.
Thus began an operation that’s the ecological equivalent of placing the pin
back into a hand grenade.
Since 2019, the United Nations has likened the Safer (pronounced “suffer”) to a
floating time bomb, one that could, through accident, structural failure, or
attack, spill its cargo at any moment. That could release up to four times the
oil spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster, fouling the Red Sea for decades, if
not centuries. Despite posing so great a risk for almost a decade, a vicious
war in Yemen left the Safer beyond reach until May, when a U.N.-hired crew was
allowed aboard to take the first steps in an emergency operation that could
begin as early as today: transferring the oil to the Nautica, banishing the
Safer to a scrapyard, and leaving the Nautica in its place.
Just getting this far is a diplomatic triumph for the U.N. Where others failed,
it convinced the warring parties — particularly Houthi insurgents, who control
the area around the Safer — that preventing an environmental and economic
catastrophe was in their best interest. But some see this mission in a less
flattering light: Even if all goes to plan — and in Yemen, that’s always an
“if” — it will still leave a million barrels of oil floating in a conflict
zone."
Via
Future Crunch:
<
https://futurecrunch.com/good-news-poverty-india-democracy-us-restoration-china/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
