Public health impacts of an imminent Red Sea oil spill | Hacker News Reader

Public health impacts of an imminent Red Sea oil spill

nature.com

129 pointsperfunctory60 comments

This is the F.S.O. Safer, described in the New Yorker article discussed yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28824890

(Not often do you get to italicize a ship name and a publication in the same sentence.)

From wikipedia:

>The ship is estimated to contain about 1.14 million barrels of oil valued at up to US$80 million, which became a point of contention in negotiations between the Houthi rebels and Yemeni government, both of which asserted claims to the cargo and vessel.

Now, I'm no expert but let me venture a guess that the environmental costs of the spill and any subsequent cleanup will be significantly higher than $160M. Can we just pay both sides their $80M to let someone competent tow it out and safely dispose of the oil?

If no government is sufficiently smart to do that someone just start a kickstarter, I'll give you $20k.

Giving $80M to each side in a war is no lock on a smart solution. Such a move could easily worsen the war, destroy the tanker anyway, and anger from millions towards whoever's give that 'gift'. There is potential direct loss of life from such payments in addition to additional environmental impact.

This time, but it invites a next time. If we are going to do something it should be send our military (the world's - at least China, Russia, US, UK) take the ship: either from both, or from which ever side we agree to support. Otherwise we should let them fight it out and refuse to send any more oil to either Yemeni or the rebels if any oil escapes.

No thanks. I don't want US blood spilled over something that's not our concern. Let the countries closer to the tanker figure out a solution.

And any military action carries some risk of damaging the tanker, which could cause a leak or fire. Thus precipitating the disaster it was intended to avoid.

This assumes any cleanup will be done at all in this war torn coastal area.

But then youre giving terrorists $80 million, which admittedly the US is already doing with the Saudi air force. I don't think that means we have to make it worse though.

The Houthi are not currently considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. or, as far as I can tell[1], any other nation. (They were for about a month, but the decision was reversed by Biden.)

Not taking a position (as I know very little about them), but this would seem to contradict your argument. Unless you're using "terrorist" to indicate your opinion of the Houthi, as opposed to any official designation.

[1] I rigorously conducted my own research. It consisted of Wikipedia, and only Wikipedia. Your mileage may vary.

Putting the considerations of the State Department aside, the Houthis are a proxy for Iran which US isn't too happy to capitulate to.

During the Obama administration, the US was happy to capitulate to Iraqi militias that were proxies for Iran. And I don't intend that as a criticism, it might have been the least bad option at the time.

https://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/islamic-state-obama-m...

"The Safer, a deteriorating oil tanker containing 1.1 million barrels of oil, has been deserted near the coast of Yemen since 2015..."

WTF? That's tens of millions of dollars worth of oil. Why hasn't someone salvaged her?

It's near a place where that amount is just a drop in a bucket.

Wikipedia article has some background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FSO_Safer

Location on Google Maps (no satellite view)

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Safer+Oil+Tanker/@15.12456...

Interestingly, the ship itself doesn't appear on any of the "vessel finder" type websites that I can locate, but if you zoom on the same region on vesselfinder.com, there is a green dashed line box in the same region you've linked here - wonder if that's a naval no-go zone or something? Don't see a legend for it.

> Interestingly, the ship itself doesn't appear on any of the "vessel finder" type websites that I can locate,

Vessel finder & al rely on AIS signal sent by vessel. The AIS beacon probably stopped emitting.

I wondered if that would be the case, it would make sense.

According to a YouTube video (Decaying oil tanker may soon cause one of the largest oil spills ever | DW News) [1] it looks like the box is too much to the south and west.

It's an interesting video which provides a bit of context.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0fpv9IzZAY

It's literally in a warzone and is surrounded by mines

When better to move fast and break things?

Navies have the technology to make this a non issue. U.S. navy could stymie the minefield and tow it to where it can be decommissioned trivially. I wonder what geopolitics at play are preventing this sort of intervention?

The HSV-2 Swift, formerly an original proof-of-concept ship for the U.S. Navy’s Joint High Speed Vessel program, was gutted by explosion and fire when Houthi rebels attacked the ship off Yemen Oct. 1.

Operated by the United Arab Emirates, the 321’x88’x11’ Swift was transiting the Bab Al Mandeb strait between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden when it was struck at night. Gutted by the attack but still floating, the vessel was moved to Eritrea for salvage.

https://www.workboat.com/bluewater/hsv-2-swift-wrecked-yemen...

Not sure what this adds to the discussion.

If the Houthies want to retain the minefield then they have the a2d2 to keep the minefield.

It’s used as a bargaining chip by the Houthis. They are holding everyone on the Red Sea hostage using an environmental doomsday device.

Wouldn't it be safer to just blow the whole thing up? Burn off the oil?

Not all of it will float or float immediately or hold together well enough to burn effectively. This has been proposed for previous disasters.

Purely theoretical question, would a tactical nuke (e.g. W80 at 150kt) obliterate the ship thoroughly and quickly enough to avoid spreading the oil around?

You mean dump a shipload of liquid oxygen in it and watch the oxyliquit fireworks?

Nuking it would work.

I’m sure there are other reason not to do that.

Recommend reading the New Yorker article mentioned in another comment. Makes you appreciate the complexity of the situation and full background story.

"Ansar-Allah (colloquially known as the Houthis), a political and armed movement in control of North Yemen, currently has access to the Safer. As of writing, negotiations between the United Nations and the Houthis to inspect and repair the Safer have stalled indefinitely, and no long-term solutions, such as offloading the oil, have been publicly proposed."

Let's just call this what it is:

The Houthis are holding this ship hostage to get stuff/concessions/whatever from the international community. Period. There are horrific atrocities on both sides of the Yemeni Civil War and from other Gulf states, but this is unforgivable on the part of the Houthis.

Why haven't we rained hellfire upon them by now? They only have a bargaining chip because we have tied our own hands. This situation could be resolved in a day.

The Saudis have been raining hellfire (using US weapons) on the Houthis for years. It hasn't worked. Any attempts to seize the tanker by force might result in the Houthis scuttling it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabian-led_intervention...

Seems pretty smart on their part to me. I mean unless we are all going to fight with the same resources why wouldn’t they do anything in their power? I know we have some rules of war but I highly doubt these guys agreed to such rules and why should they it would seriously put them at a disadvantage. I know nothing of these conflicts or those involved but war is ugly we should expect to see as much.

Predicting it now, "Worst oil spill in the Red Sea" as no one does anything.

Seriously, reading about it is like living in the world of this Onion video: https://youtu.be/yjfrJzdx7DA

"This disaster will have been preventable. All of the warning signs are here, yet no one will have done anything about it." Indeed.

Will be happy to be proven wrong.

> The spill and subsequent port closures will disrupt maritime transport across the Red Sea, rerouting many shipments around Africa

I assume this means another mess for the Suez Canal.

With my limited understanding of storing volatile liquids...

One approach is to fill the tanks with inert gas... But another approach is to 99% seal up any vents and rely on the fact the fuel vapor concentration in the tanks is above the flammability threshold.

Thats the way the fuel tank in your car doesn't explode for example.

Obviously it would be good to test this regularly with sensors... but even untested it's still more than likely not going to explode.

The New Yorker article goes into much more detail but in short it’s now a resulting hulk, and all these systems have now failed, because the owners are broke. This is all due to the war in which it’s also being used as a bargaining chip.

I think that's why it hasn't exploded yet. If you read the New Yorker article it's clear that it's only a matter of time until either A) the ship's hull rusts through - letting oxygen in and oil out B) a gunshot or explosions opens a whole - as it's in a war zone

The obvious political solution would be for a powerful nation, such as the USA, to publicly announce "An agreement must be found between rebels and government forces to eliminate environmental impacts of this ship within 7 days, with work completed within 6 months, or the USA will come in with military force, make it safe, and take the oil as payment".

This seems like the very definition of "World police".

The Houthis can detonate it or sink it in few hours.

Yep, and they know it, and are clearly trying to use it as leverage.

Right, the US (or other country thinking to do the same) needs to have a plan to get around the mines, do everything they intend to do and be done in a few hours. Not actually impossible, but it is more of a bad movie plot than realistic.

Minefields are a nonissue for a modern navy.

But getting in, getting rid of the mines, and getting the fuel out might just take a tad bit longer than the other party needs to blow the tanker.

Not just getting rid of the mines, but you need to do this all while being unnoticed.

Like I said, not impossible, but probably only happens in movies.

They could disable the minefield without the houthis even realizing it. The U.S. military used dolphins to mark 100 mines during Desert Storm. They also use underwater drones to mark and clear mines.

Yeah because the US parachuting into the Middle East to restore order has worked out so well the last several times we've tried it.

To put this into perspective as a matter of “payment”, the US uses ~20 million barrels of oil PER DAY.

This amount is peanuts, despite the potential environmental impact.

See the New Yorker article. It's an environmental sea mine surrounded by literal sea mines. You can't simply "rush in by force" lest end up spilling the whole thing

The US has a dog in this conflict. Namely Saudi Arabia. Defunding or otherwise ratcheting down the US war machine would be a better solution.

OK, so they invade, which is what Saudi Arabia has wanted for years, kill a bunch of people, tow the tanker away, and then .. leave? Mission accomplished?

Yes, mission accomplished, because the red sea will continue to harbor marine life in this scenario. If we don't, everyone in yemen will starve. The port used for international food aid will be blocked with oil. The impovershed fishermen will have nothing to catch.

Why can't the US navy deal with this? Who would even balk at an action of our Navy to stave off environmental catastrophe? Why would we even lend credence to the opinions of those who wouldn't want intervention in this way?

In the past we would use our military might ostensibly to prevent the spread of communism of all things. We did whatever we wanted in Central America unchallenged, due to this excuse. In the present and future, we should use our military investment to prevent the spread of environmental damage. Something like only 100 corporations are responsible for 70% of greenhouse gas emissions. I'd be proud of a military that sent in special forces units to disable these factories that are objectively directly attacking every organism alive on earth. Pearl Harbor or 9/11 doesn't even compare to the environmental damage wrought upon us by the greedy people behind these corporations.

Are you consuming the produce of those 100 corporations? I'm not saying you are personally responsible, of course, but we need to understand our way of life has implications and a price for this planet. This is not something "other, evil people are doing". It's just you and me living our lives.

You and me have very little choice in how we live our lives. Our available options are determined by market forces most affected by a small few people in a handful of boardrooms than consumer behavior at large. Your choices in the marketplace are limited to options that capitalists have determined were profitable to produce in abundance.

>Why can't the US navy deal with this?

They likely don't have a great deal of confidence they can manage it, and all the potential results are kinda shitty for them.

In the past week, one of our subs crashed into something. We're like a year removed from one of the Navy's own ships randomly blowing up in similar circumstances. I imagine the Navy's would estimate something like an 80% success rate at best.

Then look at if they succeed. Most of the world will be unaware of what they've done, a significant portion will be pissed at them for intervening in a war to steal $80 million in oil, and in the future countries will try to pawn off their potential disasters to the Navy.

Or if they fail, they will end up getting the bulk of the blame for the failure and the resulting catastrophe, the Houthis will get a huge amount of sympathy, and the Navy will have another red mark that likely includes US personnel casualties. And from the sounds of it, one remote controlled firework could make them seem responsible too.

>"For Yemen in particular, clean water is supplied mostly through groundwater pumps or water trucks, both of which require fuel. Previous fuel shortages caused by the blockade resulted in far-reaching public health impacts: for example, clean-water and sewage systems stopped operating, solid-waste collection was stalled, and electrical-grid disruptions led to blackouts affecting hospital operations, all of which contributed to a massive cholera outbreak in 2017 [6]."

It's disturbing that the authors self-censor here. The chief reason Yemen's water infrastructure is in shambles, the root cause of the Cholera epidemic, is that the (US-backed) Saudi military systematically bombs it:

>"In the water sector, we tracked attacks on water pipelines, wells, dams, desalination plants, well drilling sites, water pumps, irrigation canals, water storage tanks, water bottling facilities, water trucks and public water utilities. We found 105 incidents in which water infrastructure was targeted — including 95 Saudi coalition airstrikes on all types of water infrastructure, including humanitarian water supply projects and warehouses."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/02/22/saudi-led...

Thank you.

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