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What's the pollutant cost of flying the equivalent number of tourists there? I would have thought, naively, that boats are way more efficient than jet engines,

by flir 3y ago

What's the pollutant cost of flying the equivalent number of tourists there? I would have thought, naively, that boats are way more efficient than jet engines, even after hauling casinos and swimming pools along for the ride. I wonder if "don't run your power plants when docked, buy local electricity instead" is a reasonable rule. I too think cruise ships are tacky, but when I examine that reaction I find it really hard to justify. I think it might just be a classist thing on my part.

marcosdumay 3y ago
I doubted the claims around here, so I tried to get some numbers from a DDG search. I didn't find anything definitive, but looks like cruise ships spend something on the order of 100kg of fuel per passenger-day. This is completely out of line from any kind of transportation (with speeds on the order of 40km/h). Their main issues are that they use a huge amount of electricity, and that they run way too fast for a ship.
- DeRock 3y ago
  From the featured article: > Another study released in April by the US environmental group Friends of the Earth found that passengers on a typical cruise ship each emit roughly 421 kg of carbon dioxide a day—more than one does on a typical one-way flight from New York to Los Angeles.
- flir 3y ago
  Thanks for finding that. So we're talking about 100 passenger/km for 12 litres of fuel (very roughly). That's.... 10-20% worse than an SUV with a single occupant? Double a fuel-efficient car? And apparently 3-4x a commercial jet. With all the other problems people have mentioned, I can see why air passengers would be far more desirable from the destination's point of view.
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    The "on the order of" on my comment is load-bearing. I've found a lot of things from 400 l/pass*day to 100 l/pass*day, and 20 km/h to 40 km/h. The higher speeds tend to come with the highest fuel consumption. But I couldn't find good info on the correlation between them. So, they probably consume a few times more fuel than a SUV, and closer to 10 times more than a jet, but I can't get you any precision at all.

by flir 3y ago

marcosdumay 3y ago

I doubted the claims around here, so I tried to get some numbers from a DDG search. I didn't find anything definitive, but looks like cruise ships spend something on the order of 100kg of fuel per passenger-day. This is completely out of line from any kind of transportation (with speeds on the order of 40km/h). Their main issues are that they use a huge amount of electricity, and that they run way too fast for a ship.

DeRock 3y ago
From the featured article: > Another study released in April by the US environmental group Friends of the Earth found that passengers on a typical cruise ship each emit roughly 421 kg of carbon dioxide a day—more than one does on a typical one-way flight from New York to Los Angeles.
flir 3y ago
Thanks for finding that. So we're talking about 100 passenger/km for 12 litres of fuel (very roughly). That's.... 10-20% worse than an SUV with a single occupant? Double a fuel-efficient car? And apparently 3-4x a commercial jet. With all the other problems people have mentioned, I can see why air passengers would be far more desirable from the destination's point of view.
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  The "on the order of" on my comment is load-bearing. I've found a lot of things from 400 l/pass*day to 100 l/pass*day, and 20 km/h to 40 km/h. The higher speeds tend to come with the highest fuel consumption. But I couldn't find good info on the correlation between them. So, they probably consume a few times more fuel than a SUV, and closer to 10 times more than a jet, but I can't get you any precision at all.