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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.
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.
Trolling is a art,
We should get rid of these ships.
Let us DRIVE our containers across the ocean!
One big ship or lots of smaller ships? Is it time to lose "the fear" and go nuclear on cargo vessels?
crazy dynamite monkey
First off, this article appears ripped straight from the UK Guardian. Secondly, what's with all the promotion of HighGear Media sites recently? Slashdot is not your megaphone, guys, lay off.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Most of those ships are not registered in the US or Europe or any 1st world country. They are registered in Panama, Aruba or wherever there are no taxes and no regulations. And you can't really stop them coming into your harbors without affecting the local or even global economy.
On the other hand, how much pollution would it generate to bring those products in on more smaller ships or on trucks through a series of tubes in the ocean.
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Devil's advocate here: where do these ships pollute?
The environment can 'support' a certain rate of air pollution, but the diffusion rate of air pollution means that certain regions build up localized pollution far higher than the average pollution level (e.g. LA, New York, etc..). Car emissions and factory emissions need to be fairly strict to ensure that levels remain low, despite the concentration of pollution caused by urbanization. By its very nature, container ship owners want their vessels at sea as much as possible, and while they're crossing oceans, there's not exactly any urban concentration effect going on. So it makes sense that this kind of shipping be held to the lower standard of emissions (i.e., basic environmental sustainability).
According to TFA, these ships should be producing "500 times the total pollution of the world's vehicles". But yet, they are only "responsible for 3.5% to 4% of all climate change emissions". From those 2 numbers, either cars are not the problem everybody says they are or these numbers are WAY off.
If you assume that the average vessel pollutes 1/10 as much as the largest, dirtiest container ship, ass TFA does, then you've made one hell of an assumption.
Not that it's not a problem, but - really - saying that 10 small coastal vessels equals one massive container ship undermines what sounded like a reasonable point and makes me question everything about their maths. And I'm generally in agreement with them!
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
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.
You actually have that correct.
This really is a bunch of bad science.
No discussion of VOCs or CO2 just particulate and SOX emissions.
Well particulates at see are probably going to be pretty harmless. They will fall into the sea.
SOX may or may not be an issue but motor vehicles really don't emit hardly any sulfur. I wonder what percentage total world emissions of sulfur this is.
At least in the US ships shift to cleaner fuel when in coastal waters. Yes reducing the sulfur is also a good idea but this is really a worst case the sky is falling story.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Seriously, equivalent to 15 million cars? Are those numbers from the RIAA or the MPAA?
Pressure is mounting on the UN's International Maritime Organization
China knows how to put the kibosh on that sort of thing.
following the decision by the US government last week to impose a strict 230-mile buffer zone along the entire US coast
Countdown to WTO injunction on the US government's new 'anti-competitive' shipping regulations:
5..4..3..
Western manufacturers and workers can't compete with unregulated totalitarian regimes and third-world workers that willingly tolerate "crazy bad" contamination. When you choose to indulge yet more environmental regulation please consider what might be done to prevent your noble intentions from simply evacuating more industry out of the West. International NIMBYism isn't morally admirable.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Honestly, how much of our current problems would go away if we just stopped buying the cheapest crap we can find? Trade imbalances? Global pollution? Landfill? We really have to get away from the whole "I want it right now, and I want it cheap, and I don't care how crappy it is if it just makes me happy for a few minutes." Here is an idea: Do some research. Buy a quality product that will last you the rest of your life instead of one you have to throw away next week. And if you can't afford it right now? Save up until you have the money for it. Trust me. You'll appreciate it more.
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
It doesn't really tell the whole story. The way the story's worded, you'd think that car emissions are a drop in the ocean (ha ha ha) compared to cargo ship emissions, but that's only true for a certain range of pollutants, and it's certainly not remotely true for carbon emissions.
Its not just giant ships that are a problem. Planes, recreational boats, and even lawn mowers spew largely unfiltered exhaust into the air too. I never understood why the U.S. is so strict with car emissions, but so lax on other things that make significant contributions to air pollution.
Like acid-rain forming sulfur dioxide.
This is fixable, you already are not allowed to burn bunker fuel in the "Diesel death zone" near LA and San Diego. And CARB has plans to extend the restrictions further.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
If you look it mentions nothing about carbon emissions. They're talking about a certain set of pollutants only.
Saying that one ship pollutes as much as 50million cars is misleading. To be completely accurate, you must say one ship produces as much sulfer-pollution as 50million cars.
Now I have no doubt that this is still quite bad, but this doesn't mean that it has 50million times as much carbon emissions as cars. A quick google search shows that this can cause breathing problems and acid rain (both very bad) it doesn't seem to be a global warming problem. When you blindly say it pollutes 50million times as much of something cars now pollute very little of, it makes good headlines but it's bad science.
If they completely relaxed emissions rules for cars then regardless of whether world-wide pollution decreased we would have smog in all the major cities, just like before emissions controls were put into place. Different types of pollution have different area ranges where their effects are felt, and our laws need to take this into consideration.
"A car driven 9,000 miles a year emits 3.5 ounces of sulfur oxides--while the engine in a large cargo ship produces 5,500 tons."
But that car will haul maybe a tenth of a ton for that small number of miles, while the ship is expected to haul a hundred thousand tons "24hrs a day for about 280 days a year." You would think it might produce more pollutants.
The engine in the biggest ones is also far more fuel efficient than any gas or diesel car, exceeding 50% thermal efficiency. We like fuel efficiency, right? Yet they complain.
US Sulphur oxide emissions in 1999 were about 18,500,000 tons, mostly from coal power plants.
And gasoline and low-sulfur diesels mean comparing diesel-powered ships to cars is rather lopsided in the extreme.
Hell, if you only counted methane emissions, we'd all be up in arms about how badly a cow pollutes compared to a human.
It's a question of economics. They're built to operate as cheaply as possible. That includes fuel efficiency. So, I'd expect the engines to operate fairly efficiently, in order to minimize the fuel cost; however, that does not mean they minimize pollution. In addition, these ships often use the cheaper heavy fuels, like No. 6 fuel oil, which tend to be higher in sulfur and other contaminants. Until it's cheaper to operate the ship on something else, this will not change.
One big ship or lots of smaller ships? Is it time to lose "the fear" and go nuclear on cargo vessels?
Fear has nothing to do with it. Expense does. We've built nuclear merchant vessels before. They're just too expensive to operate. We built a fast, beautiful nuclear merchant ship (the NS Savannah) as a technology demonstrator, and when companies looked at the costs involved, they simply didn't see the point. Only a handful of nuke cargo ships were ever built, and only the Russians used them for any length of time.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Popular for aircraft carriers. Maybe for cargo ships too? How is the waste dealt with in an aircraft carrier. How do aircraft carriers and submarines avoid unplanned criticality excursions?
Can't go there. There's no good way to ensure that waste stays in the right hands. Just look at all the ships that get hijacked off the Somali coast.
Uh, we've been there. We had nuclear cargo ships. They were retired strictly because of the expense of running them, not over any concerns for nuclear waste. The Japanese built one that was so expensive, it never carried commercial cargo. The Germans built one, saw the bill for it, and then ripped out the reactor and replaced it with diesel engines. The US built a fine ship, and no one used it because of the costs involved. The Russians are the only ones that built them and actually used them for practical work, and mostly as icebreakers.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
NS Savannah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah
Nuclear powered freighter...
They also have to obey the laws of the ports they enter.
This has been developed and put into use by a German company: SkySails. They report fuel savings of up to 30% in some conditions.
And yes, cutting speeds by about 10% reduces fuel use for the same distance by about 20%. This happens all the time in economy dips. Since fuel is the largest cost in shipping and its share in total costs keeps rising, it's an easy way to save a lot of money by offering up a little time. Maersk, the big container line, has reduced the operating speed on its ships from 22 to 20 knots because of the global economic recession. This is a pretty hard thing to do for them, because their ships operate on a schedule and have to stick to it, so changing operating speed means changing the schedule worldwide.
In other types of shipping such as bulk carriers and tankers, this practice is much more common. When there is little demand, ships can go slower to save money so they make more profit per job. When the economy is doing well and demand is high, shipping prices can suddenly skyrocket. In this case, sailing a little faster is the best way to transport more cargo in the same time, and thus complete more jobs. In fact, increasing speed is the short-term version of building new ships: it virtually creates more carrying capacity instantly. Building a ship takes months or years, so it can't be used to respond to sudden changes in demand.
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
If there's nobody to breathe a pollutant before it degrades, it's not hurting anyone.
A great many pollutants never degrade. Many pollutants don't have to be inhaled or ingested in any way to cause real damage. Not all damage is direct biological damage.
Now, there's going to be all sorts of soot and sulfur released from that fuel because the regulations are so lax -- but who's it going to hurt in the middle of the Pacific's vast nutrient-devoid dead zones?
How about everyone? Perhaps you've heard of global warming? Acid rain? You don't have to be anywhere near the smokestack for it to have a real effect on your life.
Yeah right, even TFS states that among the emissions is not just soot but also sulfur, nitrous oxides and stuff like that. Then again, I bet you wouldn't mind some sulfuric acid in your food either, would you?
Everybody knows that sulphur is toxic in any quantities and none of the living organisms needs it...
Oh, wait... what about Rieske protein, present in cytochrome complexes in plants, animals and bacteria?
Also, did you ever note the stench of a decomposing piece of meat? Turns out most of it is given by the H2S... by the smell of it, methinks there should be a non-trivial amount of sulphur in there.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Now, what I wonder is, would a cargo vessel be less polluting if it used a multi-hull design to reduce drag
Multihulls are very good at going fast - as long as they don't have to push a lot of water. Their advantage disappears rapidly when the weight goes up. I am in the process of getting into cruising (I have a 40 foot sailboat I'm refitting), so I've followed the progress of multihulls for a while. Small multihulls such as for cruising and other recreational applications work well because they provide a lot of interior space, and a certain type of stability (although there are costs involved), and they are fast - but many cruisers have found that once they pile on all the junk you need to live on a boat, the cats sink lower in the water and slow down.
Boats in displacement mode are _very_ efficient movers of mass, as long as you don't try to go to fast. Most of the energy that is expended at the front of the boat moving the water out of the way is recovered at the back of the boat, as the water moves back into place. The faster you go, the more water is pushed vertically out of the surface, and most of that energy is lost. And when you get close to 'hull speed' (where period of the bow wave becomes close to the length of the hull), you rapidly multiply the energy required - you're basically always driving 'uphill'. The purpose of the big bulb on the front of big ships is to length the effective hull and increase the hull speed. But drop the speed to just a bit below hull speed, and you are back into the efficient displacement mode again.
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According to the article, one very large cargo ship produces as much pollution as 50 million cars driving 9,000 miles per year. So let's do the maths.
CO2 emissions of 125 gram per kilometer are considered to be very good for a car - in the UK, that level of CO2 emission means your car tax is dramatically reduced. 125 gram per kilometer equals 200 grams per mile, or 1.8 tons per 9,000 miles. A very large cargo ship supposedly produces the same pollution per year as 50 million cars. That would be 50 million times 1.8 tons or 90 million tons. That would be 250,000 tons of CO2 emissions per day, assuming the vessel is in operation 360 days per year. Excuse me, but this number is nonsense.
On the other hand, a car typically transports maybe 100 kg on average (usually one, sometimes two passengers). One container = 24,000 kg, that is say the same as 240 cars. Large, but not extremely large, container ships carry 7,000 containers, that is the same freight transported as 1.7 million cars. A container ship can move at 20 knots, that would be 500 miles per day. Obviously it is not moving 360 days per year, 24 hours per day, but it should be more than 90,000 miles, ten times as much as the car in the calculation. So the freight transported is about the same as 17 million cars.
You need a tax on ALL GOODS. If you do just imports, then it will be considered a bias. OTH, if you treat all goods the same, then you are fine. So a tax on emissions from the location of the final product AND primary subcomponent along with distance would do the trick.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I think the logic is that these heavy emissions actually sink into the ocean in international waters at diffuse levels not harmful enough to do damage (also that it would significantly increase the cost of all overseas goods).
I think the logic is that in international waters you don't answer to anyone, and you can burn the cheapest fuel your engine will tolerate.
Please help metamoderate.