environment

Cruise liners try to rewrite climate rules despite commitments

4 Comments
By ED DAVEY

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In the picture accompanying the article, the Carnival Cruise Line ship is seen emitting lots of black smoke. The busiest port in the Americas, Los Angeles, did something a few years ago to help cut down in emissions. Whenever a large ship is docked in LA Harbor, its electrical needs must be met by the local grid, rather than by running the ship's generators. This requirement cuts down on the amount of time that the ships in harbor have to run their engines, and is supposed to help stop about 2% of the engine emissions in the greater LA area.

I have been in other ports that did not have the infrastructure to power ships, and the smoke coming from them was very noticeable.

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@1glenn, I understand your point but the ship you mention is still underway and not tied to a berth. Shore power even in LA and Long Beach is not universally available at all berths yet and most commercial ships are not equipped to use shore power. It remains a work in progress. For me this is galling because naval vessels have used shore power when in port for 120 years or more. Of course the dozens of ships anchored in the outer harbor or just offshore awaiting an open berth cannot use shore power and contribute to the regions low air quality.

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Hi DT, your points are well taken. Still, the LA Harbor website says that they have more shore-side power hookups than any other harbor in the world, which I applaud. It has also been reported that in times of energy shortage, ships are allowed to use auxiliary power sources, in order to save power for the local grid.

It seems to me that California is often in the vanguard of energy innovation. What LA Harbor has done with shore side hookups is just one example. So often I have read, "this is too difficult to do, and that is too difficult to do," and yet we here have already done it. The examples are numerous. For decades California led the nation in the generation of energy from wind power, even though our wind resource is not as good as in many other states. Today we have fallen behind several other states in the amount of electricity generated from wind, to which I say, good. It is good that Texas and Iowa and other states are finally exploiting clean wind energy.

I read an article the other day in which the author said that geothermal energy was not practical, and yet over 5% of our electricity in California comes from that resource. How can anyone say with a straight face that geothermal is not practical, when we have demonstrated that it is? By the way, if we were our own nation, we would lead the world in the production of electricity from that resource. I have read that Indonesia will surpass us in a decade or so, which is fine by me. It is not that we are getting rid of our geothermal energy, but that other places are increasing their use of that resource.

We also lead the nation in the generation of solar energy!

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I read an article the other day in which the author said that geothermal energy was not practical, and yet over 5% of our electricity in California comes from that resource. How can anyone say with a straight face that geothermal is not practical, when we have demonstrated that it is?

It depends. I live very close to one of the state's big geothermal operations. The facility has so depleted the water table at the site they are looking for other sources of water to pipe in. If they take water out of a nearby valley it will draw down the water table there and drain a series of small lakes maintained for hunting ducks. Those lakes also overflow into our valley and feed our own aquifer. If groundwater is abundant then geothermal energy might be useful. In our case depletion of the groundwater resource may force the shutdown of the local geothermal generating activity.

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