One of many issues which have turn out to be more and more obvious with the rise of electrical vehicles is that when they catch on fireplace, these fires are extremely troublesome to extinguish. That is true of absolutely geared up fireplace crews on dry land, however think about if a kind of fires occurred inside a ship at sea.
It’s not that onerous to think about, as a result of it occurred to the Felicity Ace cargo ship final 12 months. The nice factor was that, being a cargo ship, the variety of crew on board was comparatively minimal. What if it occurred on a cruise ship? That’s the query that Norwegian cruise line Havila Kystruten requested of consulting agency Proactima AS when the Norwegian authorities requested it to begin hauling automobiles on a few of its coastal cruise ships. The reply, as reported lately by Maritime Govt, was “completely not.”
Proactima AS decided that despite the fact that the ships had been state-of-the-art and able to dealing with a petrochemical fireplace, the chance of lithium or perhaps a hydrogen fireplace was too nice to justify. Additional, if one did occur, the chances of placing it out with out it endangering the lives of passengers weren’t definitely worth the danger. It is because a lithium fireplace, along with burning extremely sizzling, additionally produces numerous poisonous vapors.
Havila’s model new ships use lithium storage batteries themselves, however the distinction between these and the battery cells in a shopper EV is critical. For instance, maritime laws state {that a} ship using these has to have them in a separate fire-proof room with a fireplace suppression system designed particularly for the battery sort getting used.
Will this determination by Havila Kystruten have an effect on different ferries or transport ships? Will, for instance, the Washington State Ferry system place restrictions on hauling EVs? What precautions will giant transport ships take to maintain a scenario just like the one we noticed on the Felicity Ace from taking place once more?
We reached out to Havila Kystruten for remark however didn’t hear again in time for publication.
