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82 votes
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‘We’re changing the clouds.’ An unforeseen test of geoengineering is fueling record ocean warmth
80 votes -
Companies knew the dangers of PFAS 'forever chemicals'—and kept them secret
58 votes -
Highly radioactive spill near Columbia River in E. Washington worse than expected
50 votes -
Study says drinking water from nearly half of US faucets contains potentially harmful chemicals
49 votes -
Iowa fertilizer spill kills nearly all fish across sixty mile stretch of rivers
47 votes -
Patagonia helps Samsung redesign washing machines to help reduce microfiber pollution
46 votes -
It’s Canada’s worst fire season in modern history, as smoke fills skies
44 votes -
Revealed: Tyson Foods dumps millions of pounds of toxic pollutants into US rivers and lakes
43 votes -
A closer look at Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong, the most densely populated place that ever existed
40 votes -
Smoke from Canadian wildfires engulfs East Coast, upending daily life
39 votes -
Cummins pickup truck engines systematically tricked US air pollution controls, feds say
38 votes -
Single-use plastics ban approved by European Parliament
37 votes -
Scientists have found a ‘sleeping giant’ of environmental problems: Earth is getting saltier
35 votes -
How plastics are poisoning us
35 votes -
New EPA regulation requires coal plants in the United States to reduce 90 percent of their greenhouse pollution by 2039 (gifted link)
33 votes -
Cardiovascular ER visits plunged after Pittsburgh coal plant shut, study finds
33 votes -
California is preparing to defend itself — and the nation — against Trump 2.0
31 votes -
Gen Z and millennials proudly wear ‘lab-grown’ diamonds, oblivious to the fact they’re made from burning coal in China and India
31 votes -
A Washington state based startup called Aquagga has successfully deployed a PFAS destruction unit nicknamed “Eleanor”
31 votes -
Road hazard: Evidence mounts on toxic pollution from tires
30 votes -
Gorilla Tuning of Rexburg, Idaho, pleads guilty to criminal conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act, will pay $1 million in criminal fines, while its owner faces up to two years in jail
30 votes -
Norway is to allow mining waste to be dumped in its fjords after the government won a court case against environmental organisations trying to block the plan
29 votes -
AHOY! Cruise ship versus airplane emissions: data and commentary
Last year I inquired how one might take sea passage across the Atlantic. The realistic answer is that there are various ocean liners and transatlantic cruises traveling multiple times per year,...
Last year I inquired how one might take sea passage across the Atlantic. The realistic answer is that there are various ocean liners and transatlantic cruises traveling multiple times per year, none faster than 7 days and many taking closer to 10 or 14. Repositioning cruises, when the ship is being moved from one region to another and you just tag along, are infrequent but the cheapest option.
In February, I will unavoidably be in the United Kingdom. I am flying there, but have not purchased a flight back yet. I am thinking about taking a ship in repositioning from England to the US Eastern Seaboard as there is very conveniently one such ship leaving a couple days after my event is over. That would probably be Southampton to Miami (from there, I would take a train home) and would take 11 or so days, zero of which are at intermediary ports.
I was thinking about a ship over a plane because the last time I flew it was like my ears got blown out for an entire day afterward. I don't know what it is about my sinuses but they have never handled flying well. My height makes the experience particularly cramped and unpleasant and I have gotten sick on every plane I have taken in the last six months. It's the most miserable thing I do to myself on a regular basis.
Unfortunately, all the research I can find on passenger ship emissions seem to indicate that it is worse for the environment on a passenger-mile basis than flying that same route, at least as far as cruise ships are concerned (there is zero research on emissions from being a passenger on a container ship). As of 2006, the Queen Mary 2 ocean liner supposedly emits about 0.43kg CO2e per passenger-mile, compared to 0.257kg CO2e for a long-haul airplane. But emissions estimates vary so ridiculously widely that it is a little bit hard for me to take these figures seriously:
Emissions factors for individual journeys by cruise ships to or from New Zealand in 2007 ranged between 250 and 2200 g of CO2 per passenger-kilometre (g CO2 per p-km), with a weighted mean of 390 g CO2 per p-km.
That's literally an order of magnitude. I think there is some guessing going on here. To translate from p-km to p-mi, that's ~402–3545g CO2e/p-mile or a weighted mean of 628g CO2e/p-mi. I would speculate that a repositioning cruise (which spends no time in intermediary ports because it is specifically supposed to get somewhere efficiently) would be on the lower end of the spectrum. So, honestly, while worse than an airplane in terms of gaseous emissions, it's not... that much worse. From the way articles seem to talk about cruise emissions, I would have thought it would be at least an order of magnitude. (For reference, the difference between a train and a plane is about an order of magnitude.) Which I guess it can be based on the higher figures there, but I am pretty sure that that is derived from non-direct routings (port visits apparently contribute massively to emissions) or from luxury behaviors (i.e. having an enormous stateroom and other amenities that decrease space efficiency).
One may notice that those sources are almost 20 years old. There is more recent research on cruise ship emissions, but the non-academic stuff all seems to cite the Queen Mary 2 statistic (not sure where it even originated). I attempted to discern what cruise ship emissions looked like 20 years ago versus today, but was unable to find any specific information about passenger-mile emissions year-by-year. I don't have institutional access to most journals anymore, so feel free to share if you know anything.
There have definitely been new environmental regulations since 2007. In 2020, some new regulations limiting high-sulphur fuels went into effect. But sulfur dioxide is more of a health concern; it isn't a greenhouse gas. It's toxic to marine life too, and all other life, but wouldn't be considered in a passenger-mile CO2e emissions figure. Apparently the regulation has encouraged more ships to switch to less toxic liquefied natural gas (LNG) fuels rather than the literal bottom-of-the-barrel sludges they've traditionally burned (maybe a 20%-ish improvement at face value), but most ships have just installed scrubbers to continue using the same fuel and emit fewer horrible particulates. Apparently a switch to LNG, while favorable for human health, does not really reduce GHG emissions due to increased methane output.
Aakko-Saksa et al. 2023 seems to be the most comprehensive journal article I can access that covers current strategies in reducing greenhouse gas emissions for ship engines now and in the future. It mainly talks about fuels and technical stuff about engines I don't understand. This paper remarks that the switch to LNG could still be positive; it suggests a 30% reduction in GHG emissions compared to diesel fuel but a 6–23% reduction depending on how much "methane slip" happens; the IEA thinks it's 10% or less. That's still a meaningful reduction, though there is quite a lot of variance. The authors' takeaway is that there could be a significant benefit to switching to LNG and then blending that with greener fuels at increasing proportions over time.
There are many proposed ways to decarbonize the industry. It is not clear to me which of these have been adopted recently. The industry seems to have some interest in decarbonizing, or giving the appearance of having interest, as Norwegian claims to want to "reduce GHG intensity by 10% by 2026 and 25% by 2030, compared to a 2019 baseline with intensity measured on a per Capacity Day basis." And they are actually thinking about it: they have ESG staff and a 2022 ESG Report lays out a few relatively specific and achievable metrics (or so it seems to me, a layperson and a landlubber):
We were very excited to announce in early 2023 that two of our Norwegian Cruise Line newbuilds, expected to be delivered in 2027 and 2028, will be re-configured to accommodate the future use of green methanol. Green methanol is a fuel that we see as a promising future solution. Compared to conventional fuels, it can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 95%, nitrogen oxide emissions by up to 80%, and all sulfur oxide and particulate matter emissions.
Environmental goals:
- Reduce GHG intensity by 10% by 2026 and by 25% by 2030, compared to 2019 baseline, and pursue net zero GHG emissions by 2050
- Decrease fleet-wide fuel consumption of boilers per day by 2% annually, compared to 2016
- 100% of fleet equipped with Waste Heat Recovery by 2027
- Increase the percentage of our fleet with shore power capabilities to 50% by 2024, 70% by 2025, and 100% by 2035
- Increase the percentage of treated wastewater compared to untreated sewage discharged by 2024, compared to 2019
- Reduce bunkering by 4%, as compared to 2019, by 2025
- Decrease the total volume of sludge offloaded fleetwide by 5%, compared to 2018, by 2023
Green methanol is apparently a real thing. The figures Norwegian uses are lifted directly from the Methanol Institute. It does seem like methanol production capacity is increasing and is on track to continue increasing, according to this source. If a cruise ship uses about 250 tons of fuel per hour (91250/year), and current green methanol production is just shy of 1 million tons/year, then if all of that production were directed toward cruise ships then it could fuel about... 11 ships. Hmm. If by 2027 production increases (generously) by an order of magnitude, that's still only about 100 ships, or less than 1/3 of the total fleet worldwide across all cruise firms. Better than nothing...?
Norwegian claims to be "on track" for all of these metrics, especially fuel consumption, but of course they will say that. I can't really figure out what their "-50%" and "-80%" figures mean and I suspect they mean nothing. Frankly most of these commitments are ridiculously insufficient, though it isn't reasonable to expect revolutionary changes to happen in just a couple years. I think we should take these commitments with a grain of salt, but it does make sense from an operational perspective why industry would be interested in improving their own efficiency, especially to avoid potentially crippling regulations from governments who they can clearly see are honing in on emissions.
From what I can tell, many or most of the emissions are not just from the transportation itself (i.e. the burning of fuel for the purpose of moving mass from point A to B) but rather from the hoteling aboard the ship (12x more emissions than land-based hoteling) and from other luxury-related activities. Intuitively, if we know how energy-efficient it is to transport goods by sea, this should come as no surprise: if we're comparing fuel costs, it simply takes less fuel to move objects by water than by air. This is why ferries have so few emissions per passenger-mile. Ship fuel is particularly nasty stuff as far as human health is concerned, but many resources appear to primarily emphasize the non-fuel waste produced by these enterprises. So the CO2e emissions of cruise ships would seem to originate not just from fuel but rather from the inefficiency of human habitation at sea. Norwegian is at least vaguely calculating multi-scope emissions (p. 15) with, for example, "purchased goods and services" apparently making up ~21% of total emissions in 2022 (fuel itself is about 55%, and "fuel and energy-related activities," whatever that means, being another 12%). I assume "capital goods" (18% of their emissions) are the emissions from the ships themselves, which is more of a decarbonization question for manufacturers.
There are also significant non-GHG environmental impacts due to operational procedures taken by cruise ships. Wikipedia has a whole page on the environmental effects of shipping (not just cruise ships, but they are included). Waste dumping, noise pollution, etc. Those externalities are different than the externalities produced by airplanes; same idea, but apples to oranges, so I don't know how to compare them.
Anyway, this is all to say: greenhouse gas emissions from cruise ships are pretty rough. Given the relative lack of information on repositioning cruises specifically, the age of much of the data, and newer emissions reductions which are maybe not yet reflected in the literature, I am going to speculate that such a trip has an approximately equal GHG impact as a long-haul flight, assuming a typical stateroom and a direct voyage. On average, it probably works out to somewhat more emissions, though I personally think ships have a clearer (easier/faster) path toward net-zero (ish) emissions than airplanes given the limitations of each mode.
I will go to sleep and decide tomorrow whether I will fly or sail home, but right now I am leaning toward the sea for this occasion. I am not sure about future voyages yet. We will see.
29 votes -
London’s plan to charge drivers of polluting cars sparks protests and stirs political passions
29 votes -
Ex-Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and eight others criminally charged in Flint Water Crisis
29 votes -
'Smoking gun proof': fossil fuel industry knew of climate danger as early as 1954, documents show
28 votes -
There's a big problem with your car's tires
28 votes -
Advice on insomnia due to noise pollution?
Hey there, curious if any other folks on tildes suffer with this, and if so, if you can share things that have helped you. Context: I am a very light sleeper. Eg: the sound of a phone vibrating,...
Hey there, curious if any other folks on tildes suffer with this, and if so, if you can share things that have helped you.
Context: I am a very light sleeper. Eg: the sound of a phone vibrating, or whispering, will wake me up. I have no issues falling asleep at night, nor do I have any anxiety around sleep, I just wake up from the slightest noise. I've been like this all my life.
Unfortunately, I also live in a very noisy neighborhood: lots of modded vehicles, lots of rumbling bass, etc. I wake up 2-5 times a night. I might get a full night sleep once every 2 months.
For the past year, I've been working very hard on solving this problem. I have made some progress, but still suffer nightly because of this. Things I've done:
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Noise masking: I now have 2 white noise machines, an air purifier (max volume), and sleep with ear plugs. Unbelievably, the cars are still loud enough to be heard over all of that and wake me up. Even when I can't hear them, they vibrate the floor/my bed, and the vibration wakes me up. However, this has still made a massive difference (I went from about 3-4 hours sleep/night, to 6-7.)
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Sleep hygiene. I've learned a lot about it, and worked hard to implement different techniques. I keep a very steady sleep schedule. I eat well and exercise. I do not get in bed ever unless for sleep. etc. While this does not prevent waking up from noise, I think it helps with keeping sleep consistent (i.e. at least I know what time I'll get tired at night.)
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Light: In similar vein of sleep hygiene, I've learned a lot about how light impacts our sleep wake cycles; I avoid light and screens in the evening, and get in direct sunlight (for about 20-30 minutes) within an hour of waking. Again, doesn't help with noise, but helps tremendously with keeping sleep consistent.
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Medical help: I see a neurologist / sleep specialist. He is wonderful He prescribed a low dose of gabapentin, which has actually been really helpful. Unfortunately, it only lasts about 4 hours, so while the first half of the night is good, I still wake up many times in the second half of the night. I have tried some other medications (trazadone, benadryl, zyrtec) but they have either had no impact (trazadone), or make you drowsy the next day which makes me miserable (bendaryl, zyrtec).
One slight annoyance is that whenever I bring up sleep issues, the first response I tend to get is "you must have anxiety". Then, advice is tailored to that. Really, it is not anxiety, and therapy will not help me here. I just wake up insanely easy. It seems most solutions are for folks with anxiety, and I don't find a lot for folks that are just light sleepers. Can anyone relate?
Any advice you can throw my way?
28 votes -
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Lawsuit over polychlorinated biphenyl contamination filed by Massachusetts mother of boy with leukemia. Lawsuit targets GE, Monsanto, Bayer and others.
28 votes -
How to escape from the Iron Age? We cannot lower carbon emissions if we keep producing steel with fossil fuels.
27 votes -
Joe Biden administration sets first-ever limits on ‘forever chemicals’ in US drinking water
26 votes -
European Commission approves creation of an environmental zone in the city centre of Stockholm, where petrol and diesel cars will be banned entirely from 2025
25 votes -
Smoke will keep pouring into the US as long as fires are burning in Canada. Here’s why they aren’t being put out.
25 votes -
Gas and propane combustion from stoves emits benzene and increases indoor air pollution
25 votes -
The first thing we do, let's kill all the leaf blowers
24 votes -
Barcelona car free super blocks have social benefits - help reduce loneliness
23 votes -
Who gets peace and quiet?: The dangers of urban noise
23 votes -
PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ harming wildlife the world over: Study
23 votes -
Single-use plastic waste is getting phased out in California under a sweeping new law
23 votes -
Donald Trump administration makes move to completely roll back US methane pollution regulations
23 votes -
Plastics have shaped nearly every aspect of society. Now what?
22 votes -
Denmark launches the Laura Maersk, the first container ship to run entirely on green methanol – will save 2.75 million tonnes of CO2 per year
21 votes -
Plasticenta: First evidence of microplastics in human placenta
21 votes -
Sweden's right-wing government says it will turn its back on plastic bag tax from November 2024
20 votes -
US conservationists push EPA to add 1,000+ pollutants to 'outdated' list of toxic chemicals
20 votes -
Denmark will dig up millions of dead mink after a hasty cull and burial intended to stamp out a coronavirus mutation ended with a new contamination risk
20 votes -
Paris has a plan to keep cars out after lockdown
20 votes -
"Pollution tax" should go two ways
Public Transportation should be free. Or near free, like a library. The same way we tax or want to tax pollution, we should fully subside public and ecological transports. I was thinking about...
Public Transportation should be free. Or near free, like a library. The same way we tax or want to tax pollution, we should fully subside public and ecological transports.
I was thinking about this earlier and was disappointed to find very few examples of pollution tax being put to funding public transports. Even fewer of public transportation being free. It's a bit underwhelming that this isn't talked about more in environmental policies.
20 votes -
Joe Biden administration commits $6B to cut US emissions from high-carbon industries
19 votes