Why Edge still runs on dirty fuel?

[Nemanoxer]

A short while ago, one fellow board member (don´t remember who) put his foot down on me when I was telling doubts about how innovative Edge will actually be apart from its bling factor.

Now, after many reveals are out, I am hearing that Edge will still run on dirty fuel. No LNG, no sustainable fuel technology, nothing. 

Edge runs on heavy oil and pollutes the environment just like ships from the last century.

Where is the innovation in that? My fanboy-ing is being slown down quite a lot just now. 

[Pantheral]

I'd suggest that given the planned itineraries for Edge that building the vessel at this point to run on LNG is impractical as most port facilities are not equipped for that fueling source: www.pressherald.com/2018/09/28/cruise-liners-are-cleaning-up-with-natural-gas/. Not sure how one can expect a ship to run on a fuel that isn't available....

I noticed that among major ocean liners that announcements for LNG fueled ships refer to those to be built 5-10  years from now. 

 

[PTC DAWG]

I really don't know enough about the cruise industry to make much of a comment, other than unless there are substantial savings in a new fuel, I don't see anyone jumping in with both feet.  

And agree with the comment above, you have to be able to actually GET the fuel you need at many ports.  

Edited October 18, 2018 by PTC DAWG

[Denny01]

There currently are 11 LNG-bunkering (refueling) ports in North America (Mexico, US, Canada). None in Florida and almost 1/2 in Louisiana since most LNG-powered ships are smallish ferry types servicing offshore drilling platforms (that’s kind of weird). To date, there are no large ships and certainly no cruise ships using LNG, and the marine industry is ‘considering’ adding LNG bunkering to 3 large US ports (LA, NY, Houston) because they have LNG avail nearby, again none in Florida or any other cruise port beyond those 3. And that’s in 5-10 years.  

 

I cruised on two non ‘dirty-fuel’ ships and they used nuclear power.  And many consider that Very Dirty! Good luck on that. The only other sea-going vessels I’ve ‘cruised’ on that didn’t use some type of heavy oil or gas for main propulsion were sailboats. And that is much older than last century oil-burners. 

 

I believe the Edge has Gas Turbine propulsion which uses Marine Gas which is much like aircraft fuel and isn’t the heavy oil diesel the OP is referring to. It’s still a carbon-based fuel, but burns much cleaner. By the way Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) is also carbon-based. 

 

Not into arguing over how the Edge is or isn’t cutting edge and all that, I’m just looking forward to a new Celebrity-based ship. 

 

Den

 

 

 

 

[Host Jazzbeau]

Be careful what you wish for.  Cruise lines have two choices to comply with latest fuel regs:  add scrubbers to clean up the exhaust from bunker fuel, or switch to lighter diesel.  It turns out the airlines are worried about that latter choice, as it will raise the cost of jet fuel – and therefore raise the cost of your tickets to get to the ship!  Maybe – as cruise ships return to the old class system – we should expect non-veranda passengers to pull on oars in rotating shifts! 

[Denny01]

There is another option to dirty fuel but then you’d hear this:

 

 “We Keep you alive to serve the ship. So Row well, and Live”. 

 

Den

 

 

[Denny01]

Neamonxer - I was wrong! There is an LNG-fueled cruise ship. the Aida Nova. If sounds as if the ship will have LNG tanks that can support the ship for a 2-week cruise, so I assume it also has standard fuels also. Read this:

 

http://www.seatrade-cruise.com/news/news-headlines/first-cruise-ship-lng-bunkering-goes-without-a-hitch-aidanova-readies-for-sea-trials.html 

 

Den

[alfredo22]

Edge appears to have wartsila diesels with scrubbers and SCRs (pollution control equipment).

 

https://loscrucerosdemarian.com/celebrity-cruises-edge-on-venues-and-energy-efficiency/

[eroller]

LNG is not the end-all, be-all solution for cruise ship clean energy.  There are limitations as already pointed out, and it's just not suitable for every ship.  EDGE will have scrubbers which will limit emissions, but unfortunately it exchanges one type of pollution for another.  All that dirty toxic sludge that the scrubbers produce has to be disposed of somewhere.

 

Beside LNG, we are just seeing the beginning of fuel cell technology.  In fact Royal Caribbean is one of the pioneers for testing.  So stay tuned.  We are really just at the early stages of clean burning cruise ships.  Just be thankful they are not burning coal like in the old days, and to think coal is still a widely used energy source in the US.   

[MPJP22]

Edge is polluting the air in Palma, Mallorca this morning. Currently on MSC Seaview and docking next to Edge which is spewing brown/orange smoke into the atmosphere. That line of brown/orange is floating away to the east from the Edge. 
 

 

[Nemanoxer]

Don´t know what kind of pollution LNG brings, it is not really a clean alternative as well. But it might not affect the ports as much when sitting there.

 

But I do not know too much about that. Was just very, very disappointed when Edge was released. A ship sold to all of us as revolutionary and beginning of a new era. For Lutoff-Perlo´s account, yeah maybe...

 

Glad I can switch to Sun Princess soon. She´s also not all emission free yet, but seemingly Princess are trying their best to take that issue a bit more serious.

Edited August 25, 2023 by Nemanoxer

[chengkp75]

4 hours ago, Nemanoxer said:

Don´t know what kind of pollution LNG brings, it is not really a clean alternative as well. But it might not affect the ports as much when sitting there.

 

But I do not know too much about that. Was just very, very disappointed when Edge was released. A ship sold to all of us as revolutionary and beginning of a new era. For Lutoff-Perlo´s account, yeah maybe...

 

Glad I can switch to Sun Princess soon. She´s also not all emission free yet, but seemingly Princess are trying their best to take that issue a bit more serious.

• The dirty little secret that environmentalists don't want you to know about LNG, is that there is a thing called "methane slip", which is the amount of methane "lost" due to various causes from the wellhead to the engine on the ship (leakage, spillage, incomplete combustion, over pressure venting), and that methane is 80 times (that's 8000%) as damaging as a Green House Gas compared to liquid marine fuels in the short term (under 20 years), and 20 times (2000%) as damaging in the long term.  So, LNG is not the panacea that everyone thinks it is, and the real reason the cruise lines have started building LNG powered ships (which still require 5% diesel mixed in to get the LNG to ignite) is cost savings in the US market, and a PR benefit.  They could care less about the environmental impact.

[CruseKrazy]

LNG is becoming cost competitive with bunker fuel.  This should help in the transition.

 

https://splash247.com/lng-bunker-costs-now-competitive/

[CeleryCruiser]

I just read an article where stated that when the (sulphur)emission regulations changed 2020 the vessels that a have flue gas scrubbers can use less clean fuel. Vice versa: If the vessel does not have sulphur scrubber  it must use a  cleaner fuel to fulfill the limits- which is naturally more expensive.  

[karmamule]

42 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

• The dirty little secret that environmentalists don't want you to know about LNG, is that there is a thing called "methane slip", which is the amount of methane "lost" due to various causes from the wellhead to the engine on the ship (leakage, spillage, incomplete combustion, over pressure venting), and that methane is 80 times (that's 8000%) as damaging as a Green House Gas compared to liquid marine fuels in the short term (under 20 years), and 20 times (2000%) as damaging in the long term.  So, LNG is not the panacea that everyone thinks it is, and the real reason the cruise lines have started building LNG powered ships (which still require 5% diesel mixed in to get the LNG to ignite) is cost savings in the US market, and a PR benefit.  They could care less about the environmental impact.

 

Thanks for the detail chengkp75, however I wouldn't say it's "the environmentalists" who don't want you to know about that, it's the corporations wrapping themselves in the mantle of being environmentally conscious that don't. Actual environmentalist groups like greenpeace are no fans of LNG either.

[evandbob]

On 10/25/2018 at 6:40 PM, Denny01 said:

Neamonxer - I was wrong! There is an LNG-fueled cruise ship. the Aida Nova. If sounds as if the ship will have LNG tanks that can support the ship for a 2-week cruise, so I assume it also has standard fuels also. Read this:

 

http://www.seatrade-cruise.com/news/news-headlines/first-cruise-ship-lng-bunkering-goes-without-a-hitch-aidanova-readies-for-sea-trials.html 

 

Den

Carnival Mardi Gras & its sister ships are LNG powered. 

 

Google says there are a total of 7 large cruise ships that are LNG fuled.

[chengkp75]

48 minutes ago, CeleryCruiser said:

I just read an article where stated that when the (sulphur)emission regulations changed 2020 the vessels that a have flue gas scrubbers can use less clean fuel. Vice versa: If the vessel does not have sulphur scrubber  it must use a  cleaner fuel to fulfill the limits- which is naturally more expensive.  

The ships with scrubbers can use the same fuel they have been using before the change in emissions levels.  Bunker fuel is the "end product" of refining, after all the possible gas, jet, or lube oil has been removed.  Many older refineries cannot extract anything more from the crude, and the bunker fuel is left over, about 30% of each barrel of crude.  Newer refineries can extract about 95% of each barrel of crude as refined product, leaving solid coke as the end product (used in steel production).  Now, with ships no longer able to use high sulfur bunker fuel (and again, many refineries cannot extract the sulfur from the bunker fuel to make it compliant with the new rules), the price of high sulfur residual fuel drops, and in third world countries where they were trying to "go green" by using natural gas in their power plants, it now makes economic sense to switch to the high sulfur bunker fuel, since these countries have little to no environmental constraints on the fuel used in power plants.

 

The vast majority of ships (and cruise ships are less than 5% of world tonnage) have switched to low sulfur fuel rather than install scrubbers, due to the capital cost of the scrubber, and the operational and maintenance cost of scrubbers.

[chengkp75]

14 minutes ago, evandbob said:

Carnival Mardi Gras & its sister ships are LNG powered. 

 

Google says there are a total of 7 large cruise ships that are LNG fuled.

And, you'll never know when those ships are burning LNG or liquid fuel, as they are required to carry liquid fuel as well, and they need some liquid fuel to burn the LNG.  The engines work perfectly well on 95% LNG or 100% residual fuel.

[swjumbo]

They’re not very environmentally friendly. I do wonder why the airlines get a bad reputation whilst this is happening 24x7.

 

[chengkp75]

5 minutes ago, swjumbo said:

They’re not very environmentally friendly. I do wonder why the airlines get a bad reputation whilst this is happening 24x7.

 

Just remember that cruise ships are less than 5% of all ships, and all ships burn the same fuel, and that over 80% of the world's commerce travels by sea, and you'll get an idea of why ships use the fuel they do, and why people make noise only about cruise ships, and not about the ships that bring their Ipads and Iphones and their Whole Foods groceries to them, since an increase in fuel cost would mean an increase in the price of those "essential" to life items.

[swjumbo]

I’m an avid cruiser but you cannot compare people having an indulgent vacation with a ship carrying essential supplies.

Likewise, aircraft don’t only carry people from A to B but carry perishable goods (fish, fruit, medicines) and mail. 
Cruise ships don’t.

[not-enough-cruising]

4 minutes ago, swjumbo said:

I’m an avid cruiser but you cannot compare people having an indulgent vacation with a ship carrying essential supplies.

Likewise, aircraft don’t only carry people from A to B but carry perishable goods (fish, fruit, medicines) and mail. 
Cruise ships don’t.

So you really aren't that concerned about the environmental aspect if you are willing to give a pass to all diesel burning vessels except for a fraction of a percent because they are for leisure.

[chengkp75]

19 minutes ago, swjumbo said:

I’m an avid cruiser but you cannot compare people having an indulgent vacation with a ship carrying essential supplies.

Likewise, aircraft don’t only carry people from A to B but carry perishable goods (fish, fruit, medicines) and mail. 
Cruise ships don’t.

 

13 minutes ago, not-enough-cruising said:

So you really aren't that concerned about the environmental aspect if you are willing to give a pass to all diesel burning vessels except for a fraction of a percent because they are for leisure.

My point, exactly.  I don't think of phones, computers, and televisions as "essential supplies".  And, you are willing to give 95% of maritime "polluters" a pass because they aren't a leisure activity?

[PTC DAWG]

2 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

• The dirty little secret that environmentalists don't want you to know about LNG, is that there is a thing called "methane slip", which is the amount of methane "lost" due to various causes from the wellhead to the engine on the ship (leakage, spillage, incomplete combustion, over pressure venting), and that methane is 80 times (that's 8000%) as damaging as a Green House Gas compared to liquid marine fuels in the short term (under 20 years), and 20 times (2000%) as damaging in the long term.  So, LNG is not the panacea that everyone thinks it is, and the real reason the cruise lines have started building LNG powered ships (which still require 5% diesel mixed in to get the LNG to ignite) is cost savings in the US market, and a PR benefit.  They could care less about the environmental impact.

As always, bringing the facts. ^^^^

[doghog]

We're along for the ride.