Environment

[Ken Norton]

A hydrogen powered train has been tested recently, so no reason why a ship should be possible. Currently LNG fuelled ships and trucks / buses are the in thing.

Hi Tony, do you know anything of the technology behind this? I am completely in the dark as to how they do this safely. Think I will have to do a little research on this subject as I find it very interesting from an engineering point of view. Cheers Ken

[Ken Norton]

Managed to find this on Hydrogen E.Vs. but it is not without enviromental issues in the production of hydrogen. Find it a bit scary for road use as far as safety goes. https://www.ucsusa.org/

[Ivan Cloherty]

Carbon Footprint : According to IMO the world's 15 largest vessels emit more sulfur (SOx and SO2) than all the world's cars combined. Only 1% of the 59,000 vessels currently trading have been retro fitted with scrubbers, whose efficiency is still unproven.

Each vessel has to have its scrubber custom made, manufacturing time is 4 - 6 months and installation time 2 -4 weeks, so it is understandable that owners have not rushed to fit them, but are compulsory on new buildings commissioned in 2020 and all vessels by 2025.

Vessels currently trading and consuming 200 -300 tonnes per day at 19 - 25 knots, reduced their speed by 4 -5 knots then their consumption would fall to 80 -90 tonnes per day. IMO, insurers, underwriters are looking at ways to introduce compulsory slow steaming on these vessels.

Carghills (one of the world's largest charterers) vessels produced 7.382 million tonnes of CO2 in 2018 down from 7,732 million tonnes in 2017.

So next time you go for a drive, don't feel too guilty.

[Colin McClelland]

Scrubbers and inert gas scrubbers discharge is a highly corrosive mild sulfuric acid, how long before the greens object to the discharge overboard.

[Tony Taylor]

Scrubbers and inert gas scrubbers discharge is a highly corrosive mild sulfuric acid, how long before the greens object to the discharge overboard.

Very good point Colin, makes me wonder about discharges everywhere in world, I recall visiting a paper mill in Aberdeen where the effluent was caustic and they dosed with 97% sulphuric to neutralise it before discharging it into river Don.

[Captain Kong]

It is not warming here up north. all last week I wore a thick woolly jersey to keep warm , icy cold winds and it is mid summer.
The tides here in Fleetwood are no higher than normal for the tide tables.
One fellow with an Ology on TV the other night said the sea level will rise another metre
He didn't say where the extra water is coming from, Trillions and Trillions of Cubic Metres.
Just one big con.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Rob.
The only trouble with that is the Brazilian's are clearing trees at such a rate that they wouldn't be able to keep up, on TV the other night umpteen size football pitches a day.
Des

[Ken Norton]

I feel the same as you Rob but feel that we all need to look at better use of all fossil fuel as a health issue. Some of the rises in lung disorders in the cities are quite frightening and medically has been attributed to air pollution. On that note I do remember going to work in Bolton as an apprentice with a mask on in the smog when the cotton mills where at the beginning of their decline. They did away with the chimney polluters, axed the railways and increased road vehicles. So even back then they were on about air pollution, took action but increased the pollution with road vehicles. O f course the rise in population and that which we take for granted also comes into the equation.

[Keith Tindell]

Very hard to not use palm oil products, its in just about everything we all use, eg petrol, i believe contains as much as 10% palm oil, and there was talk of increasing it to 15%, the same as the USA, kt

[Ivan Cloherty]

'Pliny' The Roman Historian wrote in 79 A D

Men mistook measurement for understanding and they had always put themselves at the centre of everything. That was their greatest conceit. The earth is becoming warmer - it must be our fault, the mountain (volcano) is destroying us - we have not propitiated the gods! it rains too much, it rains too little - a comfort to think that these things are somehow connected to our behaviour, that only if we lived a little better, a little more frugally, our virtue would be rewarded. But here is nature sweeping all before him - unknowable, all-conquering, indifferent and sees in her fires the futility of human pretensions.

Seems nothing has changed in 2000 years.