Ships fitted with ‘cheat devices’ to divert poisonous pollution into sea • Hacker News Board

Re: Ships fitted with ‘cheat devices’ to divert poisonous pollution into sea

#81

Post by gbrown » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 4:42 PM UTC

dogma1138 wrote: post #65

gbrown wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So give it a several year phase-in period, and provide mechanisms to remove/permanently disable the systems.

That’s what has been done in this case which lead to cheating devices to be installed in the first place. It’s very hard to near impossible to do or enforce all it takes is a country just by you that is willing to accept them. People aren’t going to take a huge price hike and countries that are dependent on imports won’t ever enforce such requirements which would leave these vessels out there. At the end of the day u…

I don't buy your defeatism at all. The US certainly has the economic clout to make progress, and there's certainly a middle ground between doing nothing and expecting that every attempt to regulate externalities must be 100% effective and 100% enforced on every economic actor. At some (usually reasonably achievable) point, compliance becomes cheaper, or substitution occurs.

Re: Ships fitted with ‘cheat devices’ to divert poisonous pollution into sea

#82

Post by DonHopkins » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

markdown wrote: post #22

latchkey wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-front-fell-off/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirki_(tanker)

LOL does Snopes fact-check skits now?

They should fact-check Rickroll bait, too!

Re: Ships fitted with ‘cheat devices’ to divert poisonous pollution into sea

#83

Post by onemoresoop » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 4:51 PM UTC

hapidjus wrote: post #69

eatbitseveryday wrote: post #68

Why don’t we pay ships for the pollutants they collect? Wouldn’t that motivate them to store it?

Because that would give them a reason to pollute even more.

What difference does it make if they collect it though? Yes, they'd claim a bit more but can't claim too much because the storage is limited to some extent. It'd still be better for the environment.

Re: Ships fitted with ‘cheat devices’ to divert poisonous pollution into sea

#84

Post by Neil44 » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

spanktheuser wrote: post #61

When can we start imprisoning people for this sort of activity? It’s clear that fines are a non-functioning solution in a capitalist system as they are subject to cost-shifting to future leadership / shareholders / society. Within our industry I’ve sat in entirely too many meetings where executives removed basic security investments from the roadmap over the objections of engineering. They understood the risks of doi…

You can imprison people when you make it against the law.

Re: Ships fitted with ‘cheat devices’ to divert poisonous pollution into sea

#85

Post by ken » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 4:58 PM UTC

gbrown wrote: post #63

dogma1138 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What about enacting a law that says "if you use cheating devices at all, you can't dock in our ports"? When 99.9% of vessels are doing the cheating, the shipping companies would say you would really like your people to go on a diet don’t you?

So give it a several year phase-in period, and provide mechanisms to remove/permanently disable the systems.

I feel like I’ve seen this basic plot line before, once or twice.

Ending 1: the deadline approaches and nothing has been done, so the deadline is extended, or additional clauses are written to grandfather in the non compliant offenders (who are of course too big to fail).

Ending 2: they find a port that is near the port they want to visit, in a jurisdiction that doesn’t care, and then ship the last mile to the actual destination via other means. More costly and more pollution but technically in compliance with every law.

Ending 3: they learn to game the tests, so they meet the letter of the regulation but not the spirit of it. Much cheaper than actually reducing emissions.

Re: Ships fitted with ‘cheat devices’ to divert poisonous pollution into sea

#86

Post by onemoresoop » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

pnako wrote: post #14

seren wrote: post #7

I was wondering what it would take to replace a current container ship by a sail boat, like a clipper. Apparently, each container ship has more or less a 100 times the tonnage of a clipper. Independently of the speed of the ships, the cost of the crews would probably kill the idea, except for goods with a very high margin, but there must a fuel price (including carbon tax) where this should become economically viable…

But maybe you don't need crews, and ships that big. Perhaps it would be viable to operate a semi-autonomous fleet of dozens or hundreds of medium-sized wind-powered ships; it's possible that wind turbines + battery + electric engine would be better than sail. A trimaran could accommodate wind turbines and a certain number of standard containers that would also act as ballast. COLREGs probably prevent unmanned ships,…

Wouldn't this be the pirates' paradise?

Re: Ships fitted with ‘cheat devices’ to divert poisonous pollution into sea

#87

Post by PhasmaFelis » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 5:00 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #44

spdegabrielle wrote: post #3

> the sulphur emitted by the ships is simply re-routed from the exhaust and expelled into the water around the ships, which not only greatly increases the volume of pollutants being pumped into the sea, but also increases carbon dioxide emissions. This should be a crime

>This should be a crime I suspect that a desire to cater to people with "something drastic must be done" attitudes is how we wound up with half baked rules with seemingly obvious loopholes in the first place. As another commenters pointed out, there are standards for discharge water and these systems presumably meet them. If you think those standards are wrong then take them up with them. The ship owners are acting i…

How does the fact that they're acting in rational self-interest make it "hard to find fault"? "Rational self-interest" isn't a defense for bad behavior.

Re: Ships fitted with ‘cheat devices’ to divert poisonous pollution into sea

#88

Post by kardos » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

Gwypaas wrote: post #19

pnako wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But maybe you don't need crews, and ships that big. Perhaps it would be viable to operate a semi-autonomous fleet of dozens or hundreds of medium-sized wind-powered ships; it's possible that wind turbines + battery + electric engine would be better than sail. A trimaran could accommodate wind turbines and a certain number of standard containers that would also act as ballast. COLREGs probably prevent unmanned ships,…

The biggest question in regards to windpowered vessels is always "how do you deliver on time?". With logistics turning more to just in time deliveries to reduce warehousing a ship turning up a day late is not acceptable, which creates knock off issues with slot times in harbours not aligning and you either pay higher prices for later scheduling or having to pay for an unused slot. This is not even taking into conside…

> "how do you deliver on time?

With a big enough fleet you could statistically deal with delays. Eg, in the same sense that airlines slightly overbook flights. The variability/risk in the port costs would cut into the fuel savings; hard to imagine that would be a show stopper. There must be a portion of the industry that is less time sensitive and would entertain working out the details to facilitate the slower speeds for slower costs approach.

Re: Ships fitted with ‘cheat devices’ to divert poisonous pollution into sea

#89

Post by manfredo » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #79

throwaway391503 wrote: post #64

The solution is nuclear-powered ships.

There are between 60,000 and 80,000 commercial cargo vessels worldwide. About 100-200 sink every decade. Nuclear power as a routine matter in commercial shipping is unlikely to be widespread.

Hundreds of nuclear powered military vessels have been built. Several have sunk. There has been no environmental disaster so far, and there doesn't seem to be much concern over putting nuclear reactors on vessels that are likely to shot at and bombed. Nuclear powered merchant ships have been built, but mostly as a tech demonstration [1].

There will never be a solar or battery powered transoceanic cargo ship. The energy density is nowhere near that of hydrocarbons. There is some speculation about liquid hydrogen powered vessels, but at that point one could feasibly argue that nuclear is the safer option.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah

Re: Ships fitted with ‘cheat devices’ to divert poisonous pollution into sea

#90

Post by dsfyu404ed » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 5:13 PM UTC

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #87

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This should be a crime I suspect that a desire to cater to people with "something drastic must be done" attitudes is how we wound up with half baked rules with seemingly obvious loopholes in the first place. As another commenters pointed out, there are standards for discharge water and these systems presumably meet them. If you think those standards are wrong then take them up with them. The ship owners are acting i…

How does the fact that they're acting in rational self-interest make it "hard to find fault"? "Rational self-interest" isn't a defense for bad behavior.

They were given two options within the law and they picked the cheap one. Expecting participants in a commoditized industry to voluntarily increase their overhead is naive at best. The issue here is with the people writing the rules.