Made on Earth

by Wolfgang Korn

  Even the tanker operators themselves don’t seem to like oil tankers, which is resulting in fewer being built. Within the next few years, there will be a shortage of tankers in the oil transport industry. If there is a shortage of tankers, then older, less seaworthy tankers will have to remain in service for longer, which will increase the chances of some kind of accident, resulting in an oil catastrophe. This will give tankers an even worse reputation, and so the cycle goes on . . .

  Could it really be that everyone in the world hates oil tankers? Apparently not. Raul has managed to find a small group of tanker fans online. Like train spotters, there are a few hardcore enthusiasts who spend their spare time ambushing tanker ships in harbours and straits so they can take photographs of them and post them online. Images and information on just about every kind of tanker ship are shared and discussed on the tanker fans’ forum. On a page called, ‘Mystery Tankers’, users are quizzed for information about any tankers the fans have so far been unable to identify.

  Raul also takes part in online chats about energy and environmental issues. These cover many hotly debated topics, especially the rapidly rising use of oil. Worldwide, we currently use around 85 million barrels of oil a day. A barrel is around 159 litres. Humans use 13,515,000,000 (13 billion, 515 million) litres of oil each day, which means that over the course of a year we use the almost unimaginable sum of 4,932,975,000,000 litres, or in words: 4 trillion, 932 billion, 975 million litres. Three quarters of this total is burnt by industrialised Western nations in the form of petrol, diesel and aircraft fuel. Over the past few years, an increasing number of countries have caught up (and even surpassed) the West in terms of oil consumption. India and China are the most noteworthy, as their energy use has risen astronomically in the last few years, but countries on the outskirts of Europe like Ireland and Poland, or Raul’s homeland Portugal, are also increasing their energy consumption. All in all, the world’s energy use will rise by 50 per cent over the next 20 years. This will mean that more and more goods will be sent around the world, more and more people will travel to far away countries, and more and more cars, ships and aeroplanes will need fuel.

  Raul is a shining example of how things could be different. At home he has installed solar panels on the roof of his house. He has also invested some of his savings in Portugal’s first wind farm, and is always pleased to see the huge wind turbines turning on the North Atlantic coast. He understands however, that the change from burning fossil fuels to using renewable energy sources will not happen overnight. There are many renewable energy sources available: hydroelectric and wind power, solar power and bio gas. But at the current uptake rate, these sources won’t be able to cover even a quarter of the world’s energy needs in 20 years time.

  Raul is also frustrated by other nonsensical ideas about oil tankers that he comes across in online environmental chatrooms. For example, the comment, “The distance oil tankers have to travel to transport oil is the reason petrol is so expensive.”

  “This is not true!” Raul explains to other users in the chatroom. “Renting a super tanker costs anywhere up to $80,000 US dollars a day, which means in comparison to the price of oil, transport barely costs anything. If, for example, we were carrying 1.5 million barrels of oil (240 million litres) over a long distance, say 10,000 kilometres, it would take approximately twenty days for the journey there and back.” Raul works out the calculations in his head. “Twenty days at $80,000 dollars is a total tanker rental cost of $1.6 million dollars, divided by the cargo of 240 million litres of oil, equals a transport cost of approximately $0.0066 dollars per litre! Transportation costs less than half of one per cent of the sale price of a litre of oil.”

  At the same time, someone else involved in the discussion asks the most frequently asked question in the chatroom, “How long will oil supplies last, in light of the world’s increasing demand for energy?”

  Someone called Warner replies, “The government is lying to us all. The oil has almost run out and soon the world will be left in darkness.”

  Raul won’t stand for this kind of scaremongering. “There are plenty of reserves left for the foreseeable future, plus oil extraction technology has recently made great advances,” Raul replies. “Fields that were once overlooked or at great depths can now be found and exploited. At the moment we know of at least 42,000 oil fields, many of which have not yet been explored.”

  “That’s completely wrong,” Warner says. “The largest oil fields are all but used up. And only 300 of these 42,000 fields are economically viable. There will be a dramatic oil shortage within a decade!”

  “No,” Raul disagrees. “In ten years time, oil processing will have developed in ways that are currently too expensive to be economically viable. For example, at the moment, if oil is mixed with sand, we don’t process it, as it is too expensive. The bigger question is when will oil production become so expensive that it is no longer worth producing? When will petrol be too expensive for the average car driver? The production of cost-effective energy depends not only on oil, but also on the discovery of other energy sources and the needs of the consumer. In a recent survey, 80 per cent of European car drivers stated that they would cut down their car use if petrol prices continued to increase.”

  Raul shuts down his computer. While leaving his room and taking the stairs to the ship’s bridge, he goes over the debate in his head. He is amazed by the lack of public knowledge about fossil fuels and the global energy supply. Despite all the modern technology used in the oil industry; GPS systems that can pinpoint the whereabouts of a ship to the metre and instruments that can measure crude oil to the litre, when it comes to questions about the worldwide energy supply, the general public really have no idea.

  22 August 2005

  When the Madras reaches the Bay of Bengal two days later, it sails past more oil platforms rising out of the water. Bangladesh actually has its own offshore oil fields, and the oil is transported through a pipeline to the city of Chittagong. In spite of this, Bangladesh still needs to import oil. Bangladeshi oil needs to be blended with oil from the United Arab Emirates in order to meet Bangladesh’s energy needs. One oil is too sulphurous, the other too viscous (thick and sticky). Mixing the two together creates the perfect blend.

  The water in the Bay of Bengal is slowly turning brown, but not from contamination with crude oil. It is from India’s great rivers bringing their brown waters deep into the bay. Bangladesh is located in the centre of three large rivers, the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna. Over centuries, the place where the three rivers meet has forced the silt they carry to build up and extend the land further and further out to sea. This land is very fertile, but liable to flooding and hurricanes. Chittagong is Bangladesh’s only sea harbour and is situated east of the river delta on the Karnaphuli River.

  Long before the Madras reaches the harbour, it sails past many much older ships. They are obsolete oil tankers, cargo ships and ferries waiting to be dismantled on Chittagong’s beach. In the ship breaking zone, most of the boats are taken apart by hand. Last year, Captain van der Valt wanted to take a closer look at the area, and took a taxi down to the beach. “We used to swim here,” the taxi driver told him. Nowadays, the whole beach is covered in black, sticky oil.

  Half submerged and half on land, the huge ships lie around like beached whales. A cargo ship is having its bow cut away, while the stern of a tanker lies next to it, the rest of its superstructure remaining in the water. There is nowhere to dock, and no wharf where the back-ends of ships can be placed above the water line. A huge crane moves around, swaying to and fro, transporting heavy pieces of iron. Everything else is done by hand using basic hand tools, welding irons, screwdrivers and chisels. The workers look very small next to these vast ships, and very vulnerable.

  “A lot of accidents happen here,” one of the workers told Captain van der Valt. “But our employers just don’t want to know.” Oil and grease from the ships’ machinery and tanks isn’t pumped out into a collecting
reservoir. Instead, it is left on the beach.

  The city of Chittagong is not directly on the beach, but is further inland on a wide river called the Karnaphuli. The river, however, is only six metres deep, which is why Chittagong’s oil harbour is at the mouth of the river, at the end of a long spit of land, far out to sea. As soon as the Madras arrives at the oil harbour, the crude oil is pumped out of the ship into huge tanks. The tanks are already half full with crude oil from the Bangladeshi oil reservoirs. The combination of the two oils will be better for processing. After the Madras has been emptied, its tanks are thoroughly washed out with water. Then the ship goes through a rigorous safety check. A team of experts climb on board and swarm all over the ship, checking the electronics, pipes and valves. They even climb into the oil tanks. Crude oil, saltwater and oxygen irritate the walls of the ship. Although the walls are always sprayed with a protective coating, the combination of oil, saltwater and oxygen will eventually burn through and attack the metal below, making it rust. Only once the experts have worked through their entire list can the ship leave. Time is of the essence, as always. After all, renting the Madras costs $50,000 US dollars a day . . .

  4

  A General Strike in Chittagong: Bangladesh Hangs By a Thread

  23/24 August 2005

  It’s late at night in one of the slums of Chittagong. In the darkness, Mohmin and his young neighbour Kholil are discussing strike demands with their colleagues. The electricity network is down again so they have to finish their banner, made from a bed sheet and two poles, by the light of a petrol lamp. They are still undecided about what to write on the banner. They want better pay, that’s for certain . . .

  Mohmin works at the polyester factory, and Kholil works at the plastic recycling plant. They are sick of the terrible pay. They work until they drop and yet their families still have to live in the slum districts. Plus there is the problem of safety in the workplace. Mohmin knows what he’s talking about. He used to work at the oil refinery near the harbour. The refinery, which produces petrol, heating oil, chemicals and asphalt from crude oil, could be mistaken for some kind of industrial museum, not a modern oil refinery. It is actually built from parts of an old industrial unit from the United Kingdom. Forty or fifty years ago, English chemical workers used these very same machines. But then the unit was put out of action. It was too old, too unproductive and too dangerous to pass health and safety laws in England. But it was not too dangerous for the chemical workers of Bangladesh. The refinery workers spend day and night walking through a labyrinth of pipes and metal tanks, wearing only loincloths and putting up with a combination of heat, noise and vile smells. There are no health and safety regulations and no protective clothing.

  It’s not surprising that Mohmin was overcome by toxic fumes which made him so sick he had to go to hospital. By the time he was back on his feet, his job had been given to someone else. Factory owners in Bangladesh don’t have to give their workers sick pay. They simply replace them. There are hundreds more desperate people looking for work who are willing to take their place. Mohmin and his colleagues are keen to make a point about safety, but the line, “Improve Safety in Dangerous Workplaces!” doesn’t sound quite strong enough. In the end, Kholil, the only one of them who can write properly, writes: “Thirty Per Cent More Now!” on the banner instead.

  Bangladesh: a Country in a Precarious Situation

  Bangladesh, at 144,000 square kilometres in size, is not even half the size of Germany (357,000 square kilometres), yet has over 140 million inhabitants. Germany, by contrast, only has a population of 82 million people. Bangladesh is the most densely populated country on the planet, with around 1,000 people living in every square kilometre. Germany, by comparison, only has 232 inhabitants per square kilometre. In Bangladesh, 70 per cent of the population live off of the land. Because of the high population density, farmers must produce crops that give the best possible yields using the smallest possible amount of space. This is why Bangladeshi farmers don’t produce cotton, but do grow a lot of rice.

  The tropical temperatures don’t last all year round in Bangladesh. For almost half the year nothing can be grown. In March, April and October, tropical hurricanes and storms batter the country, and June to September is monsoon season. High winds blow blankets of cloud across the country and there’s almost non-stop heavy rainfall. Most of Bangladesh is made up of marshland, intersected by three large rivers. During the monsoon, as much water as is contained in all the rivers in Europe flows through these three rivers. When the water is pushed back into the river delta by storms at sea, this causes major flooding.

  At the moment, Bangladesh has no way to prevent this from happening, and every year, water floods the fields. Each year the flooding gets worse because of the rising sea levels caused by global warming. In 2004, the homes of 34 million Bangladeshis – almost a quarter of the population – were flooded. Richer countries can protect themselves with sea walls and high dams, but there are no protective measures available in Bangladesh. Even when funding is received in order to build dams, the government is so corrupt and badly run that the money is almost always spent elsewhere. By the year 2050, about a sixth of the country will be permanently underwater. Around 20 million people will loose their homes and livelihoods forever.

  24 August 2005

  It is now morning. Mohmin and Kholil don’t head towards the harbour for work as usual, but instead walk into town, to the main street in front of the train station. More and more workers assemble there. Some of them are wearing helmets and are armed with sticks. On the banners and placards that many of them are holding are messages about pay, safety and job security:

  “Down with corporations!”

  “Down with the government!”

  “GENERAL STRIKE!”

  The signs are written in Bengali and also in English so that foreign reporters and people watching the news in other countries will understand them. The assembled workers are calling for a general strike. This is when all workers and employees across the whole city refuse to work. Buses, ships and trucks come to a standstill, factories stop running and shops are closed. There have been three strikes already in Chittagong this year. When a general strike happens in Chittagong, the whole country shuts down, as almost everything Bangladesh produces is shipped out of Chittagong harbour. When the harbour and the refinery stop working, all manufacturing has to stop. This time, the government has had enough, and its response is aggressive. The police and the army are mobilised and sent to the harbour, the oil refinery and the large crossroads in the centre of town. However, the police and army presence isn’t enough to silence the workers and strike leaders. They form a group and start walking down Station Road. They’re heading for the Dhaka Trunk Road that leads to the harbour.

  Kholil and Mohmin hold their home-made banner high, but they only make it a few hundred metres down the road. The police have blocked off the road with riot vans and water canons. In front of them are two rows of police wearing helmets, carrying shields and heavy batons. There’s a sudden popping noise. Are the police firing at them? The strike leaders try to calm the crowd. “Don’t panic!” they cry. “It’s only tear gas! Cover your faces! Don’t rub it into your eyes!” Then the police rush forward. They use their shields to shove aside anyone who’s in their way and brutally hit the demonstrators with their batons. Kholil has never been so scared in his entire life. He drops the banner, flees down a side street and runs away. Mohmin, on the other hand, won’t let the banner go. He is surrounded by police trying to tear it out of his hands, but with great determination, he holds on. Moments later he is hit over the head with a baton, and two police officers drag him into a riot van. While sirens wail outside, the harbour’s oil refinery is put back into action, under police supervision.

  Meanwhile, our mixture of crude oil, delivered a few days ago, is being pumped through the long pipelines of the refinery. In this labyrinth of tunnels, oil containers and machines steam, hiss and rattle. The first process to
refine oil is to heat the crude oil to 400° Celsius in a 50 metre high cylinder, known as a ‘distillation column’. Here, the different components that make up crude oil separate: gases and light petrol evaporate and rise upwards, while tar and lubricating oil sink to the bottom. Somewhere in the middle is coal, which is made of carbon, and just below that is ethylene, the raw material for many kinds of plastic. These basic components are then separated out, and moved on for the second stage of processing.

  The ethylene is combined with a catalyst – the reactive metal antimony – under high pressure, and then heated to 240° Celsius. During this process, the individual ethylene molecules gain the ability to bond into a single mass. This creates polyethylene, a substance made up of a seemingly endless molecule chain. No other substance is so stable and yet so malleable. At the bottom of the machine in which this process takes place are six holes. The white-grey polyethylene is squeezed out of the holes in pencil-thick strings, almost like toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube. The threads of polyethylene are then cut into smaller segments and cooled. These hazelnut size pieces are called ‘granules’ and are the raw material for a huge range of products. Polyethylene is a truly magical substance. At 120° Celsius it becomes a liquid, and can either be formed into the desired shape or pressed into thin sheets. Polyethylene and similar man-made substances are the foundations for our globalised, consumer-driven world. These materials are used to make carrier bags, packaging, mobile phone covers, iPods and laptops. Various medications and colours used in paint and foods also contain components derived from crude oil. Most polyethylene however, is used for packaging. In a globalised world where products travel long distances between the manufacturer and the consumer, packaging is essential. There’s packaging for packaging. There’s even packaging for used packaging – here in Germany we have special yellow rubbish bags for plastic recycling.