Speaker 1: You're listening to AC N A podcast.
Speaker 1: It's fair to say Singapore's been shocked and a bit
Speaker 1: saddened by the fallout of the oil spill that happened
Speaker 1: on June 14 weeks on the situation is still unfolding,
Speaker 1: containing thousands of tons of oil in the environment is
Speaker 1: a major challenge and the cleanup will take a long time.
Speaker 1: Even as we wean off fossil fuels, oil is all
Speaker 1: around us. Today. We're looking at how to live with it.
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to climate conversations. I'm Jack Ford, coming
Speaker 1: to you from Bangkok and Hello Li Ling Tan in Singapore.
Speaker 1: I hope you're good. Yes, I am. Thank you very
Speaker 1: much for asking. I hope you are too. I am. Now,
Speaker 1: this story though has really captured people's attentions and emotions,
Speaker 1: hasn't it? And we will get into the nitty gritty.
Speaker 1: But what sort
Speaker 1: feelings have you experienced? Kind of seeing all these horrible
Speaker 1: images of oil in what is normally a reasonably clean environment? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really jarring and very surreal. A lot of the
Speaker 1: attention was along the beaches of Sentosa. A lot of
Speaker 1: the spill was there and I go there a lot,
Speaker 1: usually to the beach clubs at Tanjong Beach. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you've been there too. These are beach clubs where family
Speaker 1: go during the day and party people go at night
Speaker 1: and these are also the beaches where our Children play.
Speaker 1: And for our international listeners, the hotel that hosted the
Speaker 1: Trump Kim Summit is right there to Capella Sentosa, right
Speaker 1: by Palawan Beach. So to see these pictures of the
Speaker 1: oil slick on the water of this getaway destination and
Speaker 1: the blackened sand,
Speaker 1: it's hard to believe, Jack. It's difficult to imagine that
Speaker 1: something like this could happen. So, are you the family
Speaker 1: person going during the day or the party person going
Speaker 1: at night? I will neither deny nor confirm anything. Both actually. Well,
Speaker 1: it depends on what point of my life.
Speaker 1: Gotcha. Gotcha.
Speaker 1: Let's get into our weekly quiz. Everybody's favorite time of
Speaker 1: the episode. We will be talking about alternative marine fuels
Speaker 1: a little bit later. But developing a cleaner global shipping
Speaker 1: fleet is a big challenge. So I would like to
Speaker 1: know how significant do you think the pollution is from
Speaker 1: one typical large shipping container vessel? One of those big
Speaker 1: ships that you probably see every day.
Speaker 1: If you live in a condominium, you're looking into the sea,
Speaker 1: the Malacca Strait, you'll see these vessels everywhere. One of them,
Speaker 1: is it the same amount of pollution as 50,000 cars
Speaker 1: b the same as a million cars? And for context,
Speaker 1: that's about how many cars Singapore has in total or
Speaker 1: c the same as 50 million cars. Le Ling any
Speaker 1: early thoughts or you wanna save it to the end.
Speaker 1: I'll save it to the end.
Speaker 1: All right. It's news time, Le Ling. What stories have
Speaker 1: captured your attention from the newsroom this week? Well, the
Speaker 1: first one comes from your motherland. Time is running out
Speaker 1: to save the Great Barrier Reef. Jack. That's right, Australia.
Speaker 1: So time is running out to save the Great Barrier
Speaker 1: Reef but not so bad that it needs to be
Speaker 1: on the unesco's list of endangered heritage sites. Yet,
Speaker 1: a new report from the UN S Education science and
Speaker 1: cultural arms says the reef remains under serious threat and
Speaker 1: urgent action is needed to protect it. This includes calls
Speaker 1: for more ambitious climate targets. It's among a list of
Speaker 1: recommendations from the UNESCO report about preserving the reef status
Speaker 1: as a world heritage site, but the report stopped short
Speaker 1: of recommending that the reef be placed on its list
Speaker 1: of endangered heritage
Speaker 1: site, something that Australia wants to avoid. Now, it did
Speaker 1: however suggest that Australia submit a progress report by February
Speaker 1: next year. The committee could consider including the reef in
Speaker 1: its list of endangered sites. Later in 2026. The report
Speaker 1: cited concerns about pollution from land clearing that then flow
Speaker 1: into the reef about invasive starfish that feed on the
Speaker 1: coral as well as the mass coral bleaching over the
Speaker 1: past few months. And it wants Australia to make
Speaker 1: the extent of coral die off from this latest bleaching
Speaker 1: event going on for a couple of years and particularly
Speaker 1: the previous Australian government was very strong on not having
Speaker 1: the reef listed as endangered, something that it considers a
Speaker 1: hammer blow to one of the most important sites that
Speaker 1: Australia has. But something has to be done. And I
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of this is just putting our
Speaker 1: head in the sand pretending that there's not a big problem.
Speaker 1: There's clearly issues at the reef. Why does Australia not
Speaker 1: want to be on the endangered heritage sites for the reef?
Speaker 1: Why not? It suggests to me that there will be
Speaker 1: blame placed on the lack of protections that have been implemented,
Speaker 1: that activity
Speaker 1: that continue all around the reef, including mining, including shipping
Speaker 1: continues and that is putting the reef at further risk.
Speaker 1: So there's a political angle to that. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of politics being played between the government and unesco interesting
Speaker 1: space to watch. I think.
Speaker 1: So. Next up, Jack remember how just over a month
Speaker 1: ago before the oil spill in Singapore took up all
Speaker 1: our head space here. What the big news was the
Speaker 1: extreme turbulence on SQ 321 that led to one death
Speaker 1: and more than 100 people injured. That's like just over
Speaker 1: a month ago, it seems much longer than that, doesn't it? Well,
Speaker 1: we got word this week of technology that can reduce
Speaker 1: the danger of air turbulence. Something that is reportedly becoming
Speaker 1: much more common due to climate change.
Speaker 1: And interestingly, it's not new technology. It's actually something that's
Speaker 1: already being used in self driving cars. Jack, you ever
Speaker 1: heard of Lidar? I've heard of it, but I don't
Speaker 1: have a self driving car. So maybe you better explain
Speaker 1: it to me. So it's a type of 3D laser
Speaker 1: scanning technology that can apparently also detect clear air turbulence
Speaker 1: up to 20 miles or 32 kilometers ahead of an aircraft.
Speaker 1: And this is according to a
Speaker 1: specialist Chang Chin Wei in an interview with media Corp
Speaker 1: program talking point. Now Chung explains how lidar can detect
Speaker 1: clear air turbulence in the absence of water vapors, which
Speaker 1: current weather radar systems cannot do. And it does this
Speaker 1: by picking up the movement of air molecules and sending
Speaker 1: this data back to the pilots on a screen. Now
Speaker 1: it's color coded. So red means the object is closer
Speaker 1: to the aircraft lighter color means it's further away.
Speaker 1: The question of course is when can it deploy for
Speaker 1: aircraft use? Cheng says about 3 to 10 years possibly
Speaker 1: because there's still a lot of hurdles to overcome, there's
Speaker 1: a need for high processing power and that also requires
Speaker 1: a big lighter unit which adds weight to the aircraft
Speaker 1: in flight. Now altitude also affects the range of detection.
Speaker 1: Hm Super interesting and it seems like something in terms
Speaker 1: of safety that would be really useful. We've heard since
Speaker 1: the Singapore Airlines incident,
Speaker 1: a bunch of other planes have been encountering something similar.
Speaker 1: We know that climate change is obviously making turbulence worse
Speaker 1: and more frequent. Yeah, maybe three years would be better
Speaker 1: in 10 years. If we're waiting 10 years, then might
Speaker 1: take some investment from some of these airlines as well.
Speaker 1: The good news is it's already existing tax. So it's
Speaker 1: not something that needs a longer runway to runway, needs
Speaker 1: a longer runway to deploy. Ok, let's go to our
Speaker 1: main story this week,
Speaker 1: around 400 metric tons of oil was spilled following Friday's
Speaker 1: shipping crash when a dredger struck a bunker vessel and
Speaker 1: ruptured an oil tank. And where does all that oily
Speaker 1: sand go? A big part of cleaning up last Friday's
Speaker 1: oil spill involves removing and treating oil soaked sand from
Speaker 1: affected shorelines. Singapore is deploying more oil absorb
Speaker 1: booms to contain the oil spill along the southern shores.
Speaker 1: Two kingfishers drenched in oil have already died despite being rescued.
Speaker 1: Plans to monitor wildlife with surveys and long term research
Speaker 1: are in the works. The next stage of cleaning could
Speaker 1: take up to three months with sea activities only resuming
Speaker 1: after the water is repeatedly tested,
Speaker 1: oil and water don't mix. It's an old saying and
Speaker 1: when it comes to these marine or industrial incidents, it's
Speaker 1: true and we hate to see it happen. The good
Speaker 1: news generally is that the number of accidents and the
Speaker 1: amounts of oil being spilled around the world is reducing.
Speaker 1: In the 19 seventies every year, there were 79 spills
Speaker 1: of over seven tons of oil on average. Now in
Speaker 1: 2023 there were only 10,
Speaker 1: the average this decade is 6.8. Let's kind of look
Speaker 1: at the biggest oil spills. I think we can kind
Speaker 1: of put the Singapore spill into context a little bit.
Speaker 1: The biggest ever Li Ling. You probably don't remember this
Speaker 1: one in 1910 was the Lake View Gusher in California.
Speaker 1: It released an estimated 378 million gallons of crude oil,
Speaker 1: some one
Speaker 1: 0.2 million tons. And then during the Gulf War, not
Speaker 1: a single oil spill, but the biggest oil disaster the
Speaker 1: world has ever seen where especially in Kuwait, billions of
Speaker 1: gallons were spilled and burnt. And of course, something that
Speaker 1: you probably do remember and we all remember the Deepwater
Speaker 1: Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. That
Speaker 1: was a shocking incident. Yeah, it was and you know,
Speaker 1: we were in the US at the time and following
Speaker 1: it very closely
Speaker 1: remember that this spill kept on going for about five
Speaker 1: months from April to September. It was astonishing how long
Speaker 1: it took to. Yeah, and I remember how mind boggling
Speaker 1: it was that we were seeing this oil just gushing
Speaker 1: out from the pipe on the ocean floor happening in
Speaker 1: real time and how helpless we all felt because for
Speaker 1: so long, nothing could be done to stop it. But
Speaker 1: the difference, that was an ocean rig, the Lakeview was
Speaker 1: an oil well, the Gulf War
Speaker 1: was a war. So these spills from ships. So there's
Speaker 1: a little bit of a difference to the situation we're
Speaker 1: talking about. Now. That's correct. That's correct. And when you
Speaker 1: compare apples to apples, we need to consider shipping oil
Speaker 1: spills like the Exxon Valdez Supertanker spill of 1989. I
Speaker 1: think for a lot of people that's still fresh in
Speaker 1: their minds, that was more than 37,000 tons of oil spilled.
Speaker 1: Now Singapore's largest maritime oil spill was about 28,000 tons
Speaker 1: when two tankers collected
Speaker 1: in 1997. So if you think about the 400 tons
Speaker 1: spilled in this latest incident here in Singapore, it is
Speaker 1: small in comparison but still the damage is done. Exactly right. Now,
Speaker 1: why does it happen? You've been there? You've kind of
Speaker 1: looked at the forensics of this incident. A lot of
Speaker 1: it has been about human error, technical issues and accidents,
Speaker 1: even weather conditions like hurricanes can cause incidents resulting in
Speaker 1: oil spills. So when it comes to these oil spills
Speaker 1: from ships,
Speaker 1: the question that comes up and something that struck my
Speaker 1: mind initially, when I saw this incident in Singapore is
Speaker 1: whether these overly congested shipping ports have something to do
Speaker 1: with it. That's a very valid question. And you're not
Speaker 1: alone in asking this. Others have also asked and Singapore's
Speaker 1: government says this spill here wasn't a result of congestion
Speaker 1: and preliminary findings show that it was actually caused by
Speaker 1: the tragical losing engine and steering controls. The Singapore government
Speaker 1: also said that the port water
Speaker 1: here and the anchorages are not congested. But it's a
Speaker 1: valid question, especially when you consider that this is one
Speaker 1: of the world's busiest ports and whether having more vessels
Speaker 1: in the water increases the risk. I think the simple
Speaker 1: fact is there are increasing concerns all around the world
Speaker 1: that just by having more vessels in the water carrying
Speaker 1: large amounts of toxic cargoes, incidents can keep on happening.
Speaker 1: And the stakes we know are so high for important
Speaker 1: ecosystems and the communities that rely on them.
Speaker 1: So I want to look at the case of the Philippines,
Speaker 1: a story called Black Waters that I put together last
Speaker 1: year in February about seven kilometers offshore from the island
Speaker 1: province of Oriental Mindoro, a tanker named Mt Princess Empress
Speaker 1: sank in rough sea conditions. Now it had a toxic
Speaker 1: cargo of 800,000 L of industrial oil which began spilling
Speaker 1: into one of the world's most important biodiversity hotspots.
Speaker 1: It's called the Verde Island Passage and it's a vital
Speaker 1: waterway that separates Luzon and Medora. And now this is
Speaker 1: part of the coral triangle and the VIP as they
Speaker 1: like to call it over there is kind of the
Speaker 1: center of the center of global shore fish biodiversity and
Speaker 1: it's estimated to support about 2 million people in terms
Speaker 1: of food and livelihoods. So it's not the kind of
Speaker 1: place where you want industrial oil accidents happening.
Speaker 1: It's also this fisheries hub. It's a burgeoning e tourism
Speaker 1: site and critical shipping pathway. So basically after the spill,
Speaker 1: the same things you've seen in Singapore happen there
Speaker 1: across this vast shoreline in the Philippines. The Hazmat suits
Speaker 1: the blobs of oil appearing in the sand. And sadly,
Speaker 1: for many locals there, the decimation of their local fishing
Speaker 1: industry now all of it was cleaned up, but people
Speaker 1: are still really scared and there's a fear that the
Speaker 1: environment and local people's livelihoods are being imperiled by a
Speaker 1: regional rush to further develop the fossil fuel industry, which
Speaker 1: I think goes at odds to what we understand of
Speaker 1: the climate change agenda
Speaker 1: and especially this is happening in the form of liquefied
Speaker 1: natural gas hubs or LNG and potentially more activated oil
Speaker 1: and gas fields, offshore oil and gas fields and then
Speaker 1: heavy shipping and those potentially dangerous cargoes are one of
Speaker 1: the symptoms of the growth of that industry. And so
Speaker 1: too is the leakage of heavy metals into waterways and
Speaker 1: heightened interest in the expansion of offshore oil and gas drilling.
Speaker 1: So I did an interview with Ivan Andres. He's from
Speaker 1: the Center for Energy Ecology and Development or seed. It's
Speaker 1: a Philippine NGO focused on sustainable energy industry and governments
Speaker 1: and they've been monitoring the situation closely. Um
Speaker 2: The most recent pressure that the VIP felt we believe
Speaker 2: are the impacts of the fossil gas industries. We saw
Speaker 2: the impact of bankers passing through the Red Island Passage.
Speaker 2: And as a result, there are locations of oil spills
Speaker 2: both documented and undocumented because there are, there are capsizing
Speaker 2: of ships in the area that are not being picked
Speaker 2: up by the media.
Speaker 2: And we see that as the fossil gas industries and
Speaker 2: the LNG terminals are being built more and more tankers,
Speaker 2: LNG tankers will be able to pass through the area.
Speaker 2: And of course, with the elevated number of these tankers
Speaker 2: in the area, there is more chances of capsizing and
Speaker 2: catastrophic events such as the one we saw in Oriental mind.
Speaker 1: Of course, Singapore is a major importer of LNG liquefied
Speaker 1: natural gas. It's the region's second largest gas importer and
Speaker 1: has been expanding its existing LNG importing facility and then
Speaker 1: it also imports large amounts of oil and petroleum. So
Speaker 1: there are inevitably toxic cargoes in the surrounding waters all
Speaker 1: the time and that has to be carefully managed. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And as renewables increasingly
Speaker 1: enter the energy mix, you'd expect that these movements of
Speaker 1: fossil fuels will inevitably reduce. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: we are actually not weaning off oil as quickly as
Speaker 1: you might expect. Now, OPEC which is the collective of
Speaker 1: major oil producing nations predicts that the world will be
Speaker 1: using more oil in 2045 than it does today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's really discouraging when you think about that
Speaker 1: and you know, Jack, when it comes to greening the
Speaker 1: maritime industry, there is a will to do that but
Speaker 1: not enough, I suppose, just based on what we're hearing
Speaker 1: from countries in the region, it's challenging for sure. But
Speaker 1: a lot of it also has to do with the
Speaker 1: lack of deployable alternatives. The future we know is in
Speaker 1: greening the fuel, greening maritime fuel, but most ships
Speaker 1: still run on conventional fuel. And although we are seeing
Speaker 1: growth in emerging alternatives like ammonia and methanol, these synthetic
Speaker 1: fuels may be more sustainable but not zero carbon. They're
Speaker 1: also still very expensive and much of their green value
Speaker 1: will be in greening the hydrogen that they're made from
Speaker 1: and lowering the cost of production.
Speaker 1: We are clearly not there yet and there's also the
Speaker 1: safety issue. Ammonia is known to be highly toxic and
Speaker 1: dangerous in the event of a spill, a ship sinking
Speaker 1: with a cargo of ammonia could potentially sterilize quote unquote
Speaker 1: cubic miles of ocean. And that's according to one leading
Speaker 1: expert on the issue
Speaker 1: and that's pretty scary. Now, there are also safety concerns
Speaker 1: around methanol as it is also toxic and flammable and
Speaker 1: must be handled carefully. Lots of barriers to greening up
Speaker 1: the industry, but maybe let's not forget, electric, it may
Speaker 1: not be the silver bullet, but there are a lot
Speaker 1: of ferries especially in Europe and also in Thailand, we
Speaker 1: are starting to see
Speaker 1: that are turning to battery powered motors and I think
Speaker 1: for situations where distance isn't a major factor or you
Speaker 1: have close to shore operations, it does seem very practical.
Speaker 1: And we've discussed before that Singapore is looking at, rolling
Speaker 1: out more of these types of vessels. And I'm also
Speaker 1: really on board the wind train
Speaker 1: or the wind ship in this case. Yeah, let's go
Speaker 1: old school. Like 20 commercial cargo ships are already using
Speaker 1: wind power to reduce their fuel use. So imagine a
Speaker 1: world where the wind rules again. Don't rule it out
Speaker 1: for the sake of not having to deal with more
Speaker 1: of these types of horrible spills year on year.
Speaker 1: And they're also solar powered boats. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've heard or seen them. I've read a bit about them.
Speaker 1: Not many but they exist and there's even a cruise
Speaker 1: company that plans to launch an electric ship with retractable
Speaker 1: cells that have solar panels on them. Can you imagine
Speaker 1: this solar cells? So there you go, electricity from wind
Speaker 1: and the sun all in one.
Speaker 1: Ok. Let's get our answer to the quiz to repeat
Speaker 1: the question. How significant do you think the pollution is
Speaker 1: from one typical large shipping container vessel? Is it the
Speaker 1: same as 50,000 cars,
Speaker 1: the same as a million cars or the same as
Speaker 1: 50 million cars? Those are all very different options. So 50,000, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. But you know, different variations of big so
Speaker 1: 50,000 cars. I think it's too small. A million cars.
Speaker 1: It sounds like that is a reasonable middle ground. 50
Speaker 1: million cars is a lot, but we're talking about a
Speaker 1: huge shipping container vessel
Speaker 1: carrying all that fuel. So I hope it's not 50
Speaker 1: million cars, but I'm gonna go with that. Actually, you're
Speaker 1: going with 50 million. I'm going with bold, a bold
Speaker 1: choice and you are correct. It is 50 million cars.
Speaker 1: And this, we're talking about a large modern vessel astonishing
Speaker 1: and further to that, the 15 largest ships in the
Speaker 1: world
Speaker 1: emit as much nitrogen oxide and sulfur oxide as the
Speaker 1: world's 760 million cars, 15 ships the same as every
Speaker 1: car in the world. And these contribute greatly to obviously
Speaker 1: bad air in cities and they also cause diseases like
Speaker 1: cancer and asthma.
Speaker 1: So the shipping industry as a whole represents up to 3%
Speaker 1: of global emissions more than the aviation sector and 10%
Speaker 1: of transport emissions. So lots of work to try and
Speaker 1: find solutions here because the difference you can make seems
Speaker 1: like it would be profound. And that's why there are
Speaker 1: global efforts to try to reduce the amount of these
Speaker 1: pollutant
Speaker 1: gasses like sulfur oxide from marine fuel. So in the
Speaker 1: previous episode, we were talking about low sulfur fuel, which
Speaker 1: is what the spill was from this Singapore incident. And
Speaker 1: that was part of efforts to try and manage or
Speaker 1: reduce the amount of sulfur content in the fuel and
Speaker 1: Singapore suffers from bad air. I'm sure you know about it.
Speaker 1: A lot of that is because of the shipping industry.
Speaker 1: So let's clean it up. We can have cleaner air
Speaker 1: to breathe for everybody.
Speaker 1: All right, that's it for climate conversations this week. Thank you.
Speaker 1: As always for your company. Every Thursday, we have a
Speaker 1: new episode and good to have you all here today
Speaker 1: and we hope to catch up again real soon. Bye
Speaker 1: for now. I'm Li Ling Tan and I'm Jack Boyd.
Speaker 1: Thanks as always as well to the team that put
Speaker 1: together this podcast, Tiffany Janani, Jahari, Kristina Robert and Sai Ye.