Faustus said:

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GAC06 said:

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Asbestos hurt people. HTH

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Didn't really know where to put this (and didn't want to start a thread), but twas interesting.
Looks like the owners are Foched.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/02/climate/brazil-aircraft-carrier-asbestos.html

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A decommissioned aircraft carrier, packed with an undetermined amount of asbestos, is being towed in circles off the coast of Brazil after it was refused permission to dock in Turkey for recycling. The problem? No government wants anything to do with it.

Now, the Brazilian Navy says it plans to just sink the ship, the So Paulo, a Clemenceau-class carrier purchased from France in 2000 for $12 million, planes and helicopters not included. Environmentalists say doing so would cause irreparable environmental damage and could be a violation of international law.
. . .
The story of So Paulo's demise started when a Turkish company called Sok Denizcilik bought the ship for just over $1.8 million in an auction in 2021. Its goal was to recycle the vessel, disposing of any waste responsibly while making a profit salvaging and selling the tons of nontoxic metals it contained.
. . .
The 873-foot vessel, which served in the French Navy under the name Foch from 1963 until it was sold in 2000, hadn't been in service for roughly a decade. Some of its compartments have accumulated so much dangerous gas that it is now unsafe to enter them, inspectors said.

Decades ago, when the ship was laid down, there was less understanding and probably less concern about the severe health problems some construction materials could cause. Asbestos, a fire ******ant that was commonly used back then, was later found to be a potent carcinogen.

The lead ship of the class, Clemenceau, was dismantled and recycled in the 2000s after a similarly contentious struggle with environmentalists.

The French authorities reported 45 tons of asbestos aboard Clemenceau, but environmental groups said they had evidence that it contained much more. The vessel was en route to a breaking yard in India when a French court ordered it to return to home waters. Clemenceau was eventually scrapped in Britain.
. . .
On Aug. 4, the decommissioned So Paulo started across the Atlantic under tow, on its way to the breaking yard in Turkey.

Meanwhile, the environmental campaign was picking up steam. Days after the ship departed, Turkish officials asked their Brazilian counterparts for a new inventory of hazardous substances. Dissatisfied with the response, Turkish officials canceled import permission.

The ship and its tug, which by then had reached Gibraltar, had to turn back. Environmental groups counted it as an enormous victory.

So Paulo's journey, though, was far from over. As it approached Brazil in October, the navy ordered it to remain off the northeastern coast instead of returning to Rio de Janeiro, its port of departure.

At that point, after two trans-Atlantic crossings, the ship needed to dock for maintenance. But the environmental campaign had apparently worked too well. Spooked local officials in Brazil pressured ports not to take the ship, and it was repeatedly refused. The navy never offered its own bases, for reasons officials have never explained. So, the ship and the tug started doing circles.

Months passed, and, as minor damage started appearing in the hull, MSK Maritime Services & Trading, a partner in the recycling project with Sok Denizcilik, grew desperate. The company needed a harbor to patch up the damage, and the tugboat was guzzling 20 tons of fuel a day. By January, the MSK reported that it had lost $5 million on the venture.

Environmental groups said they were baffled that the navy wouldn't take the ship back and was refusing to say why it wouldn't. Under the Basel Convention, countries are required to re-import toxic waste that they are unable to successfully export. Activists say Brazil is violating the convention by not allowing the ship to dock. Officials deny this, on the grounds that the ship is in Brazilian waters.

At a meeting in December, naval officials said they were concerned the ship would sink close to the coast and create a navigation hazard. So, they ordered it about 200 miles offshore.

In the same meeting, officials said they considered sinking the ship to be one of their few options.

A report in December said the ship was, at that time, seaworthy enough to be towed to a port. But a navy report from two weeks ago said that, although the vessel could last another month before sinking, it was too unstable to bring into coastal waters. So, on Wednesday night, officials announced plans to sink the ship. A navy release cited "deteriorating hull buoyancy conditions and the inevitability of spontaneous/uncontrolled sinking."
. . .

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The carrier, then named Foch and serving with the French Navy, cruising the Adriatic with the oiler Meuse in 1994. Credit...via Agence France-Presse Getty Images

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Detmersdislocatedshoulder said:

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sometimes i wonder what will be the straw the broke the camels back.

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American Hardwood said:

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I'm guessing the strategy will be to come up with a bunch of new (and expensive) safety features that will push the cost of gas appliances past electricity, making them unattractive to purchasers.

No legislation "banning" gas appliances needed. They'll just do away with them through agency regulations.

Reminds me of the awful "safety features" of new gas cans with those terrible flow control devices that inevitably make you spill far more gas on the ground than you would have otherwise. Having to deal with those gas cans sure has made me consider electric tools.

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Quote:

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A Biden appointee on the Consumer Product Safety Commission ignited a firestorm last month by threatening to ban gas stoves. After criticism from West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and others, the CPSC chairman rejected the idea, and White House officials said they didn't support banning gas stoves.

Then why has the Energy Department proposed new efficiency standards that would ban the sale of most gas stoves currently on the market? The stated purpose of the rule-making is to reduce energy consumption and save consumers money. But these benefits are meager. The department estimates the proposed rule would reduce energy use by a mere 3.4% from the status quo, and consumers on average would save $21.89 over a cook-top's lifetime.

Even this assumes the standards are technically achievable without compromising performance. A spokesperson for the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers tells us that gas cook-tops would have to be completely redesigned to comply. Burners might have to become smaller and heavy grate designs altered, which would increase cooking times.

Twenty of the 21 gas stove-top models that the Energy Department tested wouldn't comply with its proposed standards. Manufacturers would have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars redesigning stoves, if they bother.

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