Apart from stability, buoyancy also contributes to keep the tanker float. It is necessary for the buoyant force to be extremely great to keep the heavy tanker floating above the water. Buoyancy is a force produced by water that resists an object’s weight. Archimedes found that the water will push upward against the object with a force equal to the weight of water that is displaced. (Molly Edmonds, 2008) In another words, in the free body diagram, the buoyancy is the reaction force, and the weight force is the gravitational pull of the earth. In order for the oil tanker to be buoyant, it is necessary for it to be less dense than the water. The inside of the tankers can either be empty filled or with oil since both and air are less dense than water. This storage method is efficient to solve the problem of storing oil and and at the same time maintains the tanker to float.
It is clear that, oil is extremely vital to the world since it’s the main source of energy, and mostly all the transportations require fuel to function. Oil tankers are frequently the only practical means of transporting crude oil to locations, where the local market is insufficient, and there are no alternative way to transport oil. It would be a serious problem if many everyday products have difficulties in obtaining fuels or oil for transportation, hence deeply affect people’s lives. Additionally, the ULCC (ultra large crude carrier) oil tankers can transport up to 4 million barrels of oil. This means that it can reduce the extra energy used for transporting large amounts of oil. This is the most efficient way to trade or transport oil to other countries. Oil tankers are also quite stable, and a fairly safe method of transport, and so somewhat reduce the risk of polluting the environment with oil. However, with just an accident, and oil spills happen, the consequences would be disastrous.
Like many other influential technologies, oil tankers have helped us progress in to a more civilized society, however, they have presented variable considerable problems as well. As it is stated in the application of science, oil tankers are not efficient since they require a huge amount of oil to start up and run, not including the energy wasted as heat due to friction. It is ironic that the oil tanker uses and transport the same non renewable resource. This is also deeply related to the one world issue of environment as oil tankers release a significant amount of green house gases everyday to pollute the air. Moreover, due to their heavy weights and sizes, when moving, they create a lot of resistance to the water, which means it limits the maximum speed the tanker can travel at, as well as disrupting marine habitats. It is better if the oil tanker was eco-friendly and efficient. Other than risks of oil spills, there are other accidents such as pirates. Gasoline or petroleum product might not cost much at the pump, however a fully laden tanker that worths millions dollars is a different case. Because of this fact, it attracts unwanted attention from the pirates, hence increasing the chance of hijacking and holding crews cargo as hostages for huge ransoms. By using oil tankers as oil transportation sure have a lot of risks including oil spills, pirates, and air pollutions.
As it has been stated, by using oil tanker, there is the potential for accidents, oil spillage, and huge contribution in causing the formation of the greenhouse gases that are suspected of being a cause of global warming. One of the most famous oil spills is the ‘Exxon Valdez’, which happened in the Prince William Sound, Alaska on 24th March, 1989. On its course, the oil tanker named ‘ Exxon Valdez’ bound to the ‘Long Beach, California, and spilled 260,000 to 750,000 barrels (41,000 to 119,000 m3) of crude oil. The oil eventually covered 1,300 miles (2,100 km) of coastline and 11,000 square miles (28000 km2) of ocean. (Living Oceans Society, 2009) It can be considered to be one of the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters. The damages that oil spills left to the environment are undoubtedly serve, and the ocean-ecosystem would take decades to recover. Initially, an oil spill will cause detrimental effects on the fur and feather of animals. For example, a seal pup's fur will break down, causing it to experience hypothermia. (S.F Heron) This same effect is responsible for the majority of bird deaths in oil slicks. Outright ingestion of oil creates toxins in the system. When the birds try to clean their feathers, they unconsciously ingest an amount of oil that is deadly enough to cause their deaths. Animals from other places can still be indirectly be affected by the oil spills through the food chain. The reason is if a fish consumes a small amount of oil, it can survive, but may pass on that oil to another animal far away from the site, causing its death. One long-term effect on animals is the fact that most birds and reptiles exposed to an oil slick have the side effect of producing thinner egg shells. According to the explanation of application of science, oil tankers use up a lot of oil to transport oil to different places, hence inputing a huge amount of carbon dioxide which contribute to global warming. Not only polluting the air, they also transfer oil to further more polluting the world. Environment surely has been the biggest issue that relate to oil tankers.
Apart from environmental issues, there are several economic issues evolve around the topic. When there is an oil spill, the company will have to pay for all kind of fees, such as cleaning up the coastlines, oceans, compensating the residents, and pay fines. The company would certainly fall into critic, and goes bankrupt. Not only affecting the company, oil spills have deep impact on the the economy of the local community. Mostly, the citizens live near the sea, oceans depend mostly on tourism to earn money as well as the fishing employees. The oil spills will strip away all their jobs and business, leaving them unemployed. Aside from oil spills, exporting oil earn a great deal of profits. Corporations are always seeking the most efficient way to accomplish a task in order to maximize the profits. Due to the immense size of the oil tankers, they provide an easy and inexpensive way to transport oil over long distances. In fact, it only cost around two to four cents per gallon to transport oil using a typical oil tanker. Companies that construct oil tankers and sell them to other companies or countries earn a great deal of money since a large tanker can cost 100 million dollars or more. The owner of the ship after paying all the expenses can expect profits of at least 60000 dollars per day. However, the profit can vary depends on many factors such as the tanker availability and the strength of the oil market. During time of high oil demand or economy critics, daily profit per tanker can skyrocket. (Robert Wright, 2009)
The topic of oil tankers is more complicated, and important than expected. Although there are many debates about its economic and environmental effects, or its scientific functions such as stability, buoyancy and efficiency, oil tankers in fact are absolutely vital for our everyday lives. Without oil tankers, it would be impossible to enjoy the mobility that many of us are taking for granted these day. It is certainly an interesting topic to examine and research about since it makes people more aware of the surroundings, and the long term issues that the world is currently facing. Nowadays, scientists are developing, inventing transportation that rely completely on eco-friendly resources to replace the ones that use oil, hence lesser the needs of using oil tankers. It will take time for the world to make changes, but rational enough in the future the world could run purely by renewable sources such as solar energy or wind energy.
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