Hazard to navigation?
Danish ‘Safety Ship’ OMS Pollux, leaking oil after colliding with Morecambe Bay wind turbine
A SHIP is leaking diesel after crashing into a wind turbine off the coast of Morecambe Bay.
Liverpool Coastguard has been in attendance since just after 9am this morning co-ordinating the recovery of the stricken vessel which collided with part of a turbine at Walney Wind Farm.
OMS Pollux has since been leaking marine gas oil, or diesel.
The Danish-registered vessel, with a crew of around 18 on board, remains afloat and there are no reported injuries.
The coastguard revealed that since hitting the turbine pile it has managed to move under its own power to a location north of the port of Liverpool, taking it away from ‘environmentally sensitive areas’.
h/t to WUWT reader “saveenergy”
Semantically ironic open and shut case. Ship captain’s fault, no excuses. He’s going to have a hard time keeping his license.
OMG! Don’t they have radar? Glad they are safe anyway, and the wind turbine kept turning, must be an enormous pile it is sitting on. Could have been worse if it fell on the boat.
Pollux to Liverpool-
The ship, owned by Danish firm Offshore Marine Services, was refused entry to Barrow docks because it was leaking diesel oil as a result of the collision.
The ship’s crew was able to move under it’s own steam and was told to await further instruction in waters away from environmentally-sensitive areas.
However, unlike heavier forms of fuel, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said marine gas oil should evaporate or disperse naturally.
After a 36-hour wait, circling in the Irish Sea, the ship was allowed to enter Liverpool Docks. The ship arrived at Birkenhead at around 4pm Friday 14th.
Details – http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/7427166/vessel:OMS_POLLUX
We were walking on Silecroft Beach three or four weeks back, it was a lovely sunny and breezy day…..and how many of these ghastly things were generating electricity….you guessed it, not a single one!! The seascape has been blighted by these dreadful things but maybe better out there than spoiling the Lake District, I suppose.
bushbunny says:
August 15, 2014 at 10:24 pm
“… must be an enormous pile it is sitting on. …”
—
Better get that seen to.
It could’t have been that “evvironmentally sensitive” of an area if they could simply dump millions of tons of foreign material into the bay to create windmill pylons
US Constitution and the Magna Carta? I didn’t make that connection. The US Constitution has lots borrowed from the Constitution of the Six Nations Indians which predates it. Is there any irony in that?
The Magna Carta is a tax assessment – a list of all land owned in England and its value for
tax purposes: it’s of no use to America. The US Bil of Rights probably has some foundation
in the English Bill of Rights.
Good grief – surely the Danes have enough of these monstrosities of their own to collide with? But, oh no, they have to come over here to play!
these wind turbines leak like Trabants.
http://wcfn.org/2014/07/02/wind-turbines-contaminate/
( “Sleepalot says: August 16, 2014 at 7:56 am
The Magna Carta is a tax assessment – a list of all land owned in England and its value for
tax purposes:” )
No Sleepalot, you are mistaken
Magna Carta Libertatum or The Great Charter of the Liberties of England is the foundation of the freedom of the individual in England & Wales & limited the power of the monarchy.
It was sealed under oath by King John at Runnymede, England, on 15 June 1215
You are probably thinking of the Domesday Book 1086.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday/
It’s primary purpose was to ascertain and record the fiscal rights of the king
I suspect they put these things out of sea, that no one owns the land. Paying landowners $15,000 a year rental for one, is really offsetting the so called claim they are cheap.
Yes, the Magna Carter signed at Runnymead was signed by King John, after he succeeded Richard the Lion heart. I don’t think he honored it either.
I don’t think many know that the Plantagets were really French speaking they owned a hell of a lot of France when Henry II took the throne. No wonder the French didn’t like us for hundreds of years.
( “bushbunny says: August 16, 2014 at 9:27 pm
I suspect they put these things out of sea, that no one owns the land.” )
The UK seabed is owned by ‘The Crown Estate’; they lease areas for development –
http://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/energy-and-infrastructure/offshore-wind-energy/our-portfolio/
Ah well that’s better than a consortium of private owners. The crown is not royalty it is the country.
Golly! Such an instant repudiation of non-fossil energy, what with a single accident. Yes.
As an American I can picture whatever irony some of the commentators alluded to. Imagine the irony of a ship, nearly empty of fossil fuels since the poor thing isn’t a tanker, carrying only a meager supply to get it from place to place, horrifically knocking a fully-loaded offshore wind turbine down into the sea.
All that wind, spreading out from the turbine, spreading a wind-slick onto the water and the shorelines. Gulls, slicked with stiff breezes. Fish blown clean out of the water.
If only it had been an oil rig the ship hit – oh, the horror….
b fagan:
I read your nonsense at August 17, 2014 at 2:00 am.
I understand your post to be a statement that – unlike me – you are not being forced to pay for the expensive, polluting and environmentally damaging off-shore bird swatters. Those of us who are being forced – and know we are being forced – do not share your smug stupidity.
Richard
@ur momisugly saveenergy: Yes, you’re right.
Irony.
Language evolves and is given meaning by those that speak it. We Brits cant dictate to Americans, Indians, Australians etc on its usage apart from correcting clear mistakes. Worldwide developments in English eventually feed back to Britain. The language is a global project.
When offshore wind turbines are eventually decommissioned it will be very important to ensure that the foundation piles are removed so that they do not present a submerged risk to shipping.
On land they take up two acres of concrete, what is the size of these? Anyway, one would think the position they were placed would be very shallow waters anyway. What was a ship doing there.
b fagan says
( “As an American I can picture whatever irony some of the commentators alluded to. Imagine the irony of a ship, nearly empty of fossil fuels since the poor thing isn’t a tanker, carrying only a meager supply to get it from place to place, horrifically knocking a fully-loaded offshore wind turbine down into the sea.” )
Oh, the irony of an American (with poor comprehension skills) who misses the ironic point of a ‘Standby SAFETY vessel’ hitting an offshore wind turbine & dumping an oil slick in an ‘environmentally sensitive areas’
& where do you get the idea wind turbines are “non-fossil energy” ????
bushbunny says: “What was a ship doing there.” )
It is a Standby safety vessel – servicing the turbines
http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/7427166/vessel:OMS_POLLUX
bushbunny
Walney Wind Farm stands in ≈ 20m 65ft of water
From Merriam-Webster online dictionary: “Irony : a situation that is strange or funny because things happen in a way that seems to be the opposite of what you expected”
Now, Big Jim. The purpose of windmills is to reduce our dependence upon fossil fuels (you can argue, and I will not dispute, that windmills will not actually accomplish that purpose, but that IS, at least nominally, the purpose of them). One of the many bad things about fossil fuels is the possibility of an ocean-going, fossil-fuel-carrying ship colliding with something and SPILLING fossil fuels into the ocean (In this case, it was the ship’s OWN supply of diesel fuel that spilled, not crude oil that was being transported, and the amount spilled was negligible, but nevertheless, the danger of spilling fossil fuels is the issue). Therefore, one of the things that one (not you nor I, but one who actually BELIEVES the crap coming from the alarmists) might EXPECT, as a consequence of the presence of windmills, is the prevention of fossil fuel spills into the ocean (or at least a reduction in the probability thereof). In this case, it can be said that the presence of that windmill CAUSED a fuel spill into the ocean (admittedly, there were other causes, probably first among them being pilot error, but the presence of the windmill was at least a contributing factor). And so, one of the things that was EXPECTED to be PREVENTED by windmills, was, in this case, actually CAUSED by a windmill. Is “prevented” not the opposite of “caused”? If you like, you can split hairs about the difference between “preventing” and “reducing the probability of”. If you do so, then I would respond that the opposite of “reducing the probability of” is “increasing the probability of”. And clearly, in this case, the presence of that windmill increased (from 0 to some positive value) the probability of that ship colliding with it and spilling fossil fuel. Therefore, however you slice it, it was an IRONIC event, and Mr. Watts was correct in using that word.
And YES, it IS ironic to get run over by an ambulance, whether the ambulance was on its way to save you or not. The purpose of an ambulance is to save lives (either indirectly, by transporting them to an emergency room, or directly, via the equipment and personnel inside the ambulance). In this case, it ended (or at least endangered) a life. Killing (or even injuring) a person is exactly the OPPOSITE of what one would expect an ambulance to do. Or would you constrain the word’s usage in such a way that the person killed by the ambulance must be exactly the same person who was counting on it to save his life? If so, then I guess you Brits don’t use the word “irony” much, considering all the hoops you have to jump through to make it technically true. So I’ll tell you what, Big Jim; why don’t you just consider the American English word “irony” to be a completely separate word from the British English word “irony”, which just happens to be spelled the same way? You know, like “torch”. Speaking of which, you have no business calling us out for using a word to describe something that is merely similar to the technical definition of the word, when you did the same thing with the word “torch”, as used to indicate a flashlight. And you know what, Big Jim? I’d call THAT “irony” too. Because your issue with our “misuse” of the word “irony” is exactly the opposite of what one would expect given your own misuse of the word “torch”
I do, however, agree with you on the misuse of the word “literally”. In fact, I agree with you 110%.
Driving down into Barrow and the first sight of the Irish Sea is ruined by these monstrosities. And now, this.