Dead Fish to Power Cruise Ships - Reducing Global Warming Using Biogas -...

Dead Fish to Power Cruise Ships

Waste fish parts will be used to power ships in a new initiative to use green energy for polluting cruise liners.

The leftovers of fish processed for food and mixed with other organic waste will be used to generate biogas, which will then be liquefied and used in place of fossil fuels by the expedition cruise line Hurtigruten.

Heavy fossil fuels used by ocean-going transport are an increasing problem as they are even more polluting than fuels for land-based vehicles, emitting sulphur and other contaminants.

The fuels contribute to air pollution as well as to climate change.

Converting vessels to use biogas will cut down on pollutants and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Hurtigruten operates a fleet of 17 ships and by 2021 aims to have converted at least six of its vessels to use compressed biogas, which is a renewable form of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Biogas can be generated from most forms of organic waste by speeding up and harnessing the natural decomposition process to capture the methane produced.

Read the full article in the Guardian online.

Go to https://anaerobic-digestion.com/ships .

Shipping Industry, in General, Looks Set to Continue to Use Fossil (Bunker) Fuels

The shipping industry is being forced to convert to cleaner-burning fuels, however, or install scrubbers.

The European Union and China already have regulations in place that place caps on sulphur emissions for ships making port calls in Europe and China.

And starting in 2020, the International Maritime (IMO) will require all vessels operating in international waters to meet new emissions caps, which will mean they will either need to switch to lower burning fuels, like methanol, LNG or diesel, or install scrubbers.

Many are opting to install scrubbers and continue using bunker fuels, simply because bunker fuel is widely available at ports around the world. Other fuel sources, like LNG, aren't.

Ulrich said the continued use of bunker fuel and scrubbers simply moves pollution from the air to the water. Open-loop saltwater scrubbers remove pollutants from smokestacks, but she said some ships have been found to be releasing the pollution sludge that is captured into the ocean. via biv.com

Passengers on Cruise Ships Could be Inhaling Harmful Concentrations of Funnel Air Pollutants

Passengers on a cruise ship could be inhaling "60 times higher concentrations of harmful air pollutants " than they would in natural air settings, Naturschutzbund Deutschland (NABU), a German environmental association, has warned.

Measurements were taken at various spots on the ship and for this particular sample, the sun deck and jogging lane on the top deck were found to be most affected by pollution. "But of course this can vary along with the wind and weather conditions. So potentially every part of the ship can be affected significantly,"  Mr Rieger said.

For this reason, the German Lung Association and the Pneumologists Association have warned passengers against staying on the deck or inhaling ships' exhaust gases as this could cause acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) if you suffer from lung diseases, Mr Rieger said. via www.telegraph.co.uk

Air Pollution from Nautical Behemoths

But while the 6,780 passengers and 2,100 crew on the largest cruise ship in the world wave goodbye to England, many people left behind in Southampton say they will be glad to see it go. They complain that air pollution from such nautical behemoths is getting worse every year as cruising becomes the fastest growing sector of the mass tourism industry and as ships get bigger and bigger. via www.theguardian.com

When the gargantuan Harmony of the Seas slips out of Southampton docks commercial voyages, the 16-deck-high floating city will switch off its auxiliary engines, fire up its three giant diesel engines and head to the open sea.

"These ships burn as much fuel as whole towns," Bill Hemmings, the director of aviation and shipping at Transport & Environment, told the Guardian earlier this year. "They use a lot more power than container ships and even when they burn low sulphur fuel, it’s 100 times worse than road diesel." via psmag.com

Conclusion

Cruise ships have been described as "floating cities" and like cities, they have a lot of pollution problems. Their per capita pollution is actually worse than a city of the same population, due to weak pollution control laws, lax enforcement, and the difficulty of detecting illegal discharges at sea. Cruise ships impact coastal waters in several US states, including Alaska, California, Florida, and Hawaii. via www.beachapedia.org