Aerial view of a cruise ship graveyard
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
Cruise ships are disgusting - on a public health, environmental, and labor law axes. (Probably a few others, too!) I love seeing them being dismantled.
Secondarily, good riddance to the whole industry.
Edit: after reflecting on this I don’t think my parents enjoyed it either. They went on it because it was the done thing at the time and they could tell everyone they went on it.
One of the differences with cargo ships is that cruise ships need a lot of power even when they are at port to keep all the amenities of a large town going. Most cargo ships have tiny crews,and little demand for power when not at sea. They are a significant producer of local pollutants that cause very real health problems for many people.
Some ports do have electrical hookups for the cruise ships to use, but I think they are often more expensive than just burning more bunker fuel, and require to ship to be set up for them.
Cruise ships use a lot of energy, but add up the total energy required to house, move, heat, cool, amuse and feed 4000 tourists and their minders on land and you will also get a large number.
However it seems to be very difficult to change the rules on shipping fuel, but some ports are starting to clamp down on cruise ships that don't hook up to the local grid.
Cruise ships are basically floating Vegases, they are never going to be exactly eco-friendly, but at their available sources of power are limited to those that are badly polluting, even if they use high quality fuel.
The only way to make cruise ships low carbon would be to make them nuclear powered, like an aircraft carrier. You can't really power them with renewable sources like you can with homes on land.
Are they still carbon-intensive? Kinda. Nowhere near as bad as flying, but worse than passenger vehicles and trains. But if we want a fair comparison, shouldn't we also throw in the hotels and restaurants and theme parks that they replace? Because if you get rid of the cruise ships, you haven't really gotten rid of the problem, just moved it around a little bit.
And yes, as I said in my previous comment, cruise ships are like floating Vegases, a large part of their impact is simply the impact of most tourism, but on a boat.
But as I mentioned, a cruise ship can't run on renewables, but a land based resort can. Of course the plane that gets you there is still spewing co2 (I get annoyed by people who fly thousands of miles to go on "eco-friendly" holidays). At the end of the day it's hard to compare these things in general when the specifics of each case matter too.
But even barring the potential for nuclear, renewable power for ships is feasible. Liquid hydrogen has a ton of potential as a fuel source. And it can be reliably produced sustainably with reasonable efficiency. Price is the only factor barring its use currently (the technology already exists, and it is already good enough). With abundant intermittent renewables, excess power will get cheaper, which will bring down the prices for hydrogen. And when cleaner is actually cheaper than dirty, even the ethically-challenged will make the right choice.
If we can generate clean hydrogen I think an awful lot of things that are not easily converted to battery will get a lot cleaner, I think it's being looked at as a replacement for coal in steel production. I think we're still some years away from that unfortunately, last estimate I saw was about a decade, but fingers crossed we get there earlier.
As you say, making doing the right thing cheaper than doing the wrong is the way we solve so many of these problems. Unfortunately we also need to get to the point where it's cheaper to scrap the old kit and replace it, than not, which may take longer.
There is no excuse for them. I believe they should be banned, and any leisure ships should be sail-powered. I bet they would be more fun for the tourists, too.
I understand international shipping is vital, that's why cargo ships get a pass, but cruise ships simply have no place if we actually care about the environment. Sadly, money trumps everything.
Isn't it much more effective to simply force ships to have much fewer emissions or offset them?
My stand is, burning dirty oil for people's enjoyment to the detriment of the oceans and the air is [insert bad words].
I said, use sailboats for leisure tourism. Plenty of fun.
At this rate, we'll fuck up the planet enough that governments will take the power in their hands and everyone will be forced to help with the cleanup.
If we don't do something now, out of our own volition, we're all going to end up with much more authoritarian governments and limits on individual freedoms. It's either that or civil wars. No way around it.
Yes, many will take planes and trains and cars, any of which will still pollute less than cruise ships.
There is no downside to banning them and using sail ships (aside from a potential loss of revenue).
This sentence made me think... how many people are toiling hard under the promise that, when they amass enough wealth and eventually retire, then they'll have time to jump on cruise ships and see the world? Isn't this the tail end of the American dream? No surprise then that there isn't a widespread consensus to kill the cruise shipping industry - as you have people burning the best years of their life chasing a carrot, only for you to propose to take the carrot away.
At the very least, the cruise ship operators should be made to internalize the entire environmental cost of their pollution. The best way to do that would be through taxing bunker fuel, but that may cause mayhem with the entire shipping industry, so I'd initially be fine with just a large and very much unfair tax on cruise operators. Not enough to take away the carrot, but enough to make it appropriately expensive, relative to the environmental costs. Now is probably the best time for that - the companies are devastated by COVID and won't have money to bribe^H^H^H^H^Hlobby against such measures.
It's quite hard to tax them. They sail under Panama flags in international waters and are registered in some country most people haven't heard of. They can only be taxed while at anchor in a port under some jurisdiction. They'll happily refuel in Jamaica, Cuba or Haiti if fuel is taxed in the US. We've seen that in Europe with truckers and fuel taxes in some jurisdictions.
Sailing ships have unreliable schedules, for one.
Of course, it could be that the C-H bonds contribute much more to the energy released by burning the fuel than the C-C. But this doesn't seem to be case. Here's a paper in favour of switching to lighter fuels for ships: it argues that the total supply chain CO2 contribution would be higher (it takes energy to refine those fuels), but only by 1%.
I think that "bunker fuel is really bad and ships switching to lighter cleaner fuels is important for the environment" is a seductively easy but bad target for carbon reduction. There are way better places to spend our efforts.
[0] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3155/1047-3289.58.4.5...
The easiest, most economically efficient, most productive way to do it is to tax the C content of fuels. Use the monies raised to subsidize green energy.
Banning is an indiscriminate club that does a lot of collateral damage.
The regulations we have now (no high-sulphur fuels in cities, no leaded gasoline...) are better than taxing only CO2 emissions, even if they're not perfect.
The problem with banning is its inflexibility. For example, let's say you have a bunker-fueled emergency generator for a hospital that you use only when the power goes out. The pollution it emits is negligible. But by banning bunker fuel, you'll have to replace the emergency generator, at considerable expense and environmental cost.
With taxes instead, you:
1. bunker fuel will only be used when there's high value for it, and you won't have to add a plethora of exemptions into the regulation
2. have a revenue center for the government instead of a cost center - revenue that can be used to subsidize green initiatives
The problem with ships is that once they enter international waters they can do whatever they want.
Which is exactly what they do, burn bunker fuel outside territorial waters and switch to cleaner fuel when they approach a country (because they are forced to).
There is simply no enforcement outside territorial waters, and if anyone tried to, they'd be immediately condemned by everyone else.
Is it possible that you are a member of a group of individuals that do not enjoy nor participate in cruises and therefore do not give anything up by calling for their ban? You can feel good about it without personally sacrificing anything and instead forcing others to make that sacrifice.
How would you feel if it were the inverse and others were calling for a ban on an activity you enjoy?
It is very easy to call for a ban on something that you personally do not enjoy because you lose nothing. In fact a majority of the world's population likely does not enjoy cruising, just as a different majority does not enjoy snow sports, water sports, car racing, motorcycles, horse racing, skydiving, rugby, rock climbing, etc..
There is some form of ethical or safety concerns for each of those but the world would be a very boring place if we banned them all.
So if you want lower pollution, maybe just target the use of bunker fuel, and force them into low sulfur fuels like the shipping industry has already done. And if carbon emissions are still a problem, ban private jets and first class flights.
Yes, they have relatively low carbon emissions, but NOx/SOx as you said are extremely high. And the Earth's ecosystem doesn't really have individual parts, it's all interconnected. Polluting the oceans leads to major problems on land. Air pollution is also carried everywhere else.
Hence, banning cruise ships in particular is a straightforward way to reduce global emissions without significant side effects.
I am poor. My vacations have been by bus and train, and I like them. I can see various cities and people while going to my destination, and it's cheaper than a cruise. Since it's on land, emissions are strict and it's really hard to break the laws around them.
You're right about the private jet flights, as well. It's really an extra luxury for the people who will soon tell us we have to make sacrifices in order to save the planet. I guess they really need that extra hour when going to ask for public money for their failing enterprises.
I'm not downvoting btw, you have a valid point. I only downvote extremely dumb or offensive comments.
I don't think cruise ships are great. Even if they were fueled by pure renewable or nuclear energy, there are still problems, ranging from invasive species taking trips across the world in bilges, nutrient-concentrations from black water dumps leading to overgrowth zones of marine plants, destroyed coral reefs from massive anchor chains, and garbage pollution that makes its way off of poorly contained balconies. But again, this is a problem of regulation. They are all fixable problems.
I also should mention that I find most arguments about cruise industry labor policies to be extremely hypocritical and elitist. People will complain about how they make their workers work long hours for little pay, but won't lift a finger to change it. Open up our borders, give them an option to work somewhere that has actual labor laws. Hell, when these cruise ships come into US ports, we don't even let the workers off the boat, for fear that they might illegally stay permanently and have a better life with labor laws and living wages inside our borders. We take away all their better options, but then complain that unethical companies take advantage of it?
Basically, I agree that the cruise industry is dirty, unethical, and run by despicable people. But the actual problems they present to the world are also fixable by the world, and cruises don't necessarily need to be banned to do so. I'd prefer they fix their problems, but I still want them around so that the high school dropout machinist with 4 kids can go on regular vacations with his family and realize his dream of visiting 30 countries before he dies.
And Norways coastal roadway is 5 times longer than the coastal ferry. That is an environmental issue if anything.
Carnival Cruise has new ship and ship currently under test drive. It will be even larger than anything before https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mardi_Gras_(2020_ship)
Looking through a low level port window at night, to moonlight, honestly feels like travelling through outer space on the USS Enterprise. Its pretty unique.
About the only thing I didn't like is that since the food is included, it seems to attract seriously obese people to take these cruises. Just so they can indulge in buffet gluttony 3 times a day for several days non stop. Served by their poor and skinny third world waiters, with a reputation for f-ing like bunny rabbits in their cage like quarters. The contrast is kind of comical.
Then seeing all these obese burgers leave the buffet tables, belly full, walking on a port deck at sea reminded me of wobbling marbles in a Maze run. Pretty funny and Wally like.
But wouldn't it make sense for a poorer countries government to buy this and use it for its tourism industry or even for fishing boats.
The value of a full ship has to be worth more than scrap metal. These ships are no longer to luxury standards. But most likely still very functional ships.
They really are floating Petri dishes full of the most vulnerable elderly people.
https://thepointsguy.co.uk/guide/cruise-ship-sold-scrap-list...
I admit that I've loved the cruises I've taken - new port every day - super well-fed 24hrs - great entertainment... but the cruise industry is horrible for the reasons noted!
It really wouldn't be a loss if covid killed them off, though that's unlikely - more likely they'll just reposition all their ships to serve China.