
Ships fitted with ‘cheat devices’ to divert poisonous pollution into sea - appleflaxen
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/shipping-pollution-sea-open-loop-scrubber-carbon-dioxide-environment-a9123181.html
======
mogadsheu
Shipping is a pretty dirty industry, because of fuel quality they use and the
general lack of oversight in the middle of the ocean.

I was on the board of Corvus Energy
([http://corvusenergy.com](http://corvusenergy.com)) while working in Norway,
whose technology reduces CO2, SOx, NOx, and fuel consumption by up to 30%. One
installation was the equivalent of taking 10,000 cars off of the road.
Thankfully, there are developments in this space.

Bear in mind that shipping is also the most energy efficient form of bulk
transportation (vs land or air).

~~~
erdgdsgbdfsg
High sulfur diesel is super nasty, and the shipping industry has to clean up,
but it's not obvious how.

I mean, let's say we forbid them from using high S diesel. What happens to
this diesel then? Do we dump it in tailing ponds? pump it back into the
ground? It's not obvious what to do with this. At least at sea S emissions are
spread out minimizing impact (as opposed to localized)

I'm not saying not to do anything. I'm asking, what are we to do? (I have some
ideas in mind, so it's not impossible)

~~~
xkcd-sucks
Elemental sulfur isn't all that nasty, it would be fine in a pile somewhere.
The issue is dispersing it into ecosystems quickly. Kind of like fixed
nitrogen, which like sulfur is a nutrient

~~~
jws
You can see the great stacked blocks of it in Canada where it is removed from
the tar sands oil…
[https://www.google.com/mymaps/viewer?mid=1Wi4KuLBYcXHH0dq4j4...](https://www.google.com/mymaps/viewer?mid=1Wi4KuLBYcXHH0dq4j4ZzOhxm4pY&hl=en)

The oil is more valuable without the sulfur, but the market price of sulfur is
low, so they just stack it up.

------
sanxiyn
If you want to read the other side's argument, here it is, from International
Bunker Industry Association: [https://ibia.net/facts-and-fears-in-the-open-
loop-scrubber-d...](https://ibia.net/facts-and-fears-in-the-open-loop-
scrubber-debate/)

The main point is that there is regulation for washwater based on science. The
article describes "warm, acidic, contaminated washwater containing carcinogens
including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and heavy metals", but
regulation in fact specifically includes standard for heavy metals, PAHs, and
acidity. You should argue why acidity standard is wrong and what it should be,
instead of repeating "acidic washwater".

~~~
azinman2
I’d argue it should be zero. Ruining our oceans is something that cannot be
undone, and there is far too much damage that has and is already occurring in
acidifying our oceans and the amount of existing toxic materials.

This industry is one of the dirtiest, and least responsible to the world.

~~~
erdgdsgbdfsg
"I’d argue it should be zero."

So would I, but that's impossible in meat space for any industry or technology
spawned in the last 200 years. I wouldn't mind technologically winding the
clock back 200 years, using sail boats and letting my computer wither away
(and livelihood, btw). Would you?

"This industry is one of the dirtiest, and least responsible to the world."

True. It's also, by weight and value of goods transported, one of the
cleanest. It's a _massive_ industry

Ships have the advantage of being able to dump waste in the middle of the
ocean where there is little to no life (too deep, no light, no plants. There
is some life). Compared to what other, land based, industries do this is
comparatively benign. Here the waste gets diluted by an essentially infinite
sink.

Infinite sink you scoff? Yes, depending on where and what you dump.

If you dump brine water off the coast near the Mississippi river, you're doing
a lot of damage by significantly changing the salinity locally. Slowly dump
the same brine in the middle of the ocean, and nothing will happen.

Similar for heavy metals. These dissolve into salt water, and were already
present in solution since the dawn of time. We won't change those numbers
significantly. (again, assuming you're not dumping it just off of land like
the Japanese did in the 50s)

Plastic is a different ball game. Plastic doesn't dissolve and is carried, and
concentrated by ocean currents. That's nasty.

Chemicals and isotopes that don't naturally exist are also nasty. Particularly
if they have long half-lives.

~~~
jschwartzi
> Ships have the advantage of being able to dump waste in the middle of the
> ocean where there is little to no life (too deep, no light, no plants. There
> is some life). Compared to what other, land based, industries do this is
> comparatively benign. Here the waste gets diluted by an essentially infinite
> sink.

There is life everywhere that there is a temperature gradient to exploit. Just
because we haven't named it doesn't mean it isn't there. There's life in ices,
life at the top of mountains, life in the deep ocean, and life in the shallow
places. So I would prefer to err on the side of caution.

By the way, the same arguments you're making for dumping sulfurous water were
also made for the introduction of PEG into our toothpastes, shampoos, body
wash, lotions, and various other cleaners. It was only after the same plastics
were discovered at all levels of our food chain that someone realized it was
actually a bad idea to do this. So I'm skeptical of any argument for dumping
based on the small quantity of dumped materials. Humans are really good at
scaling up small actions into huge consequences. And now there's plastic
microbeads in our oceans, lakes, streams, fish, birds, game animals--basically
anything that eats anything has measurable quantities.

------
spdegabrielle
> 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

~~~
newguy1234
Probably hard to do in international waters but the bigger countries could
always just say that any vessel doing this is blacklisted from docking in
their ports. Every ship operator would just retrofit their vessels if that
were to occur.

~~~
cies
Exactly. I was gonna say that by some international port blacklist we can
easily punish them, and of force them to make a huuuuuge donation to a clean-
up fund in order to have the ban lifted.

------
tathougies
There are a number of problems with this accusation.

(1) The requirement is that the sulphur is not released into the air. This is
the rule adopted by a standards body. Why exactly is it cheating to dump it
into the ocean instead?

(2) It is unclear that this is a bad thing. The article only cited the danger
of dumping the chemicals in a port, where concentrations could reach dangerous
levels due to concentration. It is unclear that dumping in the open ocean
would be bad

(3) The final charge is that the scrubber increases CO2 output. It is unclear
how one should get around this. Obviously, any process that requires more
energy releases more CO2. There is no data given as to whether open loop or
closed loop scrubbers generate more CO2. I'm guessing both generate some more
CO2. The fact of the matter is that the regulation as stated requires more CO2
to be produced. The regulations mandate extra energy use, so the extra
greenhouse gases produced are directly due to the regulations, not the
companies behind this.

In other words, the article is written as if to accuse the companies of
breaking the law, but in reality, the companies are simply complying with the
standards in a way the author does not like. Instead of calling for standards
to be changed, the author is acting as if companies should magically know what
to do. Standards bodies exist in order to create standards that companies can
follow. They should be the ones implementing the rule change.

Indeed, the article explicitly mentions that the IMF explicitly _allows_ these
kinds of scrubbers. Thus, using them is not even air quotes cheating. It's
actually fully compliant.

To the article's credit, they did point out that the standards body is indeed
reviewing their rules, and should be able to figure something out in the
coming months.

~~~
rini17
No magic necessary here. Companies know very well that releasing sulphur and
heavy metals into the environment, regardless if air or water, is harmful. It
was scientifically proven that heavy metals tend to concentrate in the food
chain. They could switch to refined (low sulfur) oil tomorrow, that is not a
technical problem.

But, as others explain, the ownership of shipping companies is structured to
avoid any direct responsibility, so voluntary decision that goes against the
inertia is hard, and regulation is difficult in international waters.

~~~
tathougies
'Being bad to the environment' is not actually against the law, especially not
in those terms. Perhaps you are confusing morality with law and trying to hold
people liable for the former rather than the latter.

~~~
rini17
You on the other side, insinuate that asking companies to consider any moral
obligations requires magic.

~~~
tathougies
No, asking companies to consider moral obligations under penalty of law is
what I think is wrong. The law exists to codify morality. If this is a moral
concern, it should be against the law. We cannot expect disparate entities
around the world, staffed by people with disparate values, to all magically
think like an Anglophone Hacker News-type. In order to make expectations
clear, morality that requires this level of behavioral modification ought to
be law. In this regard, it has been turned into law, and whatever authorities
we have have decided that this behavior is not illegal. Thus we conclude that
the international maritime commission, which purportedly represents the will
of the democratic countries of which it consists, does not believe this is
immoral.

~~~
Thorncorona
I'm reading your comment as "Companies ought to have no morals, except in
cases where required by law, because there are no common morals" I'm going to
take a couple assumption about your political stance and try to explain why I
think this is false and also terrible policy.

1\. You are libertarian, or lean extremely conservative. This is from your
dislike of new laws in general => prior comment "Sure, all law is an exercise
of authority, and hence authoritarianism. The commenter was merely calling out
that... no matter how you dice it... a new law is always authoritarian,
whether you acknowledge it or not."

2\. You believe everything not strictly disallowed by the law should be
allowed, and that unless the law says otherwise, it should be allowed.
Libertus.

Generally, laws exist to protect public and individual good. This is true for
both the Western and Eastern hemispheres. For example, punishment for murder,
penalties for illegal dumping of chemicals. Individual rights and societal
living standards are protected by ensuring one does not infringe upon the
rights of others. However, it does not say what is "Good" or "Bad". This is
why in addition to learning about basic societal law, parents teach their kids
morals and norms. Cheating is bad, it is rude to interrupt others when
talking, hospitality, gratitude. However none of these are codified into law.
This is also historically found in all civilizations [-1]. When people break
these norms, they are penalized by society.However companies, which simply are
groups of people, will discard these norms to pursue profit because there is
no significant penalty for ignoring norms and morals, nor laws which are
frequently lobbied against or weaseled out of [0].

We can and should require companies to consider moral obligations because
there is no way to codify directives such as "don't ruin the planet." Laws are
generally written from the actions from the past. Monsanto knew for decades
the effects of DDT, but they didn't do anything because there was no law
requiring them to act. But should Monsanto have took initiative to act?
Eventually, laws are enacted to combat abuse, but in many cases, the damage is
already done. [1-3]

[-1] [https://evolution-institute.org/the-seven-moral-rules-
found-...](https://evolution-institute.org/the-seven-moral-rules-found-all-
around-the-world/) [0]
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/climate/trump-
envir...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/climate/trump-environment-
rollbacks.html) [1]
[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190426110601.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190426110601.htm)
[2] [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fracking-can-
cont...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fracking-can-contaminate-
drinking-water/) [3] [https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/federal-
study-...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/federal-study-says-
oil-sands-toxins-are-leaching-into-groundwater-athabasca-
river/article17016054/)

~~~
tathougies
> Companies ought to have no morals, except in cases where required by law,
> because there are no common morals

Actually, I'm Catholic, so I actually do believe there are absolute morals and
that everyone, including corporations, ought to follow them. And moreover,
even more strongly than most authoritarians, I believe that if you eschew
these morals, you may end up experiencing eternal damnation (unless you get
baptized and go to confession regularly, ya da ya da ya -- you know the
drill). So your reading of me as a libertarian is really quite far from
reality.

However, when it comes to asking whether a government should _punish_ a
company (and thus a person, because companies are fictitious), then yes, you
must be able to codify your morality so that no one can claim they are being
unfairly treated by an arbitrary imposition of your morality on them. A
fundamental part of Catholic social teaching -- the same one that says you
have to love your neighbor and take care of planet earth by not dumping
chemicals -- is that governments have an obligation to promulgate and enforce
just laws. Without proper promulgation (i.e., announcing the new law to the
world and making reasonably sure all interested parties know its contents), a
ruling cannot be held to have the power of law. It would be immoral in this
case for a government to attempt enforcement, even if the purportedly immoral
party has committed a clear wrong doing.

I see this in the same way I see the trolley problem. Although certainly the
outcome of a trolley hurtling towards 100 people would be very bad and
unfortunate, under no circumstances can a moral actor willingly choose to
sacrifice fewer people to divert the trolley's course. If a government cannot
morally enforce its law, it ought to do nothing (other than make a new law).
As I said above (and which should have been the first hint that I am not
really a bona fide libertarian), in this case, the maritime commission has a
clear way out by simply remaking the law to cover this case of chemical
dumping. If they believe this dumping is bad for the planet, then they have
every right (and an obligation perhaps) to do this. That is not a libertarian
statement.

As for the companies... they should not dump if they know it to be toxic (I am
personally not 100% clear if it is or not -- the maritime commission seems to
not know either), but they certainly cannot be punished for doing it even if
it is, until such time as a proper authority has actually made it against the
law. Up until that point, that is between them and God, and if they knowingly
commit a sin and don't repent, they'll probably end up in a real bad place.

------
wereHamster
I guess the new law reads "Can't release sulphur into atmosphere", so the
shipping companies were thinking of ways around that. Why not say "Can't
release … into environment", which would cover air, sea, ground, space and
everything else around us?

~~~
markdown
They definitely should dump it outside the environment:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM)

~~~
latchkey
[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-front-fell-
off/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-front-fell-off/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirki_(tanker)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirki_\(tanker\))

~~~
markdown
LOL does Snopes fact-check skits now?

~~~
cannonedhamster
Because people will take jokes as reality. See Storm Area 51.

~~~
Karunamon
In which case it should be labeled as a joke, not "false". And Snopes has a
satire tag for this purpose.

------
contingencies
Didn't read the article but I met a Danish fellow doing laser prop shaft
alignment on Friday night in Shenzhen. He told me there are packed out waiting
lists for the installation of these devices right around China right now.
Until then, I'd never heard of them.

------
throwaway391503
The solution is nuclear-powered ships.

~~~
rndgermandude
It's hard enough to secure nuclear power plants. Now imagine a swimming one
blew up (by accident, or deliberately) in some water highway, like the street
of hormuz, and cause a traffic stop for weeks or even months.

~~~
manfredo
Nine nuclear submarines have sunk so far. They did not release significant
amounts of radiation. Sinking a reactor generally does not lead to compromise
of the containment, singe pressures are higher in the reactor as compared to
its surroundings. Sinking reduces the pressure gradient. One would probably
have to puncture the reactor to experience a catastrophic event.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_submari...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_submarines)

~~~
rndgermandude
Like you said: The submarines sunk. The reactors did not blow up. Now think
about what happens when one on a container ship actually blows up (e.g.
because the ship was attacked to make it blow up), and also consider the
different scale of a container ship to a nuclear sub, which of course means
you need a different size reactor.

~~~
manfredo
Probably the same thing as what happens when an aircraft carrier blows up.
Actually, probably less violent because aircraft carriers are also carrying
jet fuel and ordnance. And we send those into warzones, nobody seems to mind.

------
Overtonwindow
Shipping is a very under-regulated industry. Not just on environmental issues
but also labor and human rights. Check out the book “Ninety Percent of
Everything” by Rose George, all about the shipping industry.

------
gigatexal
Let’s hope more and more exposure hits the industry so we can stop polluting
our oceans.

------
thedogeye
It’s not a “cheat” device. The law allows ship operators to use it and dump
the sulfur into the ocean. Pure madness.

~~~
mperham
It's a cheat device in that it skirts the intent of a law: that sulfur not get
into the environment at all but extracted and disposed of properly.

------
nyxtom
Maybe just have these ships run on Methanol. Seems like the obvious long term
solution.

[https://www.methanex.com/news/industry-welcomes-four-new-
oce...](https://www.methanex.com/news/industry-welcomes-four-new-ocean-going-
vessels-capable-running-methanol)

------
niceworkbuddy
I wonder what Captain's Nemo story could have been today...

------
seren
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
again.

~~~
willvarfar
There are lots of experiments and even production ships with sails these days.
Google for "sails on container ships" for lots of nice pictures and articles.

The sails don't look like historic sails - they are often rotors that look
like cylinders.

Maersk's Pelican, for example, is supposed to get 10% from its rotor sails.

Tangent: why do wind turbines look so conventional, with their propellers?
There is a lot online about vertical axis wind turbines etc, but I've never
seen one.

~~~
r00fus
> Tangent: why do wind turbines look so conventional, with their propellers?
> There is a lot online about vertical axis wind turbines etc, but I've never
> seen one.

Not sure if they still exist but east of SF on 580 (Altamonte pass?) I think
there are still some.

~~~
scrumbledober
I don't think there are any left that are visible from the freeway. I remember
them being touted as a newer more efficient design, I wonder why they have
been replaced by more traditional designs?

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

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

~~~
onemoresoop
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.

~~~
kube-system
It is neither feasible nor practical to collect everything that comes out of a
hydrocarbon-burning ship's exhaust. We have scrubbing for some of the worst
stuff, but there's plenty of stuff that isn't collected.

When you burn fuel, you get a mix of those emissions. If burning fuel results
in X amount of sulfur and Y amount of CO2, you still don't want to increase
the amount of X, even if 100% of it is collected, because Y will also go up
and it isn't being collected.

------
ptah
letter of the law solutions like this are outrageous

------
JustSomeNobody
OT: what an amazingly unreadable web page on mobile. I’m using my work phone
and have no blocker installed and this is horrible.

~~~
clacke2
I'm reading it on Firefox Klar/Focus in reader mode, no plugins, and it looks
great!

------
sanne
Bit of context on what they call IMO 2020 regulation.

TLDR: this is regulation that moves us towards a cleaner and more
environmentally friendly industry, but it's a small step in a larger effort to
make shipping environmentally friendly.

Couple of questions to answer: 1\. What is IMO 2020, and what is the intent of
the law? 2\. How can shipping lines comply? And how is it enforced? 3\. How
disruptive is this for the industry? 4\. Does this help us as a society?

1\. IMO 2020 is regulation to reduce the amount of sulphur in the exhaust
gasses of all vessels. It's a landmark achievement by an international
organization (International Maritime Office) to ensure the world has signed up
for this. 2\. Shipping lines (and this includes all vessels) can comply in
multiple ways (in order of use): 1. Use low sulphur diesel which is much more
expensive than what they use now, 2. Install scrubbers (or what this article
calls cheat devices) to scrub the sulphur out. There are 2 type of scrubbers:
open and closed. The open one is called "cheating device" as it scrubs sulphur
from the bunker, but dumps it via an open connector with sea water in sea. The
closed one collects the sulphur so it can be safely disposed. It is
questionable whether the open devices are net positive on the world, and
different studies show different results. 3) use LNG. Most ports have
indicated that they will only allow vessels that comply. Some countries,
mostly developing nations, have already indicated that compliance is not
needed, but all major ports on the East-West trades will comply and therefore
it will impact most of cargo flows. 3\. This will be very disruptive. There is
now all of a sudden too much high sulphur bunker, and too little diesel. Price
spread will increase rapidly when we approach January 1st 2020. Cargo will
become more expensive. That said, refiners will benefit as well power
generation in countries where they don't care about sulphur. Refiners will
make more money on low sulphur diesel as diesel prices will go up (more
demand), power generators in mostly developing nations will buy the sulphuric
bunker to lower their fuel costs. 4\. Yes, it does help. It’s a small step
towards 2050, which is target for IMO to decarbonize the industry. This is an
industry with long and large asset cycles, and change therefore is slow.

So: is the device cheating? No it’s perfectly allowed. Only a smaller share of
all vessels will use, and most others will shift to low sulphur diesel. So it
should be net positive for the world. This is how we look at it at Flexport.

------
spanktheuser
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 doing so; they merely concluded that
the personal consequences were both small and unlikely.

It seems to me that our current regulatory framework will remain untenable
until enforcement has a very sobering deterrent effect.

~~~
Neil44
You can imprison people when you make it against the law.

------
JackRabbitSlim
Blah that's hard and costs the rich some profits; lets talk about customers
using plastic straws and eating beef instead! We have products we can sell
them for that stuff!

A financial collapse is the only thing that will prevent an ecological
collapse. World War 3 is the planets best hope.

~~~
mikelyons
Be careful what you wish for, this solution also includes the second American
Civil War and assassination of high ranking government officials.

~~~
defterGoose
Gee, even as an American I'm kind of hoping for that with reckless abandon!

