REPORT: Pollution from 15 of world's biggest ships equal that of world's 760m cars

Hmmmm, I guess I wouldn't want to be the one who had to pass that word on to the major ports in our country. It also would be tough to enforce beyond the territorial limits of each country,

Just sayin'

Too much shipping, too many containers, start more manufacturing in your own country. Trade should be at a 50/50 balance, if only it were so easy

Strong manufacturing base = strong economy = jobs...........

Usually it takes just one or a few courageous nations that introduce tough legislation. Then other countries are far more likely to follow I think.
It's about time the shipping sector cleans up its mess.

As far as I know, commercial ships have to transfer over from using this "bunker fuel" to diesel fuel, a few miles from the coast and when entering and exiting ports.

Another great idea for the Government to raise taxes, a carbon tax introduced to "encourage" (punish) lower emissions, yet, the money seems to go to other programs which have nothing to do with carbon emission reduction, same as enviro fees on batteries etc, here in BC we have both and the money vanishes into the black hole of Government inefficiency. This is not to discourage carbon reduction, but surely, rewards to the polluters would get better cooperation ? rather than punishment.

I think the interesting part is states like California will now have near coastal emission requirements, but the ship operators do not have to comply outside of this zone (20 - 30 miles, I think?)

So now the ships go to a different (global) port that do not have this requirement, and they operate back on bunker fuel, putting out the emissions and particulate matter that the cleaner cities will not allow and impacting the (ignorant) ports' population - the double standard continues......

California has a 24nm zone where the fuel must not exceed 0.1% sulfur content. In 2015 the distance off will extend to 200 miles around virtually all of North America north of the Mexican border.

The Baltic and North Seas already have this limit and virtually all of the EU has a coastal limit on sulfur content.

The "playing field" is slowly becoming level as far as ship exhaust emmissions surrounding the nations which provide the greatest share of cargo destinations are concerned. the only way to ignore the higher standards is to go play where no one can make much money.

Reducing the sulphur content is one of the main issues in reducing the pollution.
Unfortunately, from what I understand, it is the reduction in the sulphur content which is contributing greatly to the infestation in diesel fuel tanks by the "algae".
It will be a big problem for boaters in the future, especially running the sophisticated engines.

The worst case of biological contamination I ever saw in fuel was in very high sulfur MGO. Algae does not grow in fuel oil tanks, it is a plant and requires light to grow.

I was informed years ago by Chevron Canada that the diesel bug grows in the water content of the fuel and in hotter climates specially where the fuel tanks are in the hot sun, this causes a layer of water to appear in the fuel and that's where the bug grows, some Countries have lower standards of max. allowable content of moisture in fuels and this may also contribute to the bug issue, so I am informed.

You are correct. When large ships that burn bunker fuel get within x miles of the pilot buoy, they switch to diesel. Reason being, if the ship has to do quick manueuvers with shifting, speed, etc. the motor could stop running. Nobody wants a dead ship underway. Then you play heck trying to get it running again.

Of course the topic of the thread is dealing with tree hugger emissions legislation, and cheap bunker fuel is nowhere as clean to burn in port as diesel or CNG.....I'm all for clean air, but I'm sick of the cost of goods rising due to enviromental legislation with scrubbers, cleaner fuel, etc.

There was a study I recently read that found if global shippers slowed their speed by 20% or so, the amount of fuel saved, emissions saved, etc. was pretty amazing. So what if it takes another week to get your latest I-phone. It will have costed less to get there, and the enviromentalists are happy.

misused facts

your facts are misused, did that report compare how much pollution is produced, per tonne mile of cargo moved. take this example the large container ship that produces as much pollution as 50 million cars. that large container ship will carry about 15,000 twenty foot containers over a very large distance, while the standard truck caries only one 40 foot container or two twenty foot containers . did that article say over what period of time that pollution was produced and how many miles were travelled by each vehicle. I can guarantee you that the efficiency of a large container ship in terms of fuel burned per tonne mile of cargo moved is almost ten times that of a standard trailer truck. just remember that everybody could skew facts and only tell you some of the information to try and make their point of view look better

What's so wrong with better (cleaner) emissions?

Don't you just love LA at Dusk?!

Dead on.

I can tell you the air quality in SoCal is so much better now than the period from the mid 60's to mid 80's, pretty amazing given the urban sprawl that continues to this day.

LA County does not have a single diesel bus in its' fleet, they are all running on natural gas, and that trend will continue to reach into our industry as well.

NASSCO just signed a contract for 2 x Container Ships powered by LNG, which will operate on the East Coast after being built in San Diego.

Not entirely accurate. The only time changeover is (operationally) required is when the engine fuel and cooling system will be shut down long enough to cool. The engine will maneuver quite well on heavy oil and there is considerable risk of damage and increased wear from changing over to distillate fuel.

Even medium speed 4 stroke engines recommend not changing over unless absolutely necessary.

The reason for changing over is to burn a low sulfur fuel and distillate is the best source for that fuel, otherwise a low sulfur heavy oil will work but is expensive and rare. We used to burn that in steam tankers in LA Long Beach harbor ... but then again, the oil company supplied the fuel and they could afford it.