'Black Carbon' Threat To Arctic as Sea Routes Open Up With Global Heating (theguardian.com) 44
As climate crisis allows new maritime routes to be used, sooty shipping emissions accelerates ice melt and risk to ecosystems. From a report: In February last year, a Russian gas tanker, Christophe de Margerie, made history by navigating the icy waters of the northern sea route in mid-winter. The pioneering voyage, from Jiangsu in China to a remote Arctic port in Siberia, was heralded as the start of a new era that could reshape global shipping routes -- cutting travel times between Europe and Asia by more than a third. It has been made possible by the climate crisis. Shrinking polar ice has allowed shipping traffic in the Arctic to rise 25% between 2013 and 2019 and the growth is expected to continue. But Arctic shipping is not only made possible by the climate crisis, it is adding to it too. More ships mean a rise in exhaust fumes, which is accelerating ice melt in this sensitive region due to a complex phenomenon involving "black carbon," an air pollutant formed by the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels.
When black carbon, or soot, lands on snow and ice, it dramatically speeds up melting. Dark snow and ice, by absorbing more energy, melts far faster than heat-reflecting white snow, creating a vicious circle of faster warming. Environmentalists warn that the Arctic, which is warming four times faster than the global average, has seen an 85% rise in black carbon from ships between 2015 and 2019, mainly because of the increase in oil tankers and bulk carriers. The particles, which exacerbate respiratory and cardiovascular illness in towns, are short-term but potent climate agents: they represent more than 20% of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions from ships, according to one estimate.
When black carbon, or soot, lands on snow and ice, it dramatically speeds up melting. Dark snow and ice, by absorbing more energy, melts far faster than heat-reflecting white snow, creating a vicious circle of faster warming. Environmentalists warn that the Arctic, which is warming four times faster than the global average, has seen an 85% rise in black carbon from ships between 2015 and 2019, mainly because of the increase in oil tankers and bulk carriers. The particles, which exacerbate respiratory and cardiovascular illness in towns, are short-term but potent climate agents: they represent more than 20% of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions from ships, according to one estimate.
Really? (Score:1)
"In February last year, a Russian gas tanker, Christophe de Margerie, made history by navigating the icy waters of the northern sea route in mid-winter."
Russian tankers won't do many routes in the near future.
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" The pioneering voyage, from Jiangsu in China to a remote Arctic port in Siberia "
Not as many, but still.
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The north sea route sucks ass. If they take Ukraine, Russia can use a nice reliable warm water sea route instead. One more reason why Russia is taking over Ukraine.
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If they take Ukraine, Russia can use a nice reliable warm water sea route instead. One more reason why Russia is taking over Ukraine.
Russia already had reliable road and rail links across the Kerch Strait from the Russian mainland to the port of Sevastapol.
Crimean Bridge [wikipedia.org]
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Russia already has access to the Black Sea coast and a gas pipeline that goes there. It's not terribly useful for exporting gas to China though - the sea route from the Black Sea to China is very long and complicated. Generally Russia exports gas to China via pipelines.
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Russian tankers won't do many routes in the near future.
It is likely they will do more.
Much of Russia's gas production is in areas that feed pipelines to the EU.
The only market for that gas now is to put it in a tanker and send it to China, India, and other countries not participating in the sanctions.
The biggest problem for Russia is that they currently lack the facilities to liquefy so much gas, but China may help them build.
Easy solution (Score:2)
Torpedos. Job done.
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...Democrats pulling every underhanded trick in the book to eliminate availability of fossil fuels everywhere...
Like what?
A Solved Problem (Score:2)
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There's not enough pig urine on the planet to supply DPF [mcintoshenergy.com] filters big enough for container ships. So, if you raise that many pigs you'll contribute to methane emissions.
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I have three vehicles with DPFs that use DEF, I spend about $75 per month on the crap so I do know something about the subject.
DEF is water and Urea, where does Urea come from? DEF is used in most DPF applications to clean the soot build-up out. I should know I spend about $50 per month on what amounts to Pig Pee and Water. I also waste a lot of time sitting on regen cycles because of it, but that's beside the point. It's refined but it still has to come from somewhere, even ammonia which is mostly suppli
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I have three vehicles with DPFs that use DEF, I spend about $75 per month on the crap so I do know something about the subject.
Apparently you don't, and that's probably why you have so many problems with them. I developed those systems, and that's not how they work. I provided a citation in my original post, but you didn't read it. Here's another one to ignore. [dieselnet.com] Nowhere does it mention DEF.
Also, don't idle your vehicles so much and you won't have to do so many parked regens. You are doing them because the exhaust never gets up to temperature. If you can't do that, you bought too much engine, and need to get something else.
Never fucking happy. (Score:1)
Easy Peasy No Ships, No Problem (Score:4, Interesting)
Stop filling the oceans with container ships because you want to have a "green environment" for yourself. The reason there are so many ships burning low grade bunker oil is that it's the cheapest oil available, and you have unnecessary supply chains stretched everywhere. The first can be solved, just enforce the same kind of air pollution standards on the large ship industry and although it'll take years, it will clean them up. Stop buying shit made everywhere else! Prefer things sourced/made locally. I realize that's getting to be more difficult every day but we don't need to get cellphone chargers from Vietnam or Thailand, Detroit and other urban areas would love the jobs. Sure, they're not high-paying "Learn to Code" but it's an alternative to flipping burgers.
So, dry up the demand for these behemoths by forcing governments to allow businesses to create jobs locally, i.e., pharmaceuticals, electronics, furniture etc.
Next, make the damn ships adhere to the same standard the EU or EPA enforce on emissions from big trucks. It will raise the cost of shipping accordingly but that will be a financial incentive to start producing things closer to home.
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Ruissia's GDP is less than that of Florida. I can't see that requiring 1000s of container ships.
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Ruissia's GDP is less than that of Florida. I can't see that requiring 1000s of container ships.
Russia's GDP is exports. Florida's GDP is Disney. And some various oranges.
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*sigh* [theflatbkny.com]
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just enforce the same kind of air pollution standards on the large ship industry
No one has the jurisdiction to enforce such rules on the high seas.
Detroit and other urban areas would love the jobs.
No. Detroit is hostile to business. That is why all the companies left.
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"If you want to Dock in my port and traverse my territorial waters you need to comply." Yeah that's enforced daily by the USCG in the US and various nations in the EU now.
Detroit is not hostile to business, it became a monoculture, and when nobody bought US-made cars/ trucks the jobs left and went to Japan and Europe.
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when nobody bought US-made cars/ trucks the jobs left and went to Japan and Europe.
Plenty of cars are made in America. None are made in Detroit.
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In 1949, Ford produced over 1.1m vehicles in the US. [wikipedia.org]
They still produced 960k in 2000 which is the last year available. I don't think Kia or Toyota or even Tesla are up to those numbers yet.
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Well,
Toyota produces 10 times more, so not really sure what your point was?
Production in USA?
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It was in response to Detroit not wanting large manufacturing, it's distorted from reality. Toyota didn't make shit in 1949 either, with about 10,000 cars. True the Japanese economy was still recovering but for people to overlook US manufacturing because it "doesn't pollute here" or "labor costs/unions" is full of shit.
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Germany has high labour costs.
But for some reason we still manufacture our stuff.
Of course we import, but look: even Tesla is setting up factories here.
Unions work different here - sometimes I think the word union in US-english is a mistranslation :P
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No one has the jurisdiction to enforce such rules on the high seas.
Everyone has.
Ships that do not follow the rules are not allowed into local waters. Problem solved.
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Shipping is by far the most efficient way of moving goods about the planet. Container ships especially. Trains a distant seconds, then trucks, then planes ( I believe). Cars are awful.
Making things in the best place, then moving them to where the demand is tends to be terribly efficient. Growing tomatoes in Norway is ridiculous, but growing them in Israel and shipping to Norway is pretty good.
Local is a fine idea, but can be incredibly inefficient. Containers and container ships, trains, even trucks are the
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Well,
it is not that easy as you make it look like.
A) (most important point): the planet already would have gone to hell, if not for the high Sulfur emissions of the container ships
B) the amount of CO2 those ships produce is just literally a drop in the ocean compared to all other CO2 producing human activities
So the core problem is indeed only soot. That can be tackled.
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No, the problem is emissions in general, SO2, CO2, soot et al.
There's over 5400 container ships trolling the oceans. [statista.com]
A Panamax container ship consumes 63,000 gallons of bunker oil / day. That's 210 metric tons/day. That's a lot of everything that has to come out of the smokestack.
Also from this.. [inews.co.uk]
“It has been estimated that just one of these container ships, the length of around six football pitches, can produce the same amount of pollution as 50 million cars. The emissions from 15 of these mega-ships match those from all the cars in the world. And if the shipping industry were a country, it would be ranked between Germany and Japan as the sixth-largest contributor to CO2 emissions.”
Just citing a few points while we try and strangle auto/truck/locomotive emissions in the US, there's an 800lb elephant in the room that we're ignoring.
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POLLUTION in tis context means: soot and SOx, not CO2.
Obviously it makes no sense to claim that a container ship produces as much CO2 as 50 million cars.
it would be ranked between Germany and Japan as the sixth-largest contributor to CO2 emissions.
That is simply wrong.
The emissions from 15 of these mega-ships match those from all the cars in the world.
CO2 wise? Lol, what a joke.
According to this: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissio... [epa.gov] the transportation sector worldwide produces 14% of the CO2.
According to this:
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Hey, go argue with the authors of that study. You may as well try arguing with the IPCC and other nutjobs who think eating bugs will save the planet too..
Bunker fuel is the dregs of the refining process, that's why it's so damn cheap to use by the metric ton. If you want to give the 5400 or so container ships a pass, with the EU and the US starting to wake up to then by all means just ignore it. It's soot, SO2, and CO2 all for a cheap ass $2 phone charger. If we all want "green kumbaya" land then they have
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Wouldnt cutting travel time by 1/3 be a good thing (Score:2)
The summary says: "...cutting travel times between Europe and Asia by more than a third."
That sounds like a good thing, the trip will take a third less fuel and product a third less emissions
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I suspect that darkening the ice is worse than the savings in fuel benefits.
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Depends what your goal is.
Can we have some nuclear fission power now? (Score:3)
We have three options available to us today, and only these three.
- Continued fossil fuel use and the global warming that comes with that.
- Energy scarcity.
- Nuclear fission power.
Claiming we will in the future have more capacity to build solar PV panels, windmills, and whatever else is not a plan, that is wishful thinking. Any fourth option people will try to bring up is something that does not exist yet. We have nuclear power right now. We used to be able to go from breaking ground on a nuclear power plant to putting power on the grid in three years. The anti-nuclear FUD mongers claim it takes a decade to build a nuclear power plant but if we look at the industry average it is more like 5 or 6 years. Not great but not bad either. We can see a natural gas power plant built in 18 months because the components are all off the shelf, and the regulations are just a photocopy of the last project with some small changes here and there. We could do that with nuclear power too if we'd only stop listening to the FUD mongers.
It will take time to build the expertise required to build a nuclear power plant on time and on budget. There's no shortcuts on that but building nuclear power plants, people can't get experience any other way. So we best get started on building that experience now, by building nuclear power plants.
The problem with wind and solar power is being dilute and intermittent. We can't rely on this power being available when we need it. Because wind and solar power is so dilute there's many nations on this Earth that have no option but nuclear power. They are an island, by geography or politics. Europe would have to pipe in energy from nations in Asia and Africa to get enough, and those nations don't exactly get along with European nations. Russia was using Europe's dependence on natural gas as backup for their wind and solar power as leverage to keep them out of the war with Ukraine. Thankfully this is not working all that well, but it leaves Europe now dependent on natural gas from the USA, Canada, and a handful of other friendly nations to ship in liquefied natural gas at considerable expense.
We need nuclear power or we will end up freezing in the dark. We simply don't have the mining and manufacturing capacity to produce enough with and solar power to make up for the closing nuclear power plants and increase in energy demand.
It appears these anti-nuclear morons believe global warming preferable to nuclear power. That's what we are getting, more CO2 emissions because the other two options are freezing in the dark or nuclear power.
We are going to have to build more nuclear power plants eventually. If it isn't the increasing scarcity of fossil fuels then it might be the global warming gets too bad, petroleum funded dictators hoarding the supply, or any of a number of unforeseen threats. Could we come up with something better in the future? Sure. Right now though we have three options. Choose wisely.
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a) Wind
b) Solar
c) Nuclear
d) Hydro
e) Geothermal
f) All of the above
F. The answer is F.
No one technology will suit everyone's needs, even nuclear. The final solution will need to be a varying blend of everything.
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Nuclear power is required, all the others are optional. That is why our options are energy scarcity, fossil fuels, or nuclear fission power. Without nuclear power we don't have a modern society any more. These anti-nuclear morons can talk big about wind and solar power only so long as there is nuclear power to keep the lights on when the wind isn't blowing and the sun not shining.
Why bother with solar power if we have nuclear power that provides power at all times of the day, and in any weather? Solar p