One Giant Cargo Ship Pollutes As Much As 50M Cars

thecarchik writes "One giant container ship pollutes the air as much as 50 million cars. Which means that just 15 of the huge ships emit as much as today's entire global 'car park' of roughly 750 million vehicles. Among the bad stuff: sulfur, soot, and other particulate matter that embeds itself in human lungs to cause a variety of cardiopulmonary illnesses. Since the mid-1970s, developed countries have imposed increasingly stringent regulations on auto emissions. In three decades, precise electronic engine controls, new high-pressure injectors, and sophisticated catalytic converters have cut emissions of nitrous oxides, carbon dioxides, and hydrocarbons by more than 98 percent. New regulations will further reduce these already minute limits. But ships today are where cars were in 1965: utterly uncontrolled, free to emit whatever they like." According to Wikipedia, 57 giant container ships (rated from 9,200 to 15,200 twenty-foot equivalent units) are plying the world's oceans.

Comments

One can dream...

[grub]

Screw the people that frown on those who drive Hummers.

I want to be rich enough to say "I'm taking the family on a cruise across the ocean on our personal cargo ship." The captain would floor it from the dock and leave a 30 km long black trail of smoke.

Could be a problem

[BadAnalogyGuy]

We should get rid of these ships.

Let us DRIVE our containers across the ocean!

Re:Could be a problem

[Yvan256]

Because, of course, using sails as a propulsion method requires a ship made of wood...

Re:Could be a problem

[Shadow Wrought]

Though ships of old were typically wooden, there is no requirement at all that a sailing vessel be made of wood (and modern sailing vessels typically aren't).

We know that the only things that float are wood, ducks, witches, and the occasional very small pebble. If not wood than what, ducks? A duck can't even carry a coconut without sinking. Small pebble can't carry very much, and witches are incredibely difficult to work with. So tehre you have it: wood. So sayeth the Ways of Science.

Re:Could be a problem

[gandhi_2]

Yeah. Naturally any ship that uses a sail must be made of wood, right?

Not only that, but modern society is woefully ill-prepared to produce peg legs, eye patches, and parrots on the scale we would need to retrofit the modern fleets of today.

Re:Could be a problem

[geekoid]

Or witches.

Re:Could be a problem

[Low Ranked Craig]

A duck can't even carry a coconut without sinking.

No, but a swallow can.

Re:Could be a problem

[AkkarAnadyr]

It's a simple question of weight ratios. A five-ounce swallow cannot carry a one-pound coconut.

You need two swallows, with a strand of creeper held under the dorsal guiding feathers.

Re:Could be a problem

[pavera]

Swallows can't float though.

Re:Could be a problem

[ChrisMaple]

A European swallow or an African swallow?

Re:Could be a problem

[Nefarious Wheel]

The most energy efficient ground transport, I've been told, is a horse riding a bicycle.

Re:They're in the middle of the ocean.

[Yvan256]

Yeah, it's not like the air in the middle of the ocean is connected in some way to the air you breathe on land.

Oh wait, it is.

Re:is that you, Al?

[Yvan256]

Seriously, equivalent to 15 million cars? Are those numbers from the RIAA or the MPAA?

Re:Stop Buying Crap!

[Trogre]

Ah, but check the back. It was DESIGNED by Apple in sunny California, so everything's just fine!