11 ms·

Each day a cruise ship emits as much particulate matter as a million cars

64 points by ToFab123 8y ago

growlist 8y ago
The disgustingly filthy emissions of maritime transport and lack of action on it make me pretty cynical about the ongoing crackdown on internal combustion motoring. LPG is possible, so it's not like we don't have alternatives.
- skywhopper 8y ago
  I think you are missing the fact that these numbers seem so wildly skewed because the "crackdown on internal combustion" is working. The regulatory efforts around curbing automobile pollution have had a massively positive impact on air quality in the past several decades. The ratio here is 1000000:1 largely because of those regulations.
  - masonic 8y ago
    This ignores that ships burn bunker fuel which is far dirtier than diesel.
raxxorrax 8y ago
Not really surprising if you look at their energy consumption. To add to that they burn heavy oil outside of any harbors. I think there was a story about how a ship forgot to switch fuel while entering a harbor area. Nearly the whole city had symptoms of poisoning.
agentofoblivion 8y ago
16 cargo ships equal all of the world’s cars in pollution, and there are >100,000 of them. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1229857/How-16-ships-create-pollution-cars-world.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1229857/How-...
- rkul 8y ago
  This is a misleading headline. What they mean by pollution is just sulfur not necessarily CO2 or other gases/particles. Read the article.
  - makerofspoons 8y ago
    Interestingly sulfur dioxide has a net cooling effect on the atmosphere: https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/9805/would-adding-sulfur-dioxide-to-the-atmosphere-have-a-global-cooling-effect https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/9805/would-... However this effect does not outweigh the health consequences of emitting this pollution, or the contribution it makes to acid rain and other serious problems.
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    CO2 isn't a particulate but I would say it is slightly misleading for a different reason - car particulate requirements are pretty damn strict to the point diesels are the dominant source despite being a road minority. The numbers for cruise ships would ironically look way better in the 70s when us automakers were still trying to claim it was unreasonable to require the exhaust not smell of unburnt gasoline. And that was before catalytic converters were essentially mandatory. A more apples to apples comparison would be in trucks or buses - granted all should be improving as well.
- archi42 8y ago
  Here in Germany we have an ongoing issues with the whole VW (and others) cheating on emission tests with their diesel engines; this leads to some cities banning older diesel cars (usually Euro 5 emission rating and lower) from some areas or streets (imho the latter is a bad idea, but well...). BUT one has to consider: "At least" these ships emissions don't directly affect us, instead they cause various environmental effects (e.g. green house effect, acid rain,...). But car's emissions directly have an impact on OUR health. Not to say any of the two emission classes are okay, they're just different and therefore difficult to compare.
  - sdoering 8y ago
sschueller 8y ago
Why can't we make these ships run on nuclear reactors? Technically it should be possible and the only hold up is money or am I missing something?
- manfredo 8y ago
  My understanding is that nuclear maritime power would be widely used were it not for the public perception of nuclear power as an unstable and dangerous source of power. Consider the fact, though, that the US Navy is the largest user of nuclear power if measured by number of units, and has operated these units without significant incident for over half a century.
  - lolc 8y ago
    For those wondering what "for over half a century" means: 1968 the nuclear submarine USS Scorpion sank and hasn't been recovered. It's certainly debatable whether the current use of heavy oil in shipping is preferable to nuclear power. However I find it highly doubtful the civil sector could replicate the impressive track record of the US navy regarding operating nuclear reactors on ships and submarines.
- PhantomGremlin 8y ago
  It's been done as an experiment. The economics are a bit nuanced. The information is many decades out of date. Still, food for thought ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah#Economics_of_nuclear_propulsion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah#Economics_of_nucle...
Keverw 8y ago
I've been wanting to go on a cruise lately. They look so fun. It seems like there's about 2,000 people or more on a ship. They are entire floating cities with their own water treatment, jail(the brig), a morgue, own newspaper/letter, in-house tv station - I was looking at technical jobs on cruise ships one day and seen that one has like their own little morning show, etc. However I doubt a small town with 2,000 people would equal 2 million cars worth... I know I seen a few years ago one cruise line was playing with hydrogen fuel cells. https://youtu.be/oI9OmoMwz5s https://youtu.be/oI9OmoMwz5s Cruise ships kinda remind me of future ideas like arcologies or Skyscraper Movie (2018). Seems neat everything is within walking distance and self sufficient in the middle of the ocean. Well they still need fuel and food supplies when they dock and prepare for the next ship... but imagine if they could build farms on sea too... Seems like the ocean with the right power solution would be virtually unlimitless water and electric.
- dzhiurgis 8y ago
  There are 2000 staff for 4000 passengers... These things are truly interesting. There are 5-10 bars just for staff. That said the job (or even travelling one) is fairly gruelling. Smells, poor food, isolation, rip-off prices, etc.
  - Keverw 8y ago
    Why would traveling on one be grueling? Working on one seems like it's work, not really a vacation even if away from home... But as a passenger, why would it also be grueling? Yes I know there's been incidents and accidents but that doesn't happen on every cruise. I've been watching some travel vlogs of them and some look really nice and relaxing. Also, some ships internet is crappy or costly, so it also forces you to disconnect and live more at the moment too I'd think. However crappy internet at sea will be a thing of the past someday in the future. Prices do seem a bit high though but I have seen some deals. Also probably depends on the ship, etc. Food probably depends on the ship too, like Royal Caribbean Symphony of the Seas has a bunch of different restaurants. They have a concept called the Royal Caribbean Promenade on some of the ships, I think you'd forget you are even on a ship. Seasickness is a worry but bigger ships are supposed to be more stable. I'm a picky eater, and flying sounds sucky... Strapped to a tin can floating in the sky, sitting next to some stranger. Probably higher chance of surviving a cruise ship sinking than a plane crash. I can't fly but I could swim a bit, plus lifeboats. Airplanes don't have parachutes. But I think if I had more money I'd like to try cruising. Traveling around Europe's been another dream of mine, there are some one-way repositioning cruises there from the US... Ships are popular in the Caribbean but when that season slows down they move the ships to other places like the Mediterranean. Sure flying takes like a day while a cruise there takes like over a week to get there but at least you have your own room, can get up and walk around, etc. Take a short flight to Miami or New York, hop on a ship and travel to Europe in style! Then take trains, buses, rental cars, short flights around to different parts of Europe to explore. Then ideally plan a ship that leaves Europe to head somewhere else or home... I've been reading about digital nomads, very interesting to me. Living out of a suitcase traveling the world or traveling around North America in an RV. Would love to do both. There's some world cruises that last a half a year but the price of a new car or more. Kinda always wanted to see the Pyramids or Great Wall of China, but long flight being cramped and not sure how much in a place so foreign I'd want to go alone. Idk maybe someday if I get lucky... But before I would plan half the year at sea, I'd probably take a week-long cruise around the Caribbean to get a taste of it. I wonder the demographics of world cruises. Probably business owners who can spend half a year away from work with enough money to pay for it, or retired people... I think most people just do a week-long cruise as a vacation though.
skywhopper 8y ago
I have no doubt these ships pollute really badly. That said, this is poor reporting. The numbers given in the article are impossible to make sense of as given. We get some particulate numbers for directly outside and around the ship's funnels and comparative numbers for Piccadilly Circus. But even assuming these numbers are fairly collected, that doesn't really tell us all the information we need. The article implies this means vacationers are getting a bum deal if they are looking for cleaner air, and that ship staff might be in danger from exposure to these particulates as well. But there's no information on how often staff or vacationers are in these high-particulate zones. And there's no corresponding numbers for other parts of the ship. What about on state room balconies? Or the pool area? Or staff quarters? My wild guess is that the numbers would be significantly better than Piccadilly most places on the ship, but this article doesn't tell me if I'm right or wrong about that. As for the "as much particulate matter as a million cars", that sounds bad, but what does it mean? Is it a million cars operating 24/7? Given that they say 30 cruise ships equal all the particulate pollution from cars in the entire UK, I'm guessing they mean a million cars' typical daily routine. Which would be what, a couple of hours at most of operation? And then, the ship is serving as living quarters for the people aboard. So how much particulate matter is generated by electricity generation and other fuel usage of a typical home? What's the difference in those usages when people are occupying the residence versus when they are on a vacation? For that matter, how does cruise ship vacation pollution generation compare to pollution generated by other vacation modes? Sure you can't answer all of that in one article or one study, and while I fully accept cruise ships are "wasteful" in some sense, and are definitely not a positive impact on the environments they travel through, it's important to give a full picture of the situation. (The article is from 2017 by the way.)
- RealDinosaur 8y ago
  I would be very much interested if working on a cruise ship for a season (9 months) would decrease my life expectancy.
  - jstarfish 8y ago
    It depends on the job. Are you talking about cabin crew or below deck? Up top you have to worry about suicide, "rogue waves" and a general lack of accountability at sea. Below deck you're exposed to so many carcinogens and industrial solvents you're guaranteed a miserable death by cancer. These crews are always staffed by people who wouldn't understand an MSDS if you handed it to them. Same with airport runway personnel. 9 months may not be enough time for that though unless you sit around huffing ship paint with no mask.
b0bby_tabl3s 8y ago
Transatlantic Cargo ships are even worse. There are 4 grades of unregulated diesel fuel (IIRC) and most of them use the cheapest bottom tier.
sudomakeup 8y ago
One should also consider the Airline industry. Especially the climate change activists that regularly fly.
- masonic 8y ago
  the climate change activists The wealthy ones (e.g. Gore, DiCaprio, Huffington) fly in private jets, not commercial.

64 points by ToFab123 8y ago

The disgustingly filthy emissions of maritime transport and lack of action on it make me pretty cynical about the ongoing crackdown on internal combustion motoring. LPG is possible, so it's not like we don't have alternatives.

skywhopper 8y ago
I think you are missing the fact that these numbers seem so wildly skewed because the "crackdown on internal combustion" is working. The regulatory efforts around curbing automobile pollution have had a massively positive impact on air quality in the past several decades. The ratio here is 1000000:1 largely because of those regulations.
- masonic 8y ago
  This ignores that ships burn bunker fuel which is far dirtier than diesel.

raxxorrax 8y ago

Not really surprising if you look at their energy consumption. To add to that they burn heavy oil outside of any harbors. I think there was a story about how a ship forgot to switch fuel while entering a harbor area. Nearly the whole city had symptoms of poisoning.

agentofoblivion 8y ago

16 cargo ships equal all of the world’s cars in pollution, and there are >100,000 of them. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1229857/How-16-ships-create-pollution-cars-world.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1229857/How-...

rkul 8y ago
This is a misleading headline. What they mean by pollution is just sulfur not necessarily CO2 or other gases/particles. Read the article.
- makerofspoons 8y ago
  Interestingly sulfur dioxide has a net cooling effect on the atmosphere: https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/9805/would-adding-sulfur-dioxide-to-the-atmosphere-have-a-global-cooling-effect https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/9805/would-... However this effect does not outweigh the health consequences of emitting this pollution, or the contribution it makes to acid rain and other serious problems.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  CO2 isn't a particulate but I would say it is slightly misleading for a different reason - car particulate requirements are pretty damn strict to the point diesels are the dominant source despite being a road minority. The numbers for cruise ships would ironically look way better in the 70s when us automakers were still trying to claim it was unreasonable to require the exhaust not smell of unburnt gasoline. And that was before catalytic converters were essentially mandatory. A more apples to apples comparison would be in trucks or buses - granted all should be improving as well.
archi42 8y ago
Here in Germany we have an ongoing issues with the whole VW (and others) cheating on emission tests with their diesel engines; this leads to some cities banning older diesel cars (usually Euro 5 emission rating and lower) from some areas or streets (imho the latter is a bad idea, but well...). BUT one has to consider: "At least" these ships emissions don't directly affect us, instead they cause various environmental effects (e.g. green house effect, acid rain,...). But car's emissions directly have an impact on OUR health. Not to say any of the two emission classes are okay, they're just different and therefore difficult to compare.
- sdoering 8y ago

sschueller 8y ago

Why can't we make these ships run on nuclear reactors? Technically it should be possible and the only hold up is money or am I missing something?

manfredo 8y ago
My understanding is that nuclear maritime power would be widely used were it not for the public perception of nuclear power as an unstable and dangerous source of power. Consider the fact, though, that the US Navy is the largest user of nuclear power if measured by number of units, and has operated these units without significant incident for over half a century.
- lolc 8y ago
  For those wondering what "for over half a century" means: 1968 the nuclear submarine USS Scorpion sank and hasn't been recovered. It's certainly debatable whether the current use of heavy oil in shipping is preferable to nuclear power. However I find it highly doubtful the civil sector could replicate the impressive track record of the US navy regarding operating nuclear reactors on ships and submarines.
PhantomGremlin 8y ago
It's been done as an experiment. The economics are a bit nuanced. The information is many decades out of date. Still, food for thought ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah#Economics_of_nuclear_propulsion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah#Economics_of_nucle...

Keverw 8y ago

I've been wanting to go on a cruise lately. They look so fun. It seems like there's about 2,000 people or more on a ship. They are entire floating cities with their own water treatment, jail(the brig), a morgue, own newspaper/letter, in-house tv station - I was looking at technical jobs on cruise ships one day and seen that one has like their own little morning show, etc. However I doubt a small town with 2,000 people would equal 2 million cars worth... I know I seen a few years ago one cruise line was playing with hydrogen fuel cells. https://youtu.be/oI9OmoMwz5s https://youtu.be/oI9OmoMwz5s Cruise ships kinda remind me of future ideas like arcologies or Skyscraper Movie (2018). Seems neat everything is within walking distance and self sufficient in the middle of the ocean. Well they still need fuel and food supplies when they dock and prepare for the next ship... but imagine if they could build farms on sea too... Seems like the ocean with the right power solution would be virtually unlimitless water and electric.

dzhiurgis 8y ago
There are 2000 staff for 4000 passengers... These things are truly interesting. There are 5-10 bars just for staff. That said the job (or even travelling one) is fairly gruelling. Smells, poor food, isolation, rip-off prices, etc.
- Keverw 8y ago
  Why would traveling on one be grueling? Working on one seems like it's work, not really a vacation even if away from home... But as a passenger, why would it also be grueling? Yes I know there's been incidents and accidents but that doesn't happen on every cruise. I've been watching some travel vlogs of them and some look really nice and relaxing. Also, some ships internet is crappy or costly, so it also forces you to disconnect and live more at the moment too I'd think. However crappy internet at sea will be a thing of the past someday in the future. Prices do seem a bit high though but I have seen some deals. Also probably depends on the ship, etc. Food probably depends on the ship too, like Royal Caribbean Symphony of the Seas has a bunch of different restaurants. They have a concept called the Royal Caribbean Promenade on some of the ships, I think you'd forget you are even on a ship. Seasickness is a worry but bigger ships are supposed to be more stable. I'm a picky eater, and flying sounds sucky... Strapped to a tin can floating in the sky, sitting next to some stranger. Probably higher chance of surviving a cruise ship sinking than a plane crash. I can't fly but I could swim a bit, plus lifeboats. Airplanes don't have parachutes. But I think if I had more money I'd like to try cruising. Traveling around Europe's been another dream of mine, there are some one-way repositioning cruises there from the US... Ships are popular in the Caribbean but when that season slows down they move the ships to other places like the Mediterranean. Sure flying takes like a day while a cruise there takes like over a week to get there but at least you have your own room, can get up and walk around, etc. Take a short flight to Miami or New York, hop on a ship and travel to Europe in style! Then take trains, buses, rental cars, short flights around to different parts of Europe to explore. Then ideally plan a ship that leaves Europe to head somewhere else or home... I've been reading about digital nomads, very interesting to me. Living out of a suitcase traveling the world or traveling around North America in an RV. Would love to do both. There's some world cruises that last a half a year but the price of a new car or more. Kinda always wanted to see the Pyramids or Great Wall of China, but long flight being cramped and not sure how much in a place so foreign I'd want to go alone. Idk maybe someday if I get lucky... But before I would plan half the year at sea, I'd probably take a week-long cruise around the Caribbean to get a taste of it. I wonder the demographics of world cruises. Probably business owners who can spend half a year away from work with enough money to pay for it, or retired people... I think most people just do a week-long cruise as a vacation though.

skywhopper 8y ago

I have no doubt these ships pollute really badly. That said, this is poor reporting. The numbers given in the article are impossible to make sense of as given. We get some particulate numbers for directly outside and around the ship's funnels and comparative numbers for Piccadilly Circus. But even assuming these numbers are fairly collected, that doesn't really tell us all the information we need. The article implies this means vacationers are getting a bum deal if they are looking for cleaner air, and that ship staff might be in danger from exposure to these particulates as well. But there's no information on how often staff or vacationers are in these high-particulate zones. And there's no corresponding numbers for other parts of the ship. What about on state room balconies? Or the pool area? Or staff quarters? My wild guess is that the numbers would be significantly better than Piccadilly most places on the ship, but this article doesn't tell me if I'm right or wrong about that. As for the "as much particulate matter as a million cars", that sounds bad, but what does it mean? Is it a million cars operating 24/7? Given that they say 30 cruise ships equal all the particulate pollution from cars in the entire UK, I'm guessing they mean a million cars' typical daily routine. Which would be what, a couple of hours at most of operation? And then, the ship is serving as living quarters for the people aboard. So how much particulate matter is generated by electricity generation and other fuel usage of a typical home? What's the difference in those usages when people are occupying the residence versus when they are on a vacation? For that matter, how does cruise ship vacation pollution generation compare to pollution generated by other vacation modes? Sure you can't answer all of that in one article or one study, and while I fully accept cruise ships are "wasteful" in some sense, and are definitely not a positive impact on the environments they travel through, it's important to give a full picture of the situation. (The article is from 2017 by the way.)

RealDinosaur 8y ago
I would be very much interested if working on a cruise ship for a season (9 months) would decrease my life expectancy.
- jstarfish 8y ago
  It depends on the job. Are you talking about cabin crew or below deck? Up top you have to worry about suicide, "rogue waves" and a general lack of accountability at sea. Below deck you're exposed to so many carcinogens and industrial solvents you're guaranteed a miserable death by cancer. These crews are always staffed by people who wouldn't understand an MSDS if you handed it to them. Same with airport runway personnel. 9 months may not be enough time for that though unless you sit around huffing ship paint with no mask.

b0bby_tabl3s 8y ago

Transatlantic Cargo ships are even worse. There are 4 grades of unregulated diesel fuel (IIRC) and most of them use the cheapest bottom tier.

sudomakeup 8y ago

One should also consider the Airline industry. Especially the climate change activists that regularly fly.

masonic 8y ago
the climate change activists The wealthy ones (e.g. Gore, DiCaprio, Huffington) fly in private jets, not commercial.