Photo courtesy of The Age
A coal ship struck the Great Barrier Reef this weekend, spilling heavy oil over several miles of the reef. The ship was carrying coal from Australia, the world’s largest exporter of coal, to China, the world’s largest consumer of coal. The Neng Sheng 1, a Chinese-owned freigher struck the reef 15 miles outside shipping lanes in a restricted portion of the reef. The 950 tonnes of heavy fuel oil has already covered a 3km by 100m strip of ocean in a slick, and if the ship breaks up the 65,000 tonnes of coal would cover a portion of the reef.
Australian authorities plan to “throw the book” at the operators, who could face a $1 million fine to the company and a $250,000 fine for the captain, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh told The Age. Yet reports say this could be one of the most challenging sea clean-up operations ever, with the vessel still impaled on the reef in moving water and leaking fuel oil.
Australians tend to shy away from the fact that the national economy’s current boom is largely supported by resource demand from growing economies in Asia. Mining exports account for 35% of national exports. Australia is the largest exporter of coal in the world (with 35% of total global coal exports). Mining makes up 5.6% of the Australian economy, which doesn’t sound like much, until you realize that of developed countries only Canada and Norway have comparable levels. And mining employs a disproportionately small number of Australians at 1.3% of the total labor force.This is a specific accident on the high seas. Early reports indicate a ship operator was cutting corners and trying to take a short-cut to save time. However we must question the larger forces that lead to such an accident. Large mountaintop removal mining companies in the US cannot operate without numerous violations of federal law. Indeed, even enforcing existing laws is one of the biggest steps the government is doing in the US to put an end to destructive coal mining.
Rising Tide Australia blocks the Newcastle Coal Port
Only last week, Rising Tide Australia staged another successful, short-term water blockade of the Newcastle port, Australia’s largest coal export hub. Under the RT banner, activists have stopped coal trains, staged mass sit-ins in Australian parliament and turned up the pressure on coal company executives.
Beyond the active Rising Tide, other Australian groups remain ambiguous about the role that coal plays in the national economy. Exporting coal to China challenges the traditional paradigm that ‘developing’ countries are entitled to use dirty energy while ‘developed’ countries should be currently switching to clean energy. I think there are a couple reasons for this. First, Australian leaders, like American leaders, take large contributions from energy and extraction industries to make favorable policies. Also, Australia largely weathered the global financial crash of last year because of its strong export economy and China’s continuing demand. Third, Australia is less densely populated than the United States and that population is even more concentrated in cities, leaving many fewer people to tell first-hand stories about the impacts of mining.
In the six weeks I’ve spent in Melbourne and the surrounds, most environmental groups I’ve encountered shy away from talking about coal as an issue. Environment Victoria is campaigning to shut down one coal plant, but the best approach I’ve found has been the Beyond Zero Emissions campaign launched last month and making big waves. The plan’s first section, the stationary sources report, details how the country can switch to 100% renewable energy for stationary power sources in 10 years. Transportation, industry, agriculture and others to come.
Compared to the US, I see Australia as a smaller and more focused puzzle to work out as we push for a just and sustainable future. We need to directly confront how much of the economy and power system relies on coal, call attention to how destructive that coal is, and propose solutions at the scale necessary to replace it. Events like the Neng Sheng running aground serve to re-focus attention on the issue at hand – how our economy processes coal and what we should do about it.
I can’t believe it! A huge coal ship in a restricted area of the Great Barrier reef. Key ingredients for a disaster!
Thanks for this post, Morgan. One thing I find interesting is that so many people in Australia are outraged about this accident because they feel the Great Barrier Reef is a national treasure – yet the truth is that it’s the coal which actually makes it to its destination and is burned for electricity or industry that presents a greater threat to coral reefs than this accident. The science clearly shows coral reefs everywhere will not be able to survive even a small increase in global temperatures. A coal tanker slamming into a pristine coral reef ecoystem is bad – but the effect burning that coal will have on the global climate will be far worse.
It is a big fault of the captain careless! Well nobody’s perfect all problem must have the solution.
the ship cannot be moved from there….it will be a disaster…soon!
Thanks for this informational post. I couldn’t believe it either when I first heard the news. It’s very sad, and once again, money seems to be the bigger priority than taking care of the planet and all living things.
Hi Morgan– saw your post on the front page. It’s such sad news. It’s not as if the Barrier Reef was already doing all that well. This is the last thing it needs.
Once the GBR is gone, it’s gone. Not forever but well beyond our puny lifetimes.
We have the ability to manage our technology to prevent disasters like this in spite of the failing of one or even several humans. The question then, is what radar and communications facilities monitors shipping in the area of the Great Barrier Reef and why wasn’t it adequate?
This reminds me of the Exxon Valdez which went aground in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, spilling crude oil and doing incredible damage. In that case the shipping companies were forced to navigate dangerous waters after the local fishermen petitioned the US Coast Guard to keep them away from the safer, deep-water passages where the fishing was best. The US Coast Guard promised that every ship would be very closely monitored on radar as it passed through so it could be warned immediately if it was moving out of the narrow shipping lane. But the Coast Guard wasn’t watching and the Valdez grounded due to a navigational error. There were accusations the Captain had been drinking (perhaps, but he was also off-duty), the mate on the bridge wasn’t qualified (but he passed all the Coast Guard qualification requirements), etc. while the underlying issue was ignored – why hadn’t the Coast Guard been monitoring the ship’s passage as promised?
In this case the ship was 19 miles out of the shipping lane. It takes a ship like that more than an hour, often more than 2 hours, to travel that far! Who wasn’t watching aboard the ship and ashore? Why?
The captain should definitely be sanctioned for taking the shortcut across such a vulnerable area as the Great Barrier Reef. But I want to point out one detail, that the coal on the ship was not for power generation, but for steelmaking. It is metallurgical, or coking, coal.
Great write up Morgan – We linked to this from our Helping Hands Charity circle in increase awareness at blogs.myspace.com/TimFrentz
cheers.
TF
It’s pretty disappointing to hear that lots of these ships are taking “shortcuts” through the Great Barrier Reif!
Trained Pilots leading these unenviable craft should be a minimum legal requirement through this area.
However, human greed lives in a cocoon of haste so I won’t be holding my breath for change.
Horrible event! simply horrble.
I can’t believe people can be so careless especially when environmental protection has become such a huge priority…Wonder what the captain was doing, sailing the ship 1 mile away from shipping lanes. Worst of all, in restricted ocean! Is this pure negligence or an attempt to take a shortcut to save delivery time?
This is such a disaster. We don’t realize how precious the treasures in reefs are, how beautiful and different life there is. And…most of all, we are completely alien in understanding how important those reefs are for our own health. People nowadays are so careless, that’s never to forgive. and our biggest punishment for being so, would be to lose this beautiful reef. I am a professional diver and well aware of the fact that we humans are the cause of ALL loss of reefs. I can’t even believe this happened. Let’s pray for the best…
Thanks for this informational post.
Oh My god! Thats soo sad! Those man, or the bosses that send them should die! They are destructing our planet!
Let’s put the blame where it belongs here. The cause appears to be stupidity, not coal and oil. Only a fool takes a ship that large out of shipping channels in dangerous (and reefs are always dangerous in a ship) waters. It happened to be a coal ship, but could have as easily been a shipload of grain, or machinery …. whatever.
Use of renewable energy is a good goal where feasible. Of course not all climates are as conducive as others. The New England region of the US for example presents some challenges that might limit solar production such as short cloudy days much of the winter. Then of course there are the NIMBYers who will oppose anything in their area. In this case however, it appears the coal in question was coke coal destined for steel production. As such there isn’t a suitable substitute and no number of windmills and solar panels would make a difference, you still need coke to make steel, even from recycled steel.
So it’s just stuck there? Wow, don’t they have like…shipping lanes?
Thanks for all the comments. Looks like WordPress promoted this to the front page, so I hope you all enjoyed the seeing the site for possibly the first time.
In response to ‘hisfool’: the blame for hitting the reef seems to lie on the stupidity of the ship captain. We can speculate about the company pressuring them to cut corners or take chances to increase times, but we need to wait for the full report before we judge that. But it is a fact that this ship would not have been there if Australia wasn’t exporting coal. And its a fact that China’s demand for coal is rapidly exploiting Australia’s natural resources, at great cost to its environment. That needs to be called out and criticized.
removed, refloated
http://www.euronews.net/2010/04/13/cargo-ship-removed-from-great-barrier-reef/
Great Barrier Reef is major tourist attraction for the Australia from all around the world. This very bad for the corals of reef, it effects on the atmosphere of reef.