Slashdot Mirror
Carbon Dioxide From Ships at Sea To Be Regulated For First Time (theguardian.com)
Carbon dioxide from ships at sea will be regulated for the first time following a historic agreement reached after two weeks of detailed talks in London. From a report: Shipping companies will halve their greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 under the plan, brokered by the International Maritime Organization and binding across its 170 member states. The agreement will require a revolution among ships, which are overwhelmingly fuelled by heavy oils at present. In future, they will have to not only be more energy-efficient, but also make use of cleaner energy, in the form of batteries supplying electricity, solar and wind electricity generation, and perhaps even a return to sail in some cases, or more controversially to nuclear power, as some warships already use.
Environmental campaigners said the plan was not enough given the urgency of tackling climate change, though they welcomed the deal, which has taken decades of work. Greenhouse gas emissions from shipping and aviation were omitted from the 1997 Kyoto protocol and have been excluded from regulations on carbon ever since, even though shipping is used for 80% of global trade. Although shipping accounts for only about 2% of global carbon emissions, it has been a cause of particular concern, both because of the increased need for transport under the globalising economy and because many ships use dirty, carbon-rich fuels such as heavy diesel, which would be banned in many countries from onshore transport.
Environmental campaigners said the plan was not enough given the urgency of tackling climate change, though they welcomed the deal, which has taken decades of work. Greenhouse gas emissions from shipping and aviation were omitted from the 1997 Kyoto protocol and have been excluded from regulations on carbon ever since, even though shipping is used for 80% of global trade. Although shipping accounts for only about 2% of global carbon emissions, it has been a cause of particular concern, both because of the increased need for transport under the globalising economy and because many ships use dirty, carbon-rich fuels such as heavy diesel, which would be banned in many countries from onshore transport.
Gee, thanks so much for that, not all of us are superstitious mouth-breathing anti-vax creationist bible-thumping Dominionist Trump voters who believe the Earth is only 6000 years old, you jackass.
And they won't make that date either.
Exempted from Kyoto... LOL. What a joke. Not ratifying these shake down scam agreements is among the best and most admirable thing the US has ever done and the citizens of the US deserve credit for not being suckers.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
They could use thorium, which is safer than uranium.
Still dangerous since a notable percentage of ships can be counted on to sink. Doesn't really matter though since nuclear powered cargo ships have been tried and they were not economically competitive. Thorium will not solve that problem. Plus insurance is a huge problem for civilian nuclear vessels.
You could design the ships in such a way that the last-ditch safety mechanism for the reactor would be to eject the core into the ocean, where it would have essentially infinite cooling.
And how do you plan to account for the now radioactive particles that will be conveniently spread throughout the ocean? Cooling is not the main problem with nuclear propulsion - pollution is.
Also don't most cargo ships employ their own private security anyway? Just arm them better against pirates.
Historically no, most cargo ships haven't been armed. More have been lately but not all are.