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Shipping is a pretty dirty industry, because of fuel quality they use and the general lack of oversight in the middle of the ocean. I was on the board of Corvu
by mogadsheu 7y ago
Shipping is a pretty dirty industry, because of fuel quality they use and the general lack of oversight in the middle of the ocean.
I was on the board of Corvus Energy (http://corvusenergy.com http://corvusenergy.com) while working in Norway, whose technology reduces CO2, SOx, NOx, and fuel consumption by up to 30%. One installation was the equivalent of taking 10,000 cars off of the road. Thankfully, there are developments in this space.
Bear in mind that shipping is also the most energy efficient form of bulk transportation (vs land or air).
- sdfmmkmsdfmk 7y agoIf it reduces fuel consumption by 30%, wouldn't all ships want to have it? Is it too expensive, or what is the problem?
- mogadsheu 7y agoShipping is a very conservative industry and hesitant to new things. Time to investment payback was longer than many companies were willing to stomach, which was shortened thanks to Norway subsidies. That said, they’re growing quickly, have a look!
- dogma1138 7y agoIn shipping the cost is transferred easily down the line; capital investment in new vessels and new technologies is pretty slim because of that. Also the time spent in dry dock might as well cost you more than what you’ll gain through the service time of the vessel since many of these vessels change hands frequently sometimes even several times a year. Also because how risk is managed in the shipping industry none of these companies is exposed to any actual action, the vessels would almost never be owned by an entity with actual assets and they would essentially be registered to shells holding only debt. This is done to protect shipping companies from damages in case of accidents but it’s also very convenient to avoid any regulation since if they are caught there will be no legal entity to pay the fine.
- esyir 7y agoHm, really stupid naive question here. What happens if violating ships were basically seized
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoShipping to/from/through the waters of whosoever is doing the seizing is going to get a lot more expensive.
- dredmorbius 7y agoOr, you know, the shipping companies could address that risk by complying with the relevant regulations.
- dogma1138 7y agoWell they don’t have a strong basis to seize the vessels, right of passage is tricky and the vessels don’t turn those on while in territorial waters. Open systems have a sufficiently large capacity to store the contaminated water so they essentially only open the loop in international waters where no one can do anything about it. But in general it depends on who does it, for the most part if it’s a western country the country would loose in court since it will he sued by multiple parties with interest in the cargo but no actual liability. If it’s not then it’s either going to be a political waltz or just another act of piracy. The ship and cargo are insured some parties might make more money on losing the ship than if it had completed its transit including quite possibly its operator.
- gruez 7y ago>Open systems have a sufficiently large capacity to store the contaminated water so they essentially only open the loop in international waters where no one can do anything about it. What about enacting a law that says "if you use cheating devices at all, you can't dock in our ports"?
- 7y ago
- dspillett 7y agoIt might be worth finding more detail, preferably externally verified, than a vague "up to 30%" claim before judging it as a no-brainer. Also from what I know of the shipping industry I would only expect it to be seen on new ships as the cost of retro-fitting would be high even without considering the opportunity cost of the ship needing to be in dry-dock for the operation (and needing to get to and from the dock, if there is not one where the work can be done along its owner's normal routes). And given ships change hands surprisingly often, how long it takes to hit break even (i.e when the cost of the fuel saved, less any extra maintenance costs the tech may be subject to in that time, equals extra initial outlay) will have a massive effect on whether it is worth it to the initial owner of a new ship. And a new ship is a huge capital expenditure, with a long lead time from plan to implementation. If the tech is relatively new it may not have existed at all when ships currently rolling into service were conceived, and with that level of capital involved designers are going to be pretty conservative about the risk of trying relatively new tech, so maybe it will become common but at a much later time.
- rr-geil-j 7y agoDon't forget the noise pollution: https://www.marineinsight.com/environment/effects-of-noise-pollution-from-ships-on-marine-life/ https://www.marineinsight.com/environment/effects-of-noise-p... https://ocr.org/sounds/shipping-noise/ https://ocr.org/sounds/shipping-noise/
- poooogles 7y agoThis is a big forgotten one. The sound of container ships as they go past on shipping lanes is colossal; if you're downwind you can hear them from 3/4 miles away quite well.
- rr-geil-j 7y agoI can only imagine how much disruption this have on whales which rely on "singing" to communicate. Probably similar to living near an airport.
- api_or_ipa 7y agoI've dived ~1 mile away from anchored cruise ships and it's jarring, and frankly, pretty scary how loud they are. I can only imagine how the whales feel.
- anticensor 7y agoThey would like to plug their ears.
- tapland 7y agoOur house fills with low frequency vibrations and a dull humming when they pass by, and even at my office a further half mile inland I can gear and feel it over the loud office environment.
- throw0101a 7y ago> Shipping is a pretty dirty industry, because of fuel quality ... You're not wrong, but no one else is/was using bunker fuel, so might as well burn it, as what else can it be used for? Can it be processed into anything more useful? (The IMO 2020 mandate may help clean things up.) > Bear in mind that shipping is also the most energy efficient form of bulk transportation (vs land or air). I was under the impression that rail transport was. Is that not correct?
- erdgdsgbdfsg 7y agoNo, shipping is the most efficient. Not only are drag loses comparatively small, those two stroke diesels are crazy efficient from a thermodynamic point of view (massive, slow, and high compression ratio -> crazy efficiency).
- i_am_proteus 7y agoIt's so efficient that barge transport is still preferred to rail where a navigable river is available.
- linuxftw 7y agoIt's efficient in the sense that if you compare kgs of goods per km, but it's not efficient when you consider the great distances ships travel versus producing goods domestically, just to put those same goods on rail and trucks anyway.
- flyingfences 7y agoIf you consider the efficiency of shipping finished goods versus shipping the raw material (and, possibly, labor) necessary to produce the goods domestically, how does that affect the comparison?
- linuxftw 7y agoThis statement seems to assume the same shipping of raw materials isn't taking place elsewhere. Ore goes from the mine, to the forge, the raw steel goes to the manufacturer. That probably requires a bit of shipping, doesn't matter which country it takes place in.
- erdgdsgbdfsg 7y agoHigh sulfur diesel is super nasty, and the shipping industry has to clean up, but it's not obvious how. I mean, let's say we forbid them from using high S diesel. What happens to this diesel then? Do we dump it in tailing ponds? pump it back into the ground? It's not obvious what to do with this. At least at sea S emissions are spread out minimizing impact (as opposed to localized) I'm not saying not to do anything. I'm asking, what are we to do? (I have some ideas in mind, so it's not impossible)
- Tuna-Fish 7y ago> I mean, let's say we forbid them from using high S diesel. What happens to this diesel then? It gets the sulfur refined out of it. It's not hard to do, just not quite as cheap as just burning it somewhere where no environmental regulations exists (or where they are not enforceable).
- xkcd-sucks 7y agoElemental sulfur isn't all that nasty, it would be fine in a pile somewhere. The issue is dispersing it into ecosystems quickly. Kind of like fixed nitrogen, which like sulfur is a nutrient
- jws 7y agoYou can see the great stacked blocks of it in Canada where it is removed from the tar sands oil… https://www.google.com/mymaps/viewer?mid=1Wi4KuLBYcXHH0dq4j4ZzOhxm4pY&hl=en https://www.google.com/mymaps/viewer?mid=1Wi4KuLBYcXHH0dq4j4... The oil is more valuable without the sulfur, but the market price of sulfur is low, so they just stack it up.
- joncrane 7y agoDon't most laws work like this: "As of Date X, Y will be illegal." So refiners basically stop making high Sulphur diesel, but date X is far enough in the future that there's time to use it all up before the law takes effect.
- dzhiurgis 7y agoElectric cars give away fuel that ships can now use. Of course there’s nowhere to put fuel which shops used to use
- lxmorj 7y agoMore efficient than enormous, unmanned self-filling hydrogen dirigibles? They could operate in dedicated lanes away any from population centers...