The BIG STINKERS?
 

Big polluters: one massive container ship equals 50 million cars

http://images.gizmag.com/hero/11526_240409114315.jpg

The Guardian has reported on new research showing that in one year, a single large container ship can emit cancer and asthma-causing pollutants equivalent to that of 50 million cars. The low grade bunker fuel used by the worlds 90,000 cargo ships contains up to 2,000 times the amount of sulfur compared to diesel fuel used in automobiles. The recent boom in the global trade of manufactured goods has also resulted in a new breed of super sized container ship which consume fuel not by the gallons, but by tons per hour, and shipping now accounts for 90% of global trade by volume.

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In international waters ship emissions remains one of the least regulated parts of our global transportation system. The fuel used in ships is waste oil, basically what is left over after the crude oil refining process. It is the same as asphalt and is so thick that when cold it can be walked upon . It's the cheapest and most polluting fuel available and the world's 90,000 ships chew through an astonishing 7.29 million barrels of it each day, or more than 84% of all exported oil production from Saudi Arabia, the worlds largest oil exporter.

The larger ships probably consume less energy per amount of cargo so that is an improvement. Maybe it would be better if they were large as aircraft carriers and with nuclear power.

16Mg/90MWh=178g/kWh Not horrible at all.

34t/100km sounds like a lot.

2.2kg/100 container km Oh that's just awf.. no wait, that's fantastic!



Hight sulfur content is bad, sure, but the way the facts are presented in the article is far worse.

And if some of the sulphur manages to get into the atmosphere as aerosols, they will reduce solar influx and thus reduce global warming. This is actually a proposed method of inducing "global dimming".
Stratospheric sulfate aerosols (geoengineering) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The wiki article mentions a past and very big volcano eruption (Mount Pinatubo) as reference for an amount of sulphur to put into the atmosphere (20 million tons of SO2). About one third of this SO2 is sulphur (~million tons).

The cited amount of 7.29 million barrels a day equals ~1.1 million metric tons of oil. Assuming #6 oil with a worst case sulphur content of 3% by weight, gives 1.1 * 0.03 * 365 = 12 million tons of sulphur per year from shipping. This corresponds to a little more than a big volcano eruption.

How much of this actually makes it high enough up in the atmosphere to count, I don't know.

So, "we" may have basically already implemented the global dimming... (if my math and assumptions are correct)

This kind of journalism is the worst. Take something large but relatively uncommon and then talk about how much of this or that it emits. Perhaps we should kill all elephants since they proportionally do a lot of damage to nature and emit greenhouse gasses. FYI- ant respiration emits more CO2 than humans by many orders of magnitude.

Rain will wash the pollutant out of the air, and most of the polluting is out in the oceans anyhow- away from cities.

From Wiki-

The following amount of sulfur dioxide was released in the U.S. per year, measured in thousands of short tons:

1970 31,161
1980 25,905
1990 23,678
1996 18,859
1997 19,363
1998 19,491
1999 18,867

Have these cargo ship emissions been shown to cause any specific problem?

We need to put all the costs of burning petroleum into the pump price, and this would put the cost burden of shipping back into the products we buy.

Address the problem of job outsourcing and pollution at once.

The only costs that I know of that are not included into the price of fuel is the subsidies that are paid to oil companies. An enormous unrelated cost at the pump is taxes, much of which is used to maintain roads. Taxation will need to change as electrics and hybrids become the norm and gov't revenue declines.

I see a vague connection between outsourcing and this topic, but the problem isn't outsourcing itself, as the alternative is extremely inefficient. The real problem discussed in the OP is pollution caused by shipping products. It seems the solution then would be to develop shipping vessels that pollute less while not costing more money.

Ultimately alternatives will arrive due to the increasing scarcity of petroleum and the inevitable price increases.

Ever take your car to a Lube joint to have the oil changed?

Ever wonder where the used oil goes when you have it changed?

It becomes "bunker oil" and is burned in the ships mentioned.

Very little petroleum virgin petroleum products get burned in ships - most of it is used motor oil.

...but, how much sulphur-dioxide (and CO2) have all the active volcano's emitted during the same year?

It's fairly simple to me. The lost cost of shipping allows us to export all our manufacturing and farming overseas. The subsidies to profitable oil companies to develop their sources are only one small aspect of the costs not reflected at the pump. What about all the military resources required to keep shipping lanes open and governments in place to secure the markets worldwide. Ever notice as soon as any of the petroleum exporters have any instabilities, oil prices shoot up? And of course the cleanup costs for spills and damage due to pollution from refining and burning petroleum have never come out of the oil companies. Here in Colorado, we are having earthquakes from fracking natural gas. Our taxpayer dollars are propping up this petroleum economy in a big big way.