<i>Slow steaming</i> is an improvement and it saves quite a bit of bunker. But while bunker is cheap, it's really noxious; the Cosco Busan spilled bunker when it hit the Delta tower of the Bay Bridge.<p>Boats are supposed to switch over to a cleaner fuel when they enter port. For example, Port of Oakland is upwind of residential housing in Oakland. So this is a public health issue. Even the terminal tractors (port trucks) idling are an issue. Hopefully they'll switch over to EVs:<p><a href="https://orangeev.com/" rel="nofollow">https://orangeev.com/</a><p>Boats are designed for a critical hull speed. <i>Emma Maersk</i> cruises at 31 mi/h on the open ocean.<p><a href="http://www.emma-maersk.com/specification/" rel="nofollow">http://www.emma-maersk.com/specification/</a><p>That bulbous nose on container ships sets up a counter bow wave to lower drag but only at a certain cruising speed. However, shippers weren't paying a premium for that higher speed and although it's more efficient for that hull it was still costly.<p>So new boats are tuned to a more efficient lower speed (slow steaming) with less powerful engines and even older boats are getting hauled into dry dock and re-nosed for a lower speed. Overall shipping speeds are down and shipping costs are also down.<p><a href="http://www.seatrade-maritime.com/news/americas/the-economics-of-slow-steaming.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.seatrade-maritime.com/news/americas/the-economics...</a><p>While the new Panama Canal extension could be a fiasco in its own right (100 years later and not nearly as well built; it leaks) new canals could improve things. The Thai Canal could make the Suez route more competitive than the Panama route for Asia to Europe.<p>Lastly, like airlines, it's really hard to make money in shipping. Witness the Hanjin bankruptcy:<p><a href="http://gcaptain.com/south-korea-court-hanjin-to-declare-bankruptcy-this-month/" rel="nofollow">http://gcaptain.com/south-korea-court-hanjin-to-declare-bank...</a><p>The City of Oakland owns the Port of Oakland and we don't make much money off of it either. $16M/yr for both the airport and the port, last time I checked.
<i>> That also imperils banks across the world, which have lent $400bn secured on smoke-spewing ships.</i><p>So, why should we care? Presumably the banks have paid analysts to determine that was a sound investment.<p>If governments are doing their jobs, banks should be able to eat this kind of loss without becoming insolvent. Otherwise why bother having regulations at all, if every minor hiccup means taxpayers have to bail out the banks?<p>Why do I care if shipping companies go out of business because of over capacity? Isn't that what market forces are all about?<p>So we should keep dangerously polluting ships running, because the banks that loan the shippers money will lose their shirts for several quarters if the shipping company goes bust?
It is interesting to note that the types of engines used in these large ships are among the most efficient:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake_specific_fuel_consumption#Examples_of_values_of_BSFC_for_shaft_engines" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake_specific_fuel_consumptio...</a><p>The pollution has more to do with the type of fuel used.
I've hit my limit for the economist this month, so I went and looked up the article. It seems these articles have been coming out since at least 2009, and the gist is that because these (older) ships burn heavy fuel, which isn't refined like gasoline.<p>And it seems the fix is to urge the companies to update their ships by not allowing them in ports, but considering how long these articles have been coming out, it looks like progress is slow on that front - and if it has changed. Shipping companies have been selling off some of their stock, and it would seem that at least a few of the older ships should have been included.
A bit of clarification on which oxides, from the article: By burning heavy fuel oil, just 15 of the biggest ships emit more oxides of nitrogen and sulphur—gases much worse for global warming than carbon dioxide—than all the world’s cars put together
>just 15 of the biggest ships emit more oxides of nitrogen and sulphur—gases much worse for global warming than carbon dioxide...<p>Oxides of sulphur are not greenhouse gasses. Nitrous oxide is a greenhouse gas but it doesn't come from burning fuel.<p>These links go into the actual reasons these sorts of pollutants are bad:<p>* <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOx#Environmental_effects" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOx#Environmental_effects</a><p>* <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur_dioxide#As_an_air_pollutant" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur_dioxide#As_an_air_pollu...</a><p>Interestingly enough, there is some thought that nitrogen oxide emissions from ships actually cause global cooling.
It seems to me that many comments here are missing the point. To be fair, the article also seems to get it wrong. The problem with sulphur and nitrogen oxides isn't just global warming (though apparently N2O is a real problem, there). To my mind, the real problem is good old fashioned pollution as we talked about in the 80s. Acid rain, anyone?
15 Biggest Ships Create More Pollution Than All Cars in the World (2013)<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10716102" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10716102</a><p><i>128 points by danboarder 457 days ago | 65 comments</i>
Isn't it feasible for container ships to go electric ? They have such massive surface areas for batteries. I thought of solar but then the container loading/unloading aspects will become quite cumbersome, unless you could somehow put solar panels on individual container roofs and load those on the top. A logistical nightmare nonetheless.<p>A crude search yields this about Emma Maersk, one of the largest container ships.<p>She is powered by a Wärtsilä-Sulzer 14RTFLEX96-C engine, the world's largest single diesel unit, weighing 2,300 tonnes and capable of 81 MW (109,000 hp) when burning 14,000 litres (3,600 US gal)[31] of heavy fuel oil per hour. At economical speed, fuel consumption is 0.260 bs/hp·hour (1,660 gal/hour).[32] She has features to lower environmental damage, including exhaust heat recovery and cogeneration.[33] Some of the exhaust gases are returned to the engine to improve economy and lower emissions,[34] and some are passed through a steam generator which then powers a Peter Brotherhood steam turbine and electrical generators. This creates an electrical output of 8.5 MW,[35] equivalent to about 12% of the main engine power output. Some of this steam is used directly as shipboard heat.[36] Five diesel generators together produce 20.8 MW,[35] giving a total electric output of 29 MW.[26] Two 9 MW electric motors augment the power on the main propeller shaft<p>So you need about 285 Tesla Models P100D motors to power a ship of this size. Doable I guess. Again, I'm no expert on shipping.
> Such schemes used to be thwarted by the difficulty of measuring exact fuel consumption on ships. New technologies allow more accurate readings.<p>Why is it so difficult to measure fuel consumption on ships?
"The problem, he adds, is one of incentives. Ship owners, who would normally borrow for such upgrades, do not benefit from lower fuel bills. It is the firms chartering the vessels that enjoy the savings. But their contracts are not long enough to make it worthwhile to invest in green upgrades. The average retrofit has a payback time of three years, whereas 80% of ship charters are for two years or less."<p>"Hence the interest in new green-lending structures. ... The idea is to share the fuel savings between the shipowner and the charterer over a longer contract, giving both an incentive to make the upgrades. Such schemes used to be thwarted by the difficulty of measuring exact fuel consumption on ships. New technologies allow more accurate readings."<p>This is the exact same problem that arises in landlord/tenant relationships when it comes to things like insulating a property. Insulation might be relatively cheap and pay itself back in a few years. But the landlord doesn't have an incentive to insulate because the benefit goes to the tenant. The current tenant also won't insulate because they'll probably leave before they can realise all the benefit of their investment.<p>In theory, landlords or shipowners should have an incentive to invest, since it should improve their property and therefore allow them to increase their rents or charter fees, but for some reason this doesn't happen. Possibly consumers can't accurately assess the value of improvements so they are reluctant to pay more.<p>The measurement devices mentioned should allow both parties to have a more accurate way to share in the benefits.<p>It's a complicated dance of incentives and information...<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality</a>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry</a>
This comment thread illustrates why HN posters shouldn't presume to write their own headlines for an article unless they really know what they are doing.
Maybe it's time to re-examine using nuclear reactors on cargo ships?<p><a href="https://www.flexport.com/blog/nuclear-powered-cargo-ships/" rel="nofollow">https://www.flexport.com/blog/nuclear-powered-cargo-ships/</a>
Warning: I'm totally ignorant on the subject.<p>It seems like oil gets refined with gasoline going to cars and heavier fuels going to ships. Can we really say that cars are so much cleaner? Their fuel is surely subsidized by a market for the heavier fuels.
"Carrying more than 90% of the world’s trade, ocean-going vessels produce just 3% of its greenhouse-gas emissions."
The article says itself, shipping is super efficient.
The article seems to imply in its first paragraph that sulfer dioxide is a greenhouse gas. But doesn't SO2 have a <i>cooling</i> effect on the climate?<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_sulfate_aerosols_(geoengineering)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_sulfate_aerosols...</a>
I read 30 years ago that some cargo ships were being equipped with computer operated sails, which would substantially reduce fuel use. I wonder what happened to that.
Increase the price of petrol. Many conflicts in the world are related to petrol. A significant part of military budget can be seen as a subsidize to petrol. There should be enough taxes to compensate all these hidden costs.
The lede is false and misleading on its face. Excluding "carbon dioxide" from your list of "oxides" when discussing (and comparing with) automobile greenhouse gas emissions is absurd. The misleading claim is also clearly intentional, so none of the other claims can be accepted at face value. (No, shutting down 15 ships would not do more to address greenhouse oxide emissions than banning automobiles world-wide.) More than disappointing, and never should have been published.
you know what's even more interesting, it seems like shipping fuel is heavily subsidized. The international price for bunker fuel is about $330 per ton. Oil is $50 per barrel, a barrel is about 300 lbs, so 7.5 barrels make a ton. That's $375. Why is the refined product cheaper than the raw product?<p>edit: many have responded calling residual fuel a "waste product" - it is useful and being used so calling a waste product strikes me as semantically incorrect. If it were being sold opportunistically, like a large proportion of it was going to waste but some was being sold, I would agree with that, but it seems like it's all being sold, right?