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There was an interesting programme last night on cruise ships and how much pollution they caused. The main problems were the engines - usually large diesels (helped by smaller gas turbines), and the way in which they dispose of waste.
We will look at the problem of diesel emmissions.
One large cruise ship can emit more particulates in a day than 1,000,000 cars, and 30 cruise ships emit more particulates than all the cars in the UK.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...lly-circus-channel-4-dispatches-a7821911.html

The other bad news, is that near to St Katherine's Dock in Lobndon, they are planning to build a cruise ship terminal, and in order to light the ship, the engines may well be "ticking over" 24/7.
 
Never been on a cruise , for me it would be hell on water , Thousands of people all hell bent on having the best holiday ever

Arrrrr :eek:
 
Thought most of the modern ones used gas turbines. In venice it's ridiculous the size of the ships navigating in, towering above the buildings, with the wash causing damage
 
It's no reasons to hate diesel engines, and it is reason to require control of emissions from vessels. It makes less sense than hating wood fires because in certain specific conditions they can cause high levels of particulates to accumulate in some valleys.
 
They are massive polluters using mega tons of heavy fuel oil. The numbers don't lie according to a survey a cruise ship emits the same pollution as 1 million cars.
 
Heavy fuel oil has over 3500 times the sulphur in it than even ordinary diesel. The cruise company's get away will environmental murder as most of the pollution is in uncontrolled international waters .
 
I watched the program it was quite awful the amount of hidious pollution. It just staggers me how much big business can work around the law but flout the spirit of it.
 
I'm not going to pretend that cruise ships are a great environmental benefit but......most of the dangers from diesel engines come from being near them. The passengers are going to run more risk than I am.

Fun fact: cruise ships all have morgues. They sometimes have to put into port because their morgues are full. Cruising is far more dangerous than the brochures suggest.

http://www.cruiseshipdeaths.com/
 
Is the relatively high mortality rate on cruise ships down to the ships themselves or the high average age of the people who take them? IIRC, at one point it was cheaper to be on an all inclusive cruise than to be in sheltered accommodation for seniors and the medical care was better to boot!
 
Nod said:
Is the relatively high mortality rate on cruise ships down to the ships themselves or the high average age of the people who take them? IIRC, at one point it was cheaper to be on an all inclusive cruise than to be in sheltered accommodation for seniors and the medical care was better to boot!
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Correct. Old people just tend to live on board and go from cruise to cruise.

No other reason.
 
Byker28i said:
Thought most of the modern ones used gas turbines. In venice it's ridiculous the size of the ships navigating in, towering above the buildings, with the wash causing damage
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Source please. If it did cause damage then they wouldn't be let in to port. Ships can be banned from port if they don't abide to its rules.
 
F1.2 said:
Never been on a cruise , for me it would be hell on water , Thousands of people all hell bent on having the best holiday ever

Arrrrr :eek:
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What a strange comment. How do you know if you haven't tried it? Not all cruises are the same for a start. And who goes on holiday to not enjoy themselves?
 
neil_g said:
It's a good job cruise ship operators have committed to fitting cleaner engines in new ships and retrofitting cleaner engines to existing fleets.

Also the amount of cruise ships at sea is dwarfed by container, tanker and other cargo ships. But let's gloss over those and go for the easy target.
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I am going to start on those shortly.:)
 
boogie man said:
What a strange comment. How do you know if you haven't tried it? Not all cruises are the same for a start. And who goes on holiday to not enjoy themselves?
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If your idea of an ideal holiday is visiting somewhere quiet, distinctly neither 'swish' or full of tourists then a cruise would be horrible. TBH the idea of a cruise for a holiday is about as appealing as a 2 week old pork chop.
 
Mr Bump said:
They are massive polluters using mega tons of heavy fuel oil. The numbers don't lie according to a survey a cruise ship emits the same pollution as 1 million cars.
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OK, but you would rather a million of us would be left without an economic and affordable car... I'd like to see the likes of you attack transnational corporations to make them fit filters on the ships and trains, but no, you attack your poor brothers and sisters. Way to go, way to go :(
 
neil_g said:
Source please. If it did cause damage then they wouldn't be let in to port. Ships can be banned from port if they don't abide to its rules.
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I was in venice two years ago when protestors took to the water, including some swimming. There were also protests last year. Unesco have called for a ban of cruise ships visiting Venice

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/c...nd-venice-what-does-it-all-mean-for-the-city/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/n...enice-as-angry-protesters-block-cruise-ships/

I've photos of how the ships completely look out of place, towering over the builings, rather like
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2017/may/26/venice-tourists-cruise-ships-pollution-italy-biennale


I'm surprised they don't make them pull into the Lido and then use the 10 minute water taxi ride. It would promote the island more, reinvigorate it's businesses, it's got great beaches
 
Byker28i said:
I was in venice two years ago when protestors took to the water, including some swimming. There were also protests last year. Unesco have called for a ban of cruise ships visiting Venice

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/c...nd-venice-what-does-it-all-mean-for-the-city/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/n...enice-as-angry-protesters-block-cruise-ships/

I've photos of how the ships completely look out of place, towering over the builings, rather like
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2017/may/26/venice-tourists-cruise-ships-pollution-italy-biennale


I'm surprised they don't make them pull into the Lido and then use the 10 minute water taxi ride. It would promote the island more, reinvigorate it's businesses, it's got great beaches
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Thanks. I'll have a proper read later.

Have their been any actual studies on the effect of the ships?
 
ancient_mariner said:
If your idea of an ideal holiday is visiting somewhere quiet, distinctly neither 'swish' or full of tourists then a cruise would be horrible. TBH the idea of a cruise for a holiday is about as appealing as a 2 week old pork chop.
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Honestly it's really not that bad.

Fwiw contrary to what the above articles seem to suggest the entire ships passenger content does not disembark at port, most will stay on board.

For example I went to Norway year before last, there were more native tourists than English walking around the port towns.
 
It's a difficult thing. The city authorities want the tourism, Venice thrives on it after all, however the locals are fed up with the numbers of people, Unesco say the city is being extensively damaged. The wash from the ships, when on the water taxis, is incredible even with them moving at slow speed.

Do you work on cruise ships?
 
When the ships dock in Venice, they keep their engines running for the entire stop in order to keep electricity and other critical systems on the ship running. This idling, similar to that of cars, emits a considerable amount of air polution.

Studies by the Venice Port Authority show that cruise ships account for 14-15% of Venetian air pollution. Engineers are working on a way for the ships to plug into an electrical grid at the docks and turn off their engines in port, but implementation of the project is still many years off.

The ships’ effects on the lagoon itself are even more dire. In the 15 years that Venice has received large cruise ships, nearly 70% of the original sediment of the marsh has been sucked out in the wakes of these massive ships, according to the Venice in Peril Association.

http://www.ecotravellerguide.com/2012/03/unesco-protests-against-cruise-ships-venice/
http://www.veniceinperil.org/newsroom/news/port-activities-effects-lagoon-and-venice
 
Byker28i said:
It's a difficult thing. The city authorities want the tourism, Venice thrives on it after all, however the locals are fed up with the numbers of people, Unesco say the city is being extensively damaged. The wash from the ships, when on the water taxis, is incredible even with them moving at slow speed.

Do you work on cruise ships?
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Me? No.
 
Unless we fit mini nuclear reactors or massive solar arrays on cruise ships, I don't see any way of getting away from fossil fuel power in the middle of nowhere.

Being at sea, the particulates are of less concern than diesel cars driving in stop-start traffic or idling next to schools. I'm happier knowing it's the type of engine that produces more energy per unit of CO2.

When docked, there needs to be a ban on the engine ticking over. Surely it's not difficult to connect a cable or two out to the docks for power?
 
wuyanxu said:
Unless we fit mini nuclear reactors or massive solar arrays on cruise ships, I don't see any way of getting away from fossil fuel power in the middle of nowhere.

Being at sea, the particulates are of less concern than diesel cars driving in stop-start traffic or idling next to schools. I'm happier knowing it's the type of engine that produces more energy per unit of CO2.

When docked, there needs to be a ban on the engine ticking over. Surely it's not difficult to connect a cable or two out to the docks for power?
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Weirdly enough one of the main things that came out of the program was people on the ship were being exposed to more than 3 times the amount of particulates than if they were sunbathing in the middle if London. They took samples and London picadilly was 34k ppm on the cruise ship out at sea when it was running on the heavy oil the air contained up to 135k ppm with an average of 84k ppm

So if you are on a cruise ship for a week think of it as 9 weeks in central London lung damage.
 
Mr Bump said:
So if you are on a cruise ship for a week think of it as 9 weeks in central London lung damage.
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I don't see any problem with that. All participants are there by choice, compared to walking bystanders, most of whom never thought about driving, in central London.

It's good to know this, never to go on a current tech cruise ship. Hopefully in 40 years when I would want to go on one, they'd have fusion reactors promised by Back to the Future 2 :rolleyes:.
 
ancient_mariner said:
If your idea of an ideal holiday is visiting somewhere quiet, distinctly neither 'swish' or full of tourists then a cruise would be horrible. TBH the idea of a cruise for a holiday is about as appealing as a 2 week old pork chop.
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I've just done a cruise up to Alaska out of Vancouver. We visited some of the quietest places you could wish for, including Glacier Bay, which was so deathly quiet all you could hear was the ice creaking and cracking. It wasn't rammed with thousands of tourists either: it's a designated National Park and as such is highly protected and they only let a very few ships in. We saw wild bears on the way into the inlet. The ship sat next to a glacier for an hour or so and we just watched entranced as big chunks of blue ice fell off the glacier into the sea. It was a magical experience. Like I said, not all cruises are the same.

People seem to get a very fixed idea that the ships are packed with rowdy types, all herded to places like cattle or full of entitled snobs. Maybe that image was true 30 or 40 years ago, it's certainly not now.
 
wuyanxu said:
I don't see any problem with that. All participants are there by choice, compared to walking bystanders, most of whom never thought about driving, in central London.

It's good to know this, never to go on a current tech cruise ship. Hopefully in 40 years when I would want to go on one, they'd have fusion reactors promised by Back to the Future 2 :rolleyes:.
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The thing is the cruise companies are not very transparent about the pollution. It's like flying we have been very aware of pollution from aviation and we actively monitor it and tax it according to co2 emissions. The sea going stuff is almost completely unregulated
 
Thing is, I live in Southampton and it has some of the worst air quality figures right now. Is that down to the ports? I would say yes, the heavy goods traffic and massive container ships that dock in Southampton and at Fawley Refinery down Southampton Water would in my opinion account for a large majority.

Cruise ships I would suggest are pretty small fry in comparison in numbers and pollution. At least one operator in response to the C4 program seems to be committed to reducing pollution*. What are the cargo shipping companies doing? I guess people don't moan about that as they don't want their cost of goods rising. Tourism and leisure / luxury items are a much easier target.

Someone above also mention air travel, I wonder how many people complaining take regular flights abroad. Which is still a high producer of Nitrogen which I know the diesel haters loathe.

http://www.independent.co.uk/enviro...dlands-plantlife-national-trust-a7623036.html





* quote from C4 site:

Response from Carnival Corporation and Plc:

In response to Dispatches' discoveries on board the Oceana, P&O Cruises told us: “Since 2005 we have reduced our fuel consumption by… 28% with the accompanying reduction in air emissions.”

They said the Oceana will be fitted with an: “Exhaust Gas Cleaning Systems…” Which are: “installed on 60 ships across its brands… This action significantly improves the quality of air emissions… Soot and particulate matter reductions in excess of 80% have been achieved.”

They said in 2014 they had reduced: “CO2e emissions… by 20 percent…” And: “Has renewed its goal to continue reducing the rate… The health, safety and welfare of our guests & crew across all our ships is our absolute highest priority… we recognise that there is a public interest… related to particulate matter and related health issues”.

And they are carrying out: “Similar studies… and… will share these results with the industry in order to understand and execute best practice”.
 
I admit I didn't watch the programme as I long ago gave up any hope that programmes as Panorama would ever present a balanced, factual view.

The EU passed legislation some time ago that the burning of high sulphur content residual fuel oil was illegal in European waters. Any ships entering such waters have to switch to low sulphur fuel or obtain low sulphur bunkers before proceeding past defined boundaries. In addition all ferries operating in such waters have to either have exhaust gas scrubbers fitted or be converted to burn LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas). As regards Passenger (Cruise) ships most of the newer ones already have exhaust gas scrubbers fitted or have plans in place for their fitting.

There was also a comment in one of the posts about connecting a wire and using a shore supply. While this may, to the layman, appear a simple exercise it is far from simple in practice. For starters all ships use a frequency of 60 Hertz and the electricity supply in the UK and most, if not all, of Europe is 50 Hertz, so the frequency of any supply has to be converted to match that of the ship. This is normally done by converting the supply to DC by rectification and then feeding it through an inverter to obtain the required AC output frequency. What makes it difficult to do in the case of a cruise ship is the size of the electrical load of the "Hotel" portion, i.e. passenger requirements.

To get some idea of what is involved in providing such a shore supply do a search for "Princess Cruise Ship Power Project - Juneau 2001". This installation is in fact simpler that that required in Europe as the USA uses a 60 Hertz supply so no frequency conversion is required.

As regards the pollution caused by shipping it is a fact that 95% of all the World's trade is carried by sea and if for any reason it stopped things would get very rough very quickly.
 
neil_g said:
Thing is, I live in Southampton and it has some of the worst air quality figures right now. Is that down to the ports? I would say yes, the heavy goods traffic and massive container ships that dock in Southampton and at Fawley Refinery down Southampton Water would in my opinion account for a large majority.
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Almost certainly.
Southampton handle 820000 vehicles per year, but also 1.7 million cruise passengers!
http://www.southamptonvts.co.uk/Port_Information/
 
Byker28i said:
Almost certainly.
Southampton handle 820000 vehicles per year, but also 1.7 million cruise passengers!
http://www.southamptonvts.co.uk/Port_Information/
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They probably all drive Hondas to be fair, they'll be old farts mostly :p

It also has an airport and motorway in close proximity. Screwed either way i think.

I wonder what the esso refinery pumps out on a daily basis too.
 
This thread started me thinking about diesel pollution in general and I wonder why none of the TV programmes, or any of the comments on this thread, ever mention the biggest diesel polluter of all. It is spread throughout the country and not only is is not penalised it has for at least the last 60 years received many millions of pounds in carefully hidden subsidies. It is the Heavy Goods Vehicle.
 
Earley Man said:
This thread started me thinking about diesel pollution in general and I wonder why none of the TV programmes, or any of the comments on this thread, ever mention the biggest diesel polluter of all. It is spread throughout the country and not only is is not penalised it has for at least the last 60 years received many millions of pounds in carefully hidden subsidies. It is the Heavy Goods Vehicle.
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because like i say, hit those and transportation of goods cost goes up, which in turn effects consumers as that cost gets passed on.

its a much easier target to go for leisure and luxury items. also the general motorist is a soft target, lets not forget the U turn the government seems to be doing on their previous recommendations to go diesel.
 
JonathanRyan said:
I'm not going to pretend that cruise ships are a great environmental benefit but......most of the dangers from diesel engines come from being near them. The passengers are going to run more risk than I am.

Fun fact: cruise ships all have morgues. They sometimes have to put into port because their morgues are full. Cruising is far more dangerous than the brochures suggest.

http://www.cruiseshipdeaths.com/
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How's your tinfoil hat

I'd say the chances of dying driving to the airport are far far greater than the chances of anything happening to you aboard a cruise ship.

This is holiday hell

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HKijUh_LQWs
 
ancient_mariner said:
Why sail 2000 miles and then sit around the ship pool?
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FTFY. :D

The companies could save a fortune (& create less pollution) by doing what they do in many other places ................. sail for half an hour, park up/drop anchor & let the tourists dive in the sea from the stern, then crack up the BBQ. :LOL:


ancient_mariner said:
Why fly 2000 miles and then sit around the hotel pool?
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It's similar with folk who go `all inclusive` & don't leave their hotel. No idea what that's all about! :confused: (understandable for parents with kids on a budget)
 
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OldCarlos said:
FTFY. :D

The companies could save a fortune (& create less pollution) by doing what they do in many other places ................. sail for half an hour, park up/drop anchor & let the tourists dive in the sea from the stern, then crack up the BBQ. :LOL:
It's similar with folk who go `all inclusive` & don't leave their hotel. No idea what that's all about! :confused: (understandable for parents with kids on a budget)
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Looking at the video, I think that's land-based, but the same principle would apply on a ship. :p

For the first time ever we're going all-inclusive this summer, but more for the novelty and the knowledge that if we rock up at the hotel late after a long drive back from somewhere then we'll still get fed & watered with minimal effort. I understand the desire to go somewhere guaranteed warm and a little exotic, but without the stress of having to figure out un-identifiable in a strange language or worry about interacting with locals, though it does seem a complete waste of an opportunity for adults un-encumbered with offspring.
 
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