The World's Largest Cruise Ship and Its Supersized Pollution Problem (theguardian.com) 404
An anonymous reader cites a report on the Guardian: When the gargantuan Harmony of the Seas slips out of Southampton docks on Sunday afternoon on its first commercial voyage, the 16-deck-high floating city will switch off its auxiliary engines, fire up its three giant diesels and head to the open sea. 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. According to its owners, Royal Caribbean, each of the Harmony's three four-storey high 16-cylinder Wartsila engines will, at full power, burn 1,377 US gallons of fuel an hour, or about 96,000 gallons a day of some of the most polluting diesel fuel in the world.
I hate bad journalism like this... (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate bad journalism like this...
"It burn 96,000 gallons a day"!! Well no shit, it's the biggest ship of the world. If you want to impress me, tell how how much fuel per passager it burn and compare it to others cruise ship. And unless it's the most efficient ship in the world, I won't see a problem.
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I hate bad journalism like this...
"It burn 96,000 gallons a day"!! Well no shit, it's the biggest ship of the world. If you want to impress me, tell how how much fuel per passager it burn and compare it to others cruise ship. And unless it's the most efficient ship in the world, I won't see a problem.
*unless it's the most "inefficient" ship in the world...
Re: I hate bad journalism like this... (Score:5, Informative)
... Its bunker, not bumper fuel, and its the sulfur thats removed from refined oil products, not sodium. There is no compound known as sodium dioxide, but i'm thinking you mean sulfur dioxide.
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... Its bunker, not bumper fuel, and its the sulfur thats removed from refined oil products, not sodium. There is no compound known as sodium dioxide, but i'm thinking you mean sulfur dioxide.
A much more intelligent response. Thanks.
Disodium monoxide can exist, but not in an atmosphere with any water vapor. And in any case, what does everyone think it is that the ocean "salt-water"?
Back to the Commenter who corrected it to "bunker fuel" and noted that it was its sulfur content that made it bottom-of-the-barrell fuel (pun intended). I ask the following question:
Although there are national laws on sulfur emissions, are there any international regulations, standards, or even recommendations on s
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fwiw:
http://www.royalcaribbeanblog.... [royalcaribbeanblog.com]
"Harmony of the Seas will be 20% more efficient than the other two Oasis class ships, thanks to improvements in hydronamic design, a new type of engine and product enhancements"
"Harmony of the Seas will benefit from bubbles to lessen hull friction in the water. Tiny bubbles stick to the bottom of the ship's hull so the ship literally is sailing on a cushion of air."
The ship doesn't use port power, though, a preventable evil.
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The ship doesn't use port power, though, a preventable evil.
I doubt many destination ports have the infrastructure to provide sufficient, reliable power to multiple cruise ships. Heck, many of them don't even have docks big enough for the ships and passengers have to go ashore on tenders. Why bother with the logistics and complication of having a system to switch over to shore power if you can only use it on turnover day at your American port?
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So why the hell did they not take it one step further and go with liquid natural gas. Once you are using that a fuel, then you can start processing other wastes to create methane (the main component of natural gas) and burn that. Making the vessel a whole lot more environmentally sound. So bigger cruise ships are viable as long as they start looking at more efficient and cleaner energy systems. The amount of sewerage the produce when handled properly good generate a lot of free energy for them and then be
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Total occupants is 8880. That means it burns 0.16 Gallons/(hour person).
By contrast:
Lets say a car gets 30 miles per gallon on the highway. That means in an hour at 60 miles per hour, the car will burn 2 gallons of fuel or 2 gallons/hour. Now lets say the car is at full capacity of 5 people. That means the car is burning 0.4 Gallons/(hour person).
Re: I hate bad journalism like this... (Score:2)
Re:I hate bad journalism like this... (Score:5, Informative)
1. Your math is wrong. It's actually 1.14 gallons per passenger per hour.
2. As others have noted, the measure of productivity is passengers per mile, not total occupants including crew per hour.
3. The true figures are here [slashdot.org].
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Why? It's a cruise ship. It doesn't really go anywhere in specific, but it does go there for 4 or 8 or 7 days or whatever. per passenger-hour is the correct measure of efficiency. It just doesn't compare well to automobiles where per passenger-mile is the proper measure.
Possibly someone can come up with a conversion, but it's not a straight miles-to-miles parity.
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Not just when they're at port. Any time a ship is within a couple hundred miles of the U.S., Canada, or Europe, they have to burn cleaner diesel fuel. That's not so great either, but it is better than bunker fuel. But yes, when they're out in the open ocean, or when they're coming into ports in South America, Africa, Asia, or Australia, they're likely to be burning the dirty stuff, as I understand it.
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The problem is the type of fuel. They use bunker fuel which produces lots of pollution when burned.
16 (or perhaps 15) of the largest container ships emit more sulphur than all of the cars in the world. I doubt that cruise liners are any cleaner -- that's why they have auxiliary engines that are used near land.
Re:I hate bad journalism like this... (Score:4, Informative)
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As my old environmental engineering professor used to quip, "The SOlution to POlution is DIlution."
The fuel consumption is equivalent to about 200 Tons of particulate matter per day, and if there is a ship within a few miles of shore all the time with unfavorable wind conditions, that ends up being pretty continuous.
That said, the engines are efficient, back of napkin is about 10% better per shaft HP than an efficient 2MW diesel genset. Comparing to an electric power plant, it is just over 100MW, which as
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Re: I hate bad journalism like this... (Score:2)
from the article: "Daniel Rieger, a transport officer at German environment group Nabu, said: âoeCruise companies create a picture of being a bright, clean and environmentally friendly tourism sector. But the opposite is true. One cruise ship emits as many air pollutants as five million cars going the same distance because these ships use heavy fuel that on land would have to be disposed of as hazardous waste.â
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Clean fuel would have to be disposed of as hazardous waste.
the article is bullshit and FUD (Score:2)
That's bullshit. This ship burns up to 1377 gallons for a top speed of 26 mph; that's about the same as 1500 regular passenger cars. But those cars are transporting 8500 people and enormous amounts of freight while also supplying all electricity and heating. So gas mileage is actually excellent.
The engine no doubt emits lots of particulates, NOx, and sulfur. But that isn't a problem on the open sea. Those emissions are
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Wrong.
So it burns 3 * 1,377 US gallons per hour.
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Advocacy journalism is almost always misleading -- because informing people isn't really the goal.
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> If you want to impress me, tell how how much fuel per passager
> it burn and compare it to others cruise ship.
Um, math? From the summary: "But while the 6,780 passengers and 2,100 crew..."
96000 / ( 6780 + 2100 ) = about 10.8 gallons per person. Although it says *each* of the 3 engines burn that much, so maybe the answer is 32.4 US gallons of fuel per person per day.
At the lower figure, one person would have to drive over 200 miles in a car that gets 20 mpg to use that much fuel in a day. Or 600 miles
Re:I hate bad journalism like this... (Score:5, Interesting)
The actual figures are here [wikipedia.org] if you spend 30 seconds to look them up. There are three 16-cylinder engines AND three 12-cylinder engines. The fuel consumption is actually 3x1377 + 3x1033 gallons per hour, so a total of 173,520 gallons per day. With a capacity of 6360 passengers, that's 27.3 gallons per passenger per day, or 1.14 gallons per passenger per hour. The cruising speed is 22.6 knots, which is 26.0 mph.
So it works out to 0.0438 gallons per passenger per mile, or 22.8 mpg per passenger. That's a hell of a lot less fuel efficiency than a jetliner or passenger car at capacity, let alone a motorbus. I believe that's the point people are (clumsily) making.
Nuclear. So yes, inefficient (Score:3)
Well no shit, it's the biggest ship of the world. If you want to impress me, tell how how much fuel per passager it burn and compare it to others cruise ship.
Well, if you compare to other ship this is a *really inefficient* ship. And it's really weird, when you take just a couple of minute to think about it.
Don't forget that the world doesn't stop at cruise ships.
When you look at other ships with similar order of magnitude of tonnage ("similar" as in "roughly the same number of zeroes in the 'tonnage' item"),
you find aircraft carriers [wikimedia.org], which are almost exclusively nuclear-powered and thus burn not a single drop of diesel and ridiculously small quantities of nucl
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Nuclear cruise ship....yeah, why didn't anyone thought of this before? Not like people are still care of nuclear power right?
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Apparently, the Russian nuclear icebreaker is used for cruises as well. http://www.quarkexpeditions.co... [quarkexpeditions.com]
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Why? The crew is not carried along with the passengers? They don't eat, drink, use electricity?
It's like not considering the driver when you talk about cars but only the passengers.
Slave labor (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Slave labor (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not mentioning the fact that the entire staff is likely undocumented/imported, paid low wages (absurdly so), often addicted to drugs etc.
Last cruise we went on, the provided a breakdown of staffing. They knew where everyone on board came from. And at least the ones we met with (my wife enjoys interaction with the staff) a lot of students who wre saving for college. The pay isn't very high, but it is clean, and the expenses are very low. So no complaints there.
There aren't many Americans. I did have some retired colleagues who were escorts for ladies on board. They were paid similar wages, but enjoyed the hell out of the cruises. Good meals, pleasant company, and it was like Saturday evening out with a date every day of thte week.
Your version of Cruise lines is completely bizzare and I haven't seen any of that stuff you say is likely.
Although full disclosure - I haven't - nor will I - be on a Carnival Cruise.
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Carnival is a party line for poor people. They target singles with low budgets. The passengers reflect this, which isn't a bad thing if that's what you are looking for but if you are a fairly well to do married couple you can do significantly better for only slightly higher cost.
Carnival has also had significantly more issues than the other lines. Their ships have been the ones with the huge norovirus outbreak and account for about 75% of the illness outbreaks. Norovirus outbreaks occur from not washing you
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Speaking as someone who knows squat about cruises - why is Carnival an unacceptable option? And if they're a bad choice then what's a good choice?
Carnival's main attraction is it's low price. They also had a lot of problems a few years back - possibly related to that cheapness. There were some ship breakdowns, http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/14/... [cnn.com] and the infamous "Poop Cruise" http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/17/... [cnn.com]
and morehttp://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/03/15/second-carnival-cruise-in-week-experiences-trouble-at-sea.html .
I think that the situation has improved. But the cheapness being a major attraction tends to attract cheap people.
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I did have some retired colleagues who were escorts for ladies on board.
YEAH BABY!!!!
GO GRANDPA, GO GRANDPA
When I asked one of them what their onboard duties were, he said, "Oh we eat meals, go dancing, you know - stuff."
Yup, go grandpa FTW!
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I did have some retired colleagues who were escorts for ladies on board. They were paid similar wages, but enjoyed the hell out of the cruises. Good meals, pleasant company, and it was like Saturday evening out with a date every day of thte week.
So that's legal in international waters?!
Hell, a lot of corporations have escorts on staff. Technically they aren't hookers in either case.
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Citation needed.
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Frankly from your comment you've never been on a cruise ship and have the intelligence and world experience of a teenager.
Like all ships the employees are employees of the nation who's flag flies on the ship (typically a small island nation with no real legal system). No ship is "based" in any first world country. Cruise ships that are carrying American's and Europeans are NOT flying their home ports flags. They are all based in countries where there are no labor rules and the ships (cruise, cargo, whatever
what an ISIS target (Score:2)
Bah... (Score:5, Informative)
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A 747 burns through 3,600 Gallons of fuel per hour for just over 416 Passengers. This ship burns 1/3 of that for nearly 9000 people.
True, but it also does it going 600 mph...
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Um, do the math: 1/3 the fuel for 20 times the people is an advantage of 60 times! A 747 maxes out at 570 mph. Are you suggesting that the cruise ship maxes out at 10 mph? (Hint: it doesn't)
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For anyone who is having trouble, I did just that. You're absolutely right. The cruise ship [slashdot.org] figure is 0.0438 gallons per passenger per mile. If his and your 747 figures are right, that is 0.0152 gallons per passenger per mile.
The problem is pretty obvious. The 747 is carrying (on takeoff) a gross mass of roughly 1900 pounds per passenger, but the cruise ship is dragging around over 30,000 pounds of gross mass per passenger. (Note: the displacement is a little over 100,000 tons; the oft-quoted
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Re:Bah... (Score:5, Funny)
Moreover, I heard these use bunker fuel.
You know who else used a bunker? Hitler.
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Yeah, it's bad, but not to that scale. (Score:4, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oasis-class_cruise_ship [wikipedia.org]
First off, those engines will only run at full power at the very start of the journey, if even then to get to, well, _cruising_ speed, which is around 22 knots, which is around 25 miles per hour. It IS a lot of fuel to use in any case - but per-person, it's not so bad as these blind numbers in headlines.
http://business.tenntom.org/why-use-the-waterway/shipping-comparisons/ [tenntom.org]
Bulk shipping by large ship is actually pretty efficient a method of transporting our stuff. Yeah - they often use the nasty fuel when they can get away with it - but in terms of per-unit cost, it really isn't that bad by scale. The entire transportation industry DOES need to get off carbon fuels - but compared to the fuel used to give everyone groceries and trade, the impact of vacation resources isn't that large a cost. People always eat, the extra fuel to eat on this boat isn't a very large extra percent.
I don't think it's terribly productive to label folks taking vacations as wasteful, when really, it's our entire current system that needs to get its resource usage into a sustainable state.
I think if you'd compare it to environmentally 'friendly' activities like touring Alaska's wildlife, it uses far less fuel per person.
Ryan Fenton
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The entire transportation industry DOES need to get off carbon fuels
That might be, but it is so easy to say, so very hard to do...
What would container ships and cruise ships use instead? Nuclear reactors strike me as the only reasonable options.
Plan (Score:5, Funny)
If they had named it Boaty McBoatface, they could have made enough on souvenirs to clean it up.
It's not diesel fuel (Score:5, Interesting)
Mass tourism industry (Score:2)
Okay, so cruise ships are the "fastest growing sector of the mass tourism industry". Aren't they the only sector of the mass tourism industry? What else is there?
I've never really understood the appeal of a cruise ship; but obviously some others do.
Easy Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'd suspect a nuclear reactor would deliver a quieter ship too. Why can't we have modern safe nuclear reactor powered ships?
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Once they perfect the molten-salt reactor (MSR) design, it might be possible to eventually build a cruise ship powered by a nuclear reactor. Not only would there be way less air pollution, but it might even make it possible for even the largest cruise ships to potentially go as fast as 30 knots top speed.
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Why people would want to go there? (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, and loading/unloading process is so horrible (doubly so for international travels) that it would make TSA officials go green from envy. Waiting for half a day in line to get off that freaking ship? You betcha!
I had misfortune to lose a raffle and get a ticket for a four-day roundtrip cruise. I left by plane from the midpoint of the trip.
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They have nothing to do with nautical travel - you're no closer to the actual sea than in a beachfront hotel room
Agreed. But I don't think that is why people do it.
You're stuck for many days inside cramped quarters with nothing interesting to do.
Huh? I just looked for a random cruise ship, and it had: pools, waterslides, bars, clubs, restaurants, mini golf, bowling, shows, basketball courts, ice skating, 3d movies, spas, hot tubs, gyms, a shopping mall, rock climbing, ...
But most importantly: The boat actually goes somewhere. Sometimes, it's even cheaper than a flight to the destination + an equivalent resort!
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Huh? I just looked for a random cruise ship, and it had: pools, waterslides, bars, clubs, restaurants, mini golf, bowling, shows, basketball courts, ice skating, 3d movies, spas, hot tubs, gyms, a shopping mall, rock climbing, ...
I did say "interesting". And you've pretty much described the content of a typical mall.
But most importantly: The boat actually goes somewhere. Sometimes, it's even cheaper than a flight to the destination + an equivalent resort!
Except that you're not actually in a resort...
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LOL! You live in an amazing world where malls are like resorts, but you don't enjoy the kinds of things everyone else does. Sucks to be you! If you ever get a free cruise again, I'll take your ticket.
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TFA is about pollution while the ship is docked (Score:5, Interesting)
Generally, ships use a generator to provide power and heating while the ship is docked. For a large cruise ship this generator needs to be substantial. It also runs on the same fuel as the main engines, and there are no emissions regulations for these ships.
So everyone downwind of the docks (i.e. most of Southampton, in this case) gets to sit in a column of smoke for the entire time the ship's docked.
The obvious solution would be to connect the ship to the shore electric grid. This is being worked on (example [polb.com]) but conversion takes time.
Re: Finally (Score:5, Interesting)
We can run reactors in the confines of a submarine, in aircraft carriers, and on large combat ships, and it's arguable that a military ship is more at risk than a commercial ship, since it will be actively engaged in combat! When anti-nuclear pundits win, the environment loses. And so does the company, since it would be cheaper in the long run, certainly in a period time for which this ship will operate.
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Agree here. I have no idea why larger ships dont look into say thorium reactors, etc.
http://yottawattsthorium.blogs... [blogspot.com]
Thorium: Less experience ? (Score:3, Interesting)
The drawback I see with thorium is that it is currently only *researched* by the military navies.
I.E.: if gargantuan civilian "floating cities" ships decide to adopt it, it will be completely new technology. It won't have been tested and proven since long time, with all the drawbacks and caveat very well known, and the whole design perfected over several revision like current maritime nuclear generator used by navies.
I'm not sure that these kind of companies will be able to spend as much as government/milit
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96000/6780 is about 14.2 gallons per day. If you add up all the fuel used by all the electricity and gasoline average person uses per day that's not so bad. Especially if you consider ships don't burn gasoline. I'd still prefer non nuclear civilian navy.
Re:Thorium: Less experience ? (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The cost of ensuring its supply (through wars)
2. The fluctuation in real cost of fuel prices over the lifespan of the engine
3. The environmental cost and irrecoverable damage to the planet
4. The increase in respiratory illnesses incident rate vs the relatively nonexistent incident rate related to nuclear energy. More on this:
Nuclear power, when compared with just about every other fuel on earth, has a vastly lower injury, death, and sickness rating, even with Fukushima, Chernobyl, and 3-Mile. The safety is what makes the cost astronomical, not the science. Nuclear power is the fuel of the sun, the earth, and the source of all of life's energy. Even solar power has a higher deaths per gigawatt than nuclear. This an educational problem, not a practical, economical, or scientific one.
Its too bad the first experience humans had with nuclear power was via WMD, and not civilian applications. We would be living in a very different world today if we first commercialized the technology before we blew up Japan with it.
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It's been done [wikipedia.org]
Exactly my though (Legal limitations ?) (Score:2)
Yup, that's also what I was thinking:
Nearly every modern carrier (which is technically a "small airport/military base on a ship") uses nuclear power.
Why the hell is this monster (which is compared to a "small city on a ship") does need to burn diesel ?!?
But then probably there are some weird non-proliferation treaties that limit the application of this kind of technology to non-government/non-military ships.
And/or treaty about nuclear use in international waters (where this ship operates most of the time).
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Given the negative cachet that nuclear power has these days, using a reactor to power a cruise ship would be a PR nightmare. Might as well just paint a huge sign on the hull that says "Radiation! Stay Away!".
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The fear is IMHO mostly a bit of a kickback from decades of people being told it is perfectly safe and then getting a big shock from those times when it wasn't. It's like getting a nasty bite from a cute puppy and ending up with a fear of dogs. With all the "too cheap to meter" and "clean" bullshit PR it was bound to happen.
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The Costa Concordia [wikipedia.org] is a good example of a reason why not. I also suspect nuclear is notably more expensive to operate - more specialized crew training, evacuation/rescue considerations, nuclear engineers on board to operate the system, etc. Might be a more tempting target for terrorists. Can a ship with nuclear access the same ports as those that don't (i.e., do some ports/countries that cruise ships dock prohibit nuclear)? Then there's the general stigma attached to nuclear; will anyone actually want to b
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I believe that reactors would run with less manpower than an engine, and be a fairly autonomous machine, with maybe two crew onboard to maintain it. You don't have to cha
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If only they were as educated ... because those reactors are designed to withstand ship-to-ship missile impacts, and are so heavily encased
The NS Savannah [wikipedia.org], the U.S' only nulcear powered merchant ship was designed specifically *without* the military shock protections that you assume would be in a civilian ship. If they were the cost to install and run the vessel would be significantly high due to them requiring even more specialized crews required to run the reactor, let alone the rest of the vessel.
Having said that the NS Savannah is a beautiful looking ship.
I believe, and should not, I think, I don't know the exact numbers nor can I site any sources, but my gut feeling is
The NS Savannah required a special vessel just to handle its waste cooling water, th
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This is a first world problem, and it has a first world solution. There's a reason commercial mega-ships are so much worse than even larger military mega-ships: nuclear power.
It could also have something to do with the highly trained and disciplined *military* crews that run them.
There's no reason at all a ship of this size shouldn't have a reactor for its fuel.
I think we only have to look the Costa Concordia [wikipedia.org] and the way for profit land based reactors are run to realize why it isn't a good idea have a for profit nuclear powered cruise ships running around the ocean.
Re: Finally (Score:5, Interesting)
There's no reason at all a ship of this size shouldn't have a reactor for its fuel.
Liability.
The insurance cost(if they could get it) would be prohibitive.
Many of the ports that cruise ships visit would ban them.
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I can't imagine a civilian ship company being able to stand up a cr
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It's the same for people who buy expensive campers/trailers, drive for hundreds or thousands of kilometres and then park themselves amongst hundreds of strangers to "live in the wild" for their vacation.
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1. The reactor industry would become more competitive with companies that have to find cost-savings, because today's customers don't care about profit, a
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Your gut feeling requires a lot of changes to happen while the above poster is describing the current situation of a low volume military application which requires higher standards than a high volume civilian application. Hand crafted versus mass produced. Things may some day get to where your gut is feeling but it's a very long way off and would require a lot of capital to get there. It may happen but it's a pretty big "IF", so going around telling people
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Very true. That's why the cruise industry is moving to LNG (liquefied natural gas) on new ships going forward. Unfortunately, for the next decade or two, we'll still have plenty of old ones burning whatever fuel is cheap (typically bunker fuel).
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If you want to cruise, take a river cruise. Instead of two hours in a port where all there's time to do is dash to the souvenir shops, you spend most of each day tied up in an interesting small town that has a lot of history and culture to explore, and at your own pace. There are interesting rivers in every part of the world where you would rationally want to be.
River cruisers are small, too, under 500 passengers.
Re:Bad, but not because of the amount or fuel type (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't it like this for any entertainment?
Don't go for a drive, save fuel. Don't play games or watch TV, save electricity. And so on.
While you can skip the "cruise" part and, say, drive or fly to the various destinations, it would not be the same, because now the "going to" the destinations part is less fun than it would be on a cruise ship.
Re: This is why the diesel scandal is a joke (Score:2, Informative)
WÃrtsilà engines are among the best performing and cleanest in the world (I work there) and there's been a huge push to make them even cleaner. Unless they use some low-grade bunker oil without filters, I don't really see what's the problem with emissions. There are quite strict limits in the EU what type of fuel you can use in the first place.
Re: This is why the diesel scandal is a joke (Score:2)
Er, if you burn 96000 gals per day of anything except hydrogen, right next to where you live, its going to be a problem for you and your neighbours. Even with catalytic convertors. Unless you have scrubbers - but with those you have to dispose of the waste slurry somewhere (the sea!)
These ships need to be smaller. And visit at different times so they don't completely swamp local air quality. And hookup to LPG-generated local electricity at port.
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It's probably not suitable for a cruise ship due to the way it heels when under power from the masts. It likely might be able to be somewhat useful if that problem can be addressed but you don't really want 60 year old ladies or little kids walking along a deck heeling a 20 degree or better angle.
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The newly wed and the nearly dead .....
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But then, those early 20th Century passenger ships were designed specifically for long-distance voyages at speed--and as such, they had to be designed to travel as fast as possible, resulting in very sleek design for its time. Today's cruise ships--outside of the three boats operated by Cunard Cruises--are designed for relatively slow travel, so they tend to have a lot more amenities on board.
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What's a gallon?
About the same price here as downtown.
Strat