(Personal disclaimer at bottom).
There's a cargo ship on fire in the mid-Atlantic. It's been on fire since the 16th.
It's also adrift. It's crew was completely evacuated very quickly. That's ... odd.
Firefighting ships are on their way to fight the fire. They are expected to arrive on Sunday.
The most telling clue is that the ship is not leaking fuel. Cargo ships run on something called bunker fuel. It's a fairly heavy, nasty, oil, stored in tanks around the perimeter of the ship, often below the waterline. Ships in trouble always leak oil. It's ... odd that this one is not.
The ship is big, but not huge. It's rated to carry 6,400 cargo containers.
It was loaded in Germany, and what we know is that a lot of that cargo appears to be cars. Figure up to 6,400 of them. VW has confirmed that it has roughly 4,000 cars on the ship. There are about 200 Bentleys confirmed too.
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Here's the speculation.
Why would ship be on fire? Why would it's crew evacuate almost immediately, and completely? Why would there be no oil slick indicative of a hull breach?
I suspect the ship may be loaded with electric cars, and they had a battery fire in an interior cargo hold that they could not control.
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Here's the thing.
Batteries, particularly ones designed to deliver a lot of power, like those in cars, are capable of spontaneous combustion, but can also be ignited by surrounding fires.
Batteries burn very hot. Contemporary rechargeable batteries contain alkali metals that are capable of continuing to burn under water. In fact, their fires can't be put out with water. For large ones, in confined spaces, you typically drown them in carbon dioxide (or powders, like sand and graphite).
Electric car batteries complexes often weigh 1000 to 1500 pounds.
Batteries are also a much bigger environmental hazard than most people recognize. "Lithium" batteries require cathodes that are not lithium, and depending on the manufacturer contain cobalt, manganese, nickel, and aluminum. Cobalt is toxic to plankton. So is nickel.
Where are they going to get a volume dry ice or sand, that's a significant fraction of the size of a container ship, to dowse the fire, in the middle of the ocean?
And, if not, how long until the hull gets hot enough to breach, and it starts pouring cars onto the abyssal plain?
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Do note that while there is media coverage of this, there's not going to be much interest in a container ship fire if they can't get out to see it. Cargo ships sink on the high seas every year or two, without much media attention.
Without minimizing the issue, oil spills related to shipping get excessive coverage because 1) slicks float and are visible, and 2) charismatic fauna are harmed.
Also note, no one is going to pay much attention to the pollution if it's in international waters (all seagoing ships routinely dump in international waters without much media attention).. Not much better, few are going to pay attention to the pollution if its in the maritime exclusive economic zone of ... Portugal.
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Disclaimer: I am not a car nut, but I love electric cars. I am all about acceleration and electric cars deliver. And while I'm informed enough to know that they don't reduce pollution, but rather just relocate it from the tailpipe, I do think they're a good idea in the western part of the Americas, where the mountains run north-south.
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