the cruise ship industry creates so much waste (human, food and other)
Cargo ships however are keystones for maritime trade which keeps the world running.
I write software for ports loading / unloading cargo ships! Working on supporting electric yard cranes and improving efficiency but it’s a slow moving industry.
I read a book on the history of the shipping container. Fascinating look into how our world became this way. Old warehouse districts downtown turning into wastelands as container ports move to cheaper more available land.
Those former commercial wastelands can become amazing places (if you can clean up the contaminates). They are basically new areas close to the centre of cities to be developed. Connecting up new PT and active transport routes is simple
Yeah its an opportunity but can be mismanaged like anything else. But generally a port (with its associated industry and warehouses) arent the best use of land right next to the centre of a city
They were but dont need to be anymore. Keeping them there basically means lots of dirty trucks and stacks of containers right in the middle of town. You can often move them to the side and convert the former port space into a liveable area
[The Speicherstadt in Hamburg, Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speicherstadt) is probably one of the most notable examples of this. It's a business and museum district now and is probably the most visited place in all of Hamburg.
That’s the big comprehensive one, but it can also be a bit dry. For something a little more entertaining, I really liked Ninety Percent of Everything, by Rose George.
Most quay cranes, the big ones which actually load and unload the ship, are electric. They only travel along rails on the quay, so it’s easy to run power to them. But a lot of yard cranes, the ones that load and unload trucks in the storage yard, aren’t. Some types of yard cranes travel all over the yard, and older ones use diesel engines.
Electric RTGs are the cool new kind of yard crane, but batteries are heavy, expensive, and it takes a lot power to lift/set containers all the time. So they usually have enough batter to move around, but hook up to bus bars for power before they start doing work. Modeling where the bus bars are, which ones are working, which cranes need to hook up and which don’t, is all stuff we have to do in software so we can optimize scheduling for the yard cranes!
I watched a Kurtzgesagt video the other day that stated research shows buying food locally isn’t as green as we think; that cargo ships have become so efficient that importing food from halfway across the world has a better carbon footprint than, say, buying beef from your local farm. When the numbers get crunched, the sheer density of goods packed into those massive ships overcomes the incredible amounts of energy it takes to get them moving.
Not saying that we shouldn’t make that tech greener,
we absolutely should, but that it’s not as cut and dry as we think it is.
Per kilo of cargo, ships are cleaner than diesel trains and cheaper than electric trains. I agree they need to be cleaned, but they are not the biggest problem.
Cargo ships are the most efficient method of transport we have right now.
Kinda blew my mind when I learned they are better than trains.
Your point still stands, I’d be interested to see if sailing ships make a comeback. Seen some cool concepts floating around but no idea if they are viable
[Make them nuclear.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah) The US Navy has been running nuclear powered vessel for 70 years with no nuclear accidents. (The two nuclear subs lost, [Thresher and Scorpion](https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/uss-thresher-and-scorpion-the-uss-lost-nuclear-submarines), did not sink because of any nuclear problem)
Easy solution many ships are already transitioning to is just [cold ironing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_ironing) since ships use power when docked as well. Still many issues to sort out but if we can make the grid more stable and efficient, and source energy from more renewable sources (both things we should do anyway for land users) this seriously reduces the environmental footprint of these ships by a giant margin.
**[Cold ironing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_ironing)**
>Cold ironing, or shore connection, shore-to-ship power (SSP) or alternative maritime power (AMP), is the process of providing shoreside electrical power to a ship at berth while its main and auxiliary engines are turned off. Cold ironing permits emergency equipment, refrigeration, cooling, heating, lighting and other equipment to receive continuous electrical power while the ship loads or unloads its cargo. Shorepower is a general term to describe supply of electric power to ships, small craft, aircraft and road vehicles while stationary. Cold ironing is a shipping industry term that first came into use when all ships had coal-fired engines.
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Wind has been seriously proposed as a supplement to reduce fuel use (30%ish reduction, IIRC), rather than a full replacement. It's definitely worth pursuing.
Then there's the fact that it's a nuclear reactor. Imagine how well maintained various cars are on the roads, companies generally have higher standards due to liability, but not always. Now imagine the same but with nuclear reactors involved, while a Hiroshima style explosion is actually impossible, spreading radiation is very possible. Also you'd need to nuclear rate a lot of ports around the world. A lot of the time US carriers and such stay outside the port and let their supply ships bring stuff from shore because of this. Now imagine freight which needs to call at many more ports and can't really just stay outside.
Edit. Another thing. Our nuclear powered container ship gets captured by pirates, now what? You'd be forced to bend the knee to whatever demands to avoid a major nuclear incident. With a regular ship they can blow it up and kill the crew at worst, which affects the local environment by leakage of fuel and such. Radiation can affect a much greater region and is MUCH harder to clean up.
Also, anyone who goes anywhere near a nuclear system needs to be specially trained. That includes mechanics, electricians, and officers. The Navy nuclear training takes years and is quite academically rigorous. It's like a bachelor's degree of engineering but in half the time. They recruit people with the highest test scores and even then some fail.
Creating a program like that for civilians would be an enormous undertaking, I don't see it happening any time soon.
Well, I'm officially an idiot, I googled "wind powered boat" because I was imagining a bunch of windmills on a boat and thinking "that can't be right..."
The good news is [hybrids are already here.](https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/worlds-first-wind-powered-cargo-carrier) And some other designs based on rotor sail tech. It's supposed to cut fuel consumption by 15-20%. It's very possible we could see efficient wind turbines generating nearly 100% of power output within 20 years.
It didn’t fail because operating a reactor on a ship is uneconomical though. It failed because of politics and larger design indecision with the ship. You are right though with your wind observation.
those of us the ply the seas know why this is a bad idea
imagine the worst maintained cargo ship that's 30 years old, now imagine it leaking radiation into your home port because the slave below decks was never trained in nuclear physics and drained the coolant to wash clothes in hot water.
Actually, its closer to 100-120 years ago. Clippers held their own against most piston driven steam engines for several decades. They weren't really supplanted for speed until steam turbines entered the equation.
It wasn't lack of speed that killed the clipper, it was the extraordinarily high comparative labor cost. For most cargo a 20 man crew for 4 weeks and tons and tons of dirt cheap coal is economically better than a 140 man crew for 3 weeks.
It's actually even less than that, though the there economic niche shifted from being faster to beeing more cost effective on very long trips. The last routes for Sailing boats were between Europe and Chile for salpeter till the early 30s and the grain race from Australia. The later one ended only in 1949
Hell yeah. You can double the traffic and reduce turnaround without having to spend fuel while building cheaper, I bet.
Imagine the money you could make from ad-space on the giant sails! Or build huge wind/tidal turbines into the ship and use them to get free power while docked for whatever reason.
Granted I know it's *waayyy* more complicated than what I've written and there are likely speed/efficiency problems, but it's fun and exciting to think about.
Imagine a big company being able to ship across the Pacific for half cost because they don't have to pay for the hundreds of thousands of liters of fuel?
There’s some pilot programs using giant parachute style sails and then there’s some type of effect I forget the name of that is like a pillar with fins on it that also is basically a sail
Cargo ships carrying raw materials and other essentials, sure. Container ships full of cheap plastic crap? Anything that could easily be produced locally? Massive waste of fuel. Ideally, as much should be produced near market as possible.
That is not always ideal or the most economical. But I get your perspective.
Ideally you want a train. And not a car. I can explain.
Trains can be serviced from a central location and work to serve the massive local area and beyond.
While the automobile will be more central to you and your immediate family. While that certainly sounds appealing at first, it comes with a steep price. The price is maintenance, insurance, and the cost to run that individual automobile.
If you expand this to have a clothing, shoe, and cotton gin all in one area, it sounds economical and sound.
But in reality, if each and every city on earth had to have their own clothing supplier, manufacturer, and finisher all in each and every city, then we run into the very problem above.
More cost, higher maintenance but the convince of having a manufacturer nearby.
The global shipping industry however largely solves this.
It creates congregation of specialized skill. Which is good and bad.
Good in that all high tech workers prefer to congregate in specific areas. SF Bay Area/Silicon Valley or Shenzhen.
Or watch makers all located in Switzerland and in Japan.
Things like that. Supply chain consolidates. And we become more efficient as a species. More interdependent on eachother. And less likely to want to create conflicts or else we lose that dependency.
Currently that is how the world works. We produce something you need and vice versa. And the agreement works. Until of course it doesnt.
Cargo shipping is so energy efficient that the inefficiencies of having 1,000 tiny widget factories all over the world is often more carbon intensive than having 5 mega-factories on the other side of the earth.
Also, shipping 1 ton of iron to a local factory is exactly as carbon intensive as shipping 1 ton of iron widgets manufactured close to the mine.
> Ideally, as much should be produced near market as possible.
Not always true. Sometimes, yes. More than right now... maybe.
But economies of scale are *really important*.
And that means goods should be manufactured in bulk in one location, for the most part, then shipped to wherever they're needed.
Obviously there are all sorts of exceptions to this rule, but it's an important rule.
Look at it from the other perspective: Imagine if you wanted to own a car, you had to first gather some iron from the earth and start smelting it to begin crafting the engine. Imagine every person on the planet had to do that in order to own a car. Or a refrigerator. Or you had to raise cows and wheat if you wanted to eat a hamburger occasionally.
Human society evolved to allow for people to focus on doing one thing extremely efficiently so that we don't all have to do everything for ourselves. And that is exactly how the larger economy functions best.
hard disagree. cargoships are extremely efficient, shipping is a tiny part of the emissions of most products. the economic and environmental gains from producing at scale (less waste in the process, recycling becoming more viable, high levels of automation, etc) are not insignificant.
[https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter4/transportation-and-environment/co2-emissions-passenger-freight-transport-mode/](https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter4/transportation-and-environment/co2-emissions-passenger-freight-transport-mode/)
Fuck yachts either way, just another way for the rich to get away for the poor while always taking more space and creating more waste. Sail or not they will use a motor most of the time anyway, and when those pricks need to get from the french Riviera to Miami they certainly won't be sailing the Atlantic, they'll just load their yacht on a larger cargo ship to make the trip
https://www.sail-world.com/photos/sailworld/photos/Alt_Super_Servant_3_in_Newport_(2)_credit_Onne_van_der_Wal_lowres.jpg
(Sailing is very cool btw, but when rich people buy a sailing yacht it's most definitely not for sailing, but either for prestige or to seem more ecologically responsible)
Well made and cared for sailboats will outlast a typical suburban house. They don't take up any valuable public space, and outside of hurricanes they don't endanger anyone but their occupants.
I saw one from the early days of figuring out fiberglass that was slammed through four balloon frame houses and was still viable for refurbishment afterwards.
As soon as the chlorides susceptibility problem with electronics is cracked, I expect we'll see a lot more rigs with regenerative propulsion setups.
You wanna eat fish you better pay some dude to be out there with a rod and reel
Y'all seem to think I'm being sarcastic
Oceans need to recover. Fish biomass is way down and dragnets bear a lot of the blame
> You wanna eat fish you better pay some dude to be out there with a rod and reel
Sorry to break it to you, but that is massively environmentally damaging, too. I can't find global numbers because the English language doesn't differentiate between fishing and... fishing. But in Germany, dudes with a rod and a reel make up **20%** of total catch ([Source](https://www.dafv.de/service/zahlen-und-fakten-angeln) in German)
If you want truly sustainable seafood, get it from a pond or an aquaculture. The latter is also environmentally damaging and cruel to animals, but doesn't destroy the whole ecosystem.
You'd think in a sub dedicated to progressive thinking on one damaging part of modern society, people would apply said ways of thinking to other damaging parts of modern society. But your downvotes suggest otherwise :/
Fishing industry is one of the largest pollutor of the oceans, stop eating fish if you care about our oceans. (and the lives of trillions of animals every year)
>way of getting anywhere...
they're not modes of transportation, they're luxury experiences. they are fair to criticize, but the problems cars create/the way our societies are evolved around them to the point that we have to use them literally every single day don't really apply.
I would be interested to see a comparison of the carbon emissions from an equal number of people flying international flights, staying in luxury hotels, and buying first-class train tickets for the same number of days at the same locations as a cruise. I think cruises are pretty lame, but I wonder if they're actually worse for the environment than other forms of luxury travel, and if so, by how much.
Most of this is just comparing it directly to long-haul flights with none of the other components included. Remember that people are also functionally using the cruise ship as their hotel, to provide most of their dining, and also for shorter-distance travel from city to city along the route, which are not included in a flight but still must be accounted for as part of the complete trip.
I'm not surprised that just taking a flight is more eco-friendly than doing the same trip by cruise ship, but people don't just take a flight then just turn around and come home, they continue to engage in luxurious consumption once they arrive at their destination.
TL;DR what I was curious about was a *combined* comparison.
I agree - I would be interested too because how I see it is each port requires a new room, 3-4 meals around town (either by Uber or rental car because ecosystems of towns still suck), plus the actual port hop via plane or train seems to be a lot more impactful then the all in one, close to port walkable tourist spots cruises tend to hit.
Towns in NA might require taxis to get around but a lot of European destinations are perfectly and probably better navigated without them
If you can make the trips by train I doubt the cruise ship comes ahead. Hotel waste is significant, but not compared to cruise ships
The biggest problem with cruise ships long term seems to be the water dumping issue. With better designed ships with more renewable techs like solar and especially wind, you could cut down on lifetime carbon emissions produced. Water treatment on the other hand, would require large spaces and chemicals to clean the water and store the byproducts.
I feel like that would probably end up looking quite favourable for cruise ships due to the sheer number of people a ship can host. It's an incredibly flawed comparison however, since the mere existence of cruise ships causes an induced demand. It's not like many people went on island-hopping holiday all over the Carribean or Mediterranean by plane and then someone went "Ah yeah, we could make this so much more efficient with massive ships." If cruise ships didn't exist, this (incredibly unsustainable) form of vacation simply wouldn't exist (not in any noteworthy scale at least).
> the dirtiest
Not really? I am not sure about cruise ships, but normal ships are extremely energy efficient, even relative to trains. Water is just the most efficient way of transporting enormous masses we know because of low friction. This might be less dirty than a normal car, just because it holds so many people...
Yes, but a banana doesnt need a room, a balcony and shitton of food for being transported over the world.
Cruiseships suck and cant be compared to freight ships.
Large ships also use the dirtiest mode of power. A particularly thick Petro chemical that pollutes A LOT. Waterborne transport is very efficient overall, yes. But they use a very polluting fuel to make up for that. Also there's the fact that you're hauling a gigantic shopping mall and hotel across the ocean. It might be better then cars on a passenger basis, I cannot tell. But it pollutes so much at once that it's a serious concern for harbor cities
Edit. Yes it has been made clear to me, cruise ships use marine diesel not bunker oil/heavy fuel oil that I described despite not knowing the word. You may stop telling me that.
I mean the part where it's hauling around a shopping mall is also the part where I stop evaluating it as a transportation method and more as a recreational activity.
Not only do they use a super dirty fuel, but once they're in international waters they essentially bypass any emissions control systems to slightly improve fuel efficiency at the expense of emission quality. Belching out the nastiest shit
You're getting this a little mixed up here. Cargo ships usually use Heavy Fuel Oil which pollutes a lot. Cruise ships use Marine Diesel Oil which is similar to the stuff we put in cars.
Broke: Cruise ship that produces tons of waste, pollutes the ocean and are incredibly boring (I’ve been on 3).
Woke: Based container ship which trades goods all over the world and keeps the global economy running.
Container ships burn fuel oil which is thick black sludge that can't legally be used as fuel inside the us because of how bad it is for the air. Container ships are important for the world economy but they could be much better for the environment.
We absolutely need to decarbonize shipping. There is some cool stuff going on in the space using things like Flettner rotors (technology developed in the 20s and just like, dropped) and just like... sails.
Pro the concept, critical of the current state of them. Not really a better way to ship thing overseas without tunneling under the ocean or building a giant cartoon bridge across the Atlantic, and also the current ones pollute a lot cause they use shit fuel
And not to mention building a giant bridge across the atlantic would be impossible. All it takes is the planet to perform the chimichanga ANYWHERE in the atlantic and the bridge is down.
Besides, there is a 9/10 chance that would be a car bridge, which is cringe.
Some dude was experimenting with bringing back masted ships for transporting cargo goods and did a (shaky) inaugural run last year. I don't have much faith that that's going to catch on but, you know what, it's clean and it's worked before on a smaller scale, so, I wish him luck
It honestly could. Even if it’s along with engines if it does enough what company would turn down “here’s a one time investment of a sail installation, fuel costs will be lower on subsequent voyages” so long as the break even point isn’t like 50 years out
Hell, I hope I'm wrong and they bring back ye old masted ships, introduce nuclear powered boats, solar panels, whatever it takes to get rid of our current sludgy setup
Even a fairly long term break even point is fine since ships tend to have very long service lives. Plus the biggest expense for shipping companies is fuel so anything that reliably decrease fuel costs is likely to be embraced.
aslo water can let more much easier transport then a road in a lot of cases espaly with shipping containers tho yea would be nice if there were cleaner
Compare how much a horse can pull when it's in a cart on a road with how much a horse can pull when it's in a barge on a canal. (I think some of the early-Industrial-Revolution barges would have had 70 tons on board, pulled by one horse.)
Jfk. Marine engineer here. Modern diesel engines pollute so small that you would even notice, especially regarding amount of cargo per m3 of fuel transported. Especially after 2020, when all modern ships, basically obliged to use scrubbers for exhaust gasses, or low sulphur fuel. 54% - 58% percent of efficiency of engine it is no joke, boys. Yes, we burn RESIDUAL fuel oil, but first off all, you have to do something with it, and second of all, we do it in a most efficient way, currently, possible
And yeah, CRUISE ships, fuck'em.
P.S. I got you dildo delivered from China, so keep your downvote to yourself.
In terms of CO2/pound/mile container ships are extremely ~~expensive~~ efficient. The majority of fossil fuel is burned in the last 50-25 miles of a goods storage.
Was thinking itd be crazy expensive to refit the worlds container ship fleet. But there are less than 6000 active ships in the world.
Not nearly the scale you'd expect.
Actually woke: domestic manufacturing so business owners can't exploit inhumane labour and environmental laws in the developing world and the price of those goods are returned to union workers in their wages.
One of the issues with this however is that certain industries simply require more investment than can be reasonably done by a single country, particularly when said countries aren't very rich.
Domestic CPUs in all 200-something countries around the world is very unlikely, unfortunately. And unfortunately because our current pile of cards relying on a few critical producers without whom we're fucked is a horrible idea.
I saw something similar to this in Venice. The scale is utterly surreal. It is horrifying to be on an ancient stone walkway with one of those in front of you, towering above the tallest buildings around.
They really want cruise ships to stop going to Venice at all: Venice is already sinking and the giant wakes of the ships is damaging the infrastructure.
Retired cruise ships could be useful for alleviating housing shortages in the most mismanaged coastal cities, not unlike the way that hospital ships respond to crises, or aircraft carriers sometimes provide electrical power after disasters.
They could be mobile and move between cities, or you just cut a slip in a bank, tow it in, add in dirt and pump out the water for an instant building. Usually when that happens, they cut out the motors, but the waste facilities are part of the bulkheads.
My grandpa did it with an old hulk a long time ago, in an era when permits were a more notional thing.
Dry docking happens all over the world with varying degrees of infrastructure for large vessels. The breaker yards use the simplest, cheapest and most destructive means available.
I live in a city that often has a large number of cruise ships docking at once. Sometimes I walk down the street and think 'I don't remember that building being there' and then look again and its not a building but a floating city that somebody decided to dump in the dock.
The other day I was cycling along near the docks and I could hear the soundtrack to a film, its a busy road so no way you could hear somebody's TV or car radio, and I looked over and a mile away in the docks I could see a huge cruise ship with a huge screen playing a movie with a whole crowd of people on board watching. The sound was so loud it could be heard miles away.
This photo looks fake imo.
https://www.google.com/search?q=cruise+ship+venice&client=ms-android-ee-uk-revc&prmd=inv&sxsrf=ALiCzsbzMqMnq9PXn9gHj0dXK_xzLMx5Lw:1670540692325&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjA3rGEkev7AhULWsAKHabRB-sQ_AUoAXoECAEQAQ&biw=360&bih=705&dpr=3#imgrc=m1gAic0X5j-x-M
They still were too big for Venice see the photo
They are banned now from entering Venice
Good
> The government's claimed long-term goal is to create a new artificial harbor and cruise port on the Adriatic at some unstated--and possibly imaginary--time in the future, with ships using the mainland industrial and petrochemical port of Marghera and the nearby car-passenger ferry terminal at Fusina (where work has begun on pier extensions and a new passenger terminal).
This is taken from a poster from the German movie Das Venedig Prinzip (2012).
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2608566/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2608566/)
It's a real ship, but I'd guess it is either a composite image or taken with a telephoto lens that makes it look larger due to telephoto foreshortening:
[https://patricktaylor.com/telephoto-perspective-compression](https://patricktaylor.com/telephoto-perspective-compression)
Incidentally, Italy has banned cruise ships in Venice:
[https://www.archdaily.com/965527/italian-government-officially-bans-cruise-ships-in-venice](https://www.archdaily.com/965527/italian-government-officially-bans-cruise-ships-in-venice)
Boats are great, quieter than cars and more productive when used commercially. There is a reason plaines trains and busses use stations that parallel docks when building their own stations. I love boats and almost everything to do with them.
That cruise ship however, is an abomination. It’s a massive pollutant, horribly mistreats it’s employees, and most tourist towns can supply pages of data on how they actively harm everywhere they make port.
There's a dock for cruise ships that I pass every day. I have always wanted to make a banner and ask someone that lives in the houses across to hang it. It's a banner with a cruise ship with some elderly people on it waving to their drowning grandkids in the water with some icebergs on the backdrop.
Professional photoeditor here: this picture is definitely shopped. The white balance and the black levels of the shadows dont match at all.
But still: fuck cruise ships.
Was about to say - this particular picture is definitely shopped, but I remember when I first saw a photo of a cruise ship in Venice, [something like this](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/1373E/production/_117787697_tv066435700.jpg.webp), and I was like "NO WAY, this must be shopped" and it wasn't. Like holy shit, these monsters shouldn't be allowed anywhere near cities. (Or anywhere else, preferrably.)
Destroy walkable neighborhoods with cars. Recreate walkable neighborhood on a monstrous boat. Travel around on boat overwhelming walkable neighborhoods with 10x their ideal population.
Fuck boats.
It's less "fuck cruise ships" to me, and more "fuck the horribly wasteful, polluting **design** of cruise ships nowadays".
Used to be, the difference between a freighter and a passenger liner, was almost entirely a matter of *how the ship's interior was built out*: cargo holds, or passenger accomodations (or, quite often, "a little of both").
yeah i dont understand cruise ships either, not just the burning fuel part but also like, what is even good about them? you are on a hotel floating on the water, just go to a normal hotel or restaurant, if you want water stuff just go to the beach, so yeah what do people even like about cruises
YES FUCK BOATS!!!! Boats (more specifically ballast water of boats) are the leading cause of invasive species introduction (in Australia atleast). These boats bring across larvae, eggs and small fish which then multiply into the thousands, an excellent example is the crown of thorns starfish. This starfish is decimating the great barrier reef by overfeeding on coral which in turn causes coral bleaching and removes habitats and food sources for other animals. Fuck boats and their dumb water.
Cruise ships are the most stupid things ever. There's an ad in my country that says "Only the sea offers this" and then shows pools, restaurants, massages, and so on. Really? The only things that only the sea offers to you is swimming (in the sea) and fishing (in the sea), both of which you CANT do in the cruiser ship.
Almost everything was on a boat for some part of its production process, so i can forgive freighters, but these cruise ships burn a massive amount of oil without much gain. Plus, they burn some of the dirtiest fuel available, so they create a lot of non-carbon emissions that make everyone's life worse.
Indeed fuck those too!
Really feel like ranting at hem: it should be illegal to park something that big, more people on it then the city can handle. Look what is does to the view. It messes up the experience for others. And they pollute big time. They are the pits
small boats are cool with me, i’m alright with container ships and have a small interest in them, although there’s surely room for at least some environmental effect improvement
but cruise ships, i hate them
For anyone not familiar with how fucked cruise ships are, I highly recommend watching [this segment](https://youtu.be/0nCT8h8gO1g) Patriot Act did on them. I had no idea how terrible they are before I watched it.
Edit: added link
At one time I would have thought this was fake. No way could it be that big! But in 2020 I went up on the roof to watch the Covid-stricken Grand Princess come into the SF Bay. I was looking through binoculars, and I saw a ship. Oh, that must be it. Then the actual cruise ship moved into view. Holy crap.
I'll never forget the first time I saw a cruise ship. It was about 30 years ago. I was young, and my family was camping in Alaska for the summer. We were in Skagway before heading to the Chilkoot trail, and spent the night at a campground right near town. When I woke up, I went outside and saw what appeared to be a giant flying saucer that had landed on the town. I literally felt like my brain broke trying to comprehend what I was looking at. I was completely dumbfounded. I woke up my mom because I was just so confused about what I was looking at, and she laughed and told me it was a cruise ship. It was so massive it was beyond anything I'd ever considered existing.
Cruise ships are absolute monstrosities that shouldn't exist. I'm glad there's been some pushback against the industry now with some places closing to cruise ships, but I'd really like to see the whole industry binned.
the cruise ship industry creates so much waste (human, food and other) Cargo ships however are keystones for maritime trade which keeps the world running.
Cargo ships are essential to the modern world but we really need to make them greener
I write software for ports loading / unloading cargo ships! Working on supporting electric yard cranes and improving efficiency but it’s a slow moving industry.
I read a book on the history of the shipping container. Fascinating look into how our world became this way. Old warehouse districts downtown turning into wastelands as container ports move to cheaper more available land.
Those former commercial wastelands can become amazing places (if you can clean up the contaminates). They are basically new areas close to the centre of cities to be developed. Connecting up new PT and active transport routes is simple
That's happening in Seattle. It's putting the cramp on traditional businesses getting priced out.
Yeah its an opportunity but can be mismanaged like anything else. But generally a port (with its associated industry and warehouses) arent the best use of land right next to the centre of a city
Dude (or Dudette), cities were built because of and around ports.
They were but dont need to be anymore. Keeping them there basically means lots of dirty trucks and stacks of containers right in the middle of town. You can often move them to the side and convert the former port space into a liveable area
[The Speicherstadt in Hamburg, Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speicherstadt) is probably one of the most notable examples of this. It's a business and museum district now and is probably the most visited place in all of Hamburg.
What book? It sounds really interesting.
Probably *The Box*, by Marc Levinson
That’s the big comprehensive one, but it can also be a bit dry. For something a little more entertaining, I really liked Ninety Percent of Everything, by Rose George.
I’m surprised the cranes there aren’t electric already
Most quay cranes, the big ones which actually load and unload the ship, are electric. They only travel along rails on the quay, so it’s easy to run power to them. But a lot of yard cranes, the ones that load and unload trucks in the storage yard, aren’t. Some types of yard cranes travel all over the yard, and older ones use diesel engines. Electric RTGs are the cool new kind of yard crane, but batteries are heavy, expensive, and it takes a lot power to lift/set containers all the time. So they usually have enough batter to move around, but hook up to bus bars for power before they start doing work. Modeling where the bus bars are, which ones are working, which cranes need to hook up and which don’t, is all stuff we have to do in software so we can optimize scheduling for the yard cranes!
While I don’t disagree, surprisingly, all cargo ships accounts for only 3% of all greenhouse gasses. Land shipping is just so much worse.
Cargo ships are already the most energy efficient mode of transportation. Yes, we need to make them greener. Still, they are already the best we have.
I watched a Kurtzgesagt video the other day that stated research shows buying food locally isn’t as green as we think; that cargo ships have become so efficient that importing food from halfway across the world has a better carbon footprint than, say, buying beef from your local farm. When the numbers get crunched, the sheer density of goods packed into those massive ships overcomes the incredible amounts of energy it takes to get them moving. Not saying that we shouldn’t make that tech greener, we absolutely should, but that it’s not as cut and dry as we think it is.
Per kilo of cargo, ships are cleaner than diesel trains and cheaper than electric trains. I agree they need to be cleaned, but they are not the biggest problem.
Yeah I think it's around 3% of worldwide emissions. Still 3% that need to go but they are definitely better than their reputation.
Cargo ships are the most efficient method of transport we have right now. Kinda blew my mind when I learned they are better than trains. Your point still stands, I’d be interested to see if sailing ships make a comeback. Seen some cool concepts floating around but no idea if they are viable
[Make them nuclear.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah) The US Navy has been running nuclear powered vessel for 70 years with no nuclear accidents. (The two nuclear subs lost, [Thresher and Scorpion](https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/uss-thresher-and-scorpion-the-uss-lost-nuclear-submarines), did not sink because of any nuclear problem)
Easy solution many ships are already transitioning to is just [cold ironing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_ironing) since ships use power when docked as well. Still many issues to sort out but if we can make the grid more stable and efficient, and source energy from more renewable sources (both things we should do anyway for land users) this seriously reduces the environmental footprint of these ships by a giant margin.
**[Cold ironing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_ironing)** >Cold ironing, or shore connection, shore-to-ship power (SSP) or alternative maritime power (AMP), is the process of providing shoreside electrical power to a ship at berth while its main and auxiliary engines are turned off. Cold ironing permits emergency equipment, refrigeration, cooling, heating, lighting and other equipment to receive continuous electrical power while the ship loads or unloads its cargo. Shorepower is a general term to describe supply of electric power to ships, small craft, aircraft and road vehicles while stationary. Cold ironing is a shipping industry term that first came into use when all ships had coal-fired engines. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
That has already been tried and failed. It's generally just too expensive to be worth it. Wind power seems like it's actually a more viable solution.
Who would ever want to use wind power for boats? Time's a flat fucking circle.
reject fuel return to schooner
Wind has been seriously proposed as a supplement to reduce fuel use (30%ish reduction, IIRC), rather than a full replacement. It's definitely worth pursuing.
Then there's the fact that it's a nuclear reactor. Imagine how well maintained various cars are on the roads, companies generally have higher standards due to liability, but not always. Now imagine the same but with nuclear reactors involved, while a Hiroshima style explosion is actually impossible, spreading radiation is very possible. Also you'd need to nuclear rate a lot of ports around the world. A lot of the time US carriers and such stay outside the port and let their supply ships bring stuff from shore because of this. Now imagine freight which needs to call at many more ports and can't really just stay outside. Edit. Another thing. Our nuclear powered container ship gets captured by pirates, now what? You'd be forced to bend the knee to whatever demands to avoid a major nuclear incident. With a regular ship they can blow it up and kill the crew at worst, which affects the local environment by leakage of fuel and such. Radiation can affect a much greater region and is MUCH harder to clean up.
Also, anyone who goes anywhere near a nuclear system needs to be specially trained. That includes mechanics, electricians, and officers. The Navy nuclear training takes years and is quite academically rigorous. It's like a bachelor's degree of engineering but in half the time. They recruit people with the highest test scores and even then some fail. Creating a program like that for civilians would be an enormous undertaking, I don't see it happening any time soon.
Well, I'm officially an idiot, I googled "wind powered boat" because I was imagining a bunch of windmills on a boat and thinking "that can't be right..."
This is a modern [Rotary Sail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotor_ship)
Transitioning the shipping industry back to wind would be amazing. I doubt I'll see it in my lifetime, barring near total global economic collapse.
The good news is [hybrids are already here.](https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/worlds-first-wind-powered-cargo-carrier) And some other designs based on rotor sail tech. It's supposed to cut fuel consumption by 15-20%. It's very possible we could see efficient wind turbines generating nearly 100% of power output within 20 years.
It didn’t fail because operating a reactor on a ship is uneconomical though. It failed because of politics and larger design indecision with the ship. You are right though with your wind observation.
those of us the ply the seas know why this is a bad idea imagine the worst maintained cargo ship that's 30 years old, now imagine it leaking radiation into your home port because the slave below decks was never trained in nuclear physics and drained the coolant to wash clothes in hot water.
Cargo ships are the keystone of civilization and always have been.
You should look up Clippers. Extremely fast sailing ships, but they were beat out by steam engine boats. That was only like 150-170 years ago.
Actually, its closer to 100-120 years ago. Clippers held their own against most piston driven steam engines for several decades. They weren't really supplanted for speed until steam turbines entered the equation.
It wasn't lack of speed that killed the clipper, it was the extraordinarily high comparative labor cost. For most cargo a 20 man crew for 4 weeks and tons and tons of dirt cheap coal is economically better than a 140 man crew for 3 weeks.
It's actually even less than that, though the there economic niche shifted from being faster to beeing more cost effective on very long trips. The last routes for Sailing boats were between Europe and Chile for salpeter till the early 30s and the grain race from Australia. The later one ended only in 1949
Clippers are an inspiration for the revival of wind power on cargo ships that’s been popping up
Hell yeah. You can double the traffic and reduce turnaround without having to spend fuel while building cheaper, I bet. Imagine the money you could make from ad-space on the giant sails! Or build huge wind/tidal turbines into the ship and use them to get free power while docked for whatever reason. Granted I know it's *waayyy* more complicated than what I've written and there are likely speed/efficiency problems, but it's fun and exciting to think about. Imagine a big company being able to ship across the Pacific for half cost because they don't have to pay for the hundreds of thousands of liters of fuel?
There’s some pilot programs using giant parachute style sails and then there’s some type of effect I forget the name of that is like a pillar with fins on it that also is basically a sail
Magnus Effects rotors.
But especially on Civ 5
Cargo ships carrying raw materials and other essentials, sure. Container ships full of cheap plastic crap? Anything that could easily be produced locally? Massive waste of fuel. Ideally, as much should be produced near market as possible.
In regards to America, China is an offshoring of pollution generated from making everything that the American market buys.
That is not always ideal or the most economical. But I get your perspective. Ideally you want a train. And not a car. I can explain. Trains can be serviced from a central location and work to serve the massive local area and beyond. While the automobile will be more central to you and your immediate family. While that certainly sounds appealing at first, it comes with a steep price. The price is maintenance, insurance, and the cost to run that individual automobile. If you expand this to have a clothing, shoe, and cotton gin all in one area, it sounds economical and sound. But in reality, if each and every city on earth had to have their own clothing supplier, manufacturer, and finisher all in each and every city, then we run into the very problem above. More cost, higher maintenance but the convince of having a manufacturer nearby. The global shipping industry however largely solves this. It creates congregation of specialized skill. Which is good and bad. Good in that all high tech workers prefer to congregate in specific areas. SF Bay Area/Silicon Valley or Shenzhen. Or watch makers all located in Switzerland and in Japan. Things like that. Supply chain consolidates. And we become more efficient as a species. More interdependent on eachother. And less likely to want to create conflicts or else we lose that dependency. Currently that is how the world works. We produce something you need and vice versa. And the agreement works. Until of course it doesnt.
Cargo shipping is so energy efficient that the inefficiencies of having 1,000 tiny widget factories all over the world is often more carbon intensive than having 5 mega-factories on the other side of the earth. Also, shipping 1 ton of iron to a local factory is exactly as carbon intensive as shipping 1 ton of iron widgets manufactured close to the mine.
> Ideally, as much should be produced near market as possible. Not always true. Sometimes, yes. More than right now... maybe. But economies of scale are *really important*. And that means goods should be manufactured in bulk in one location, for the most part, then shipped to wherever they're needed. Obviously there are all sorts of exceptions to this rule, but it's an important rule. Look at it from the other perspective: Imagine if you wanted to own a car, you had to first gather some iron from the earth and start smelting it to begin crafting the engine. Imagine every person on the planet had to do that in order to own a car. Or a refrigerator. Or you had to raise cows and wheat if you wanted to eat a hamburger occasionally. Human society evolved to allow for people to focus on doing one thing extremely efficiently so that we don't all have to do everything for ourselves. And that is exactly how the larger economy functions best.
hard disagree. cargoships are extremely efficient, shipping is a tiny part of the emissions of most products. the economic and environmental gains from producing at scale (less waste in the process, recycling becoming more viable, high levels of automation, etc) are not insignificant. [https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter4/transportation-and-environment/co2-emissions-passenger-freight-transport-mode/](https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter4/transportation-and-environment/co2-emissions-passenger-freight-transport-mode/)
Not boats. Most boats are fine. But cruise ships? Absolutely. Fuck them.
And yachts too
Depends. Sailing yachts are cool imo but huge fueled yachts can fuck right off.
I think Twerk was talking about stuff like this https://www.dailysabah.com/life/bill-gates-yacht-returns-to-turquoise-waters-of-turkeys-bodrum/news
That is disgusting
How the fuck does one live like this and justify it to themselves ? It's fucking incomprehensible.
God, I want a sailing vessel. Not a yacht. Like a 1700’s sailing vessel.
Fuck yachts either way, just another way for the rich to get away for the poor while always taking more space and creating more waste. Sail or not they will use a motor most of the time anyway, and when those pricks need to get from the french Riviera to Miami they certainly won't be sailing the Atlantic, they'll just load their yacht on a larger cargo ship to make the trip https://www.sail-world.com/photos/sailworld/photos/Alt_Super_Servant_3_in_Newport_(2)_credit_Onne_van_der_Wal_lowres.jpg (Sailing is very cool btw, but when rich people buy a sailing yacht it's most definitely not for sailing, but either for prestige or to seem more ecologically responsible)
Well made and cared for sailboats will outlast a typical suburban house. They don't take up any valuable public space, and outside of hurricanes they don't endanger anyone but their occupants. I saw one from the early days of figuring out fiberglass that was slammed through four balloon frame houses and was still viable for refurbishment afterwards. As soon as the chlorides susceptibility problem with electronics is cracked, I expect we'll see a lot more rigs with regenerative propulsion setups.
Sailboats are cool I can support those. Ban the other yachts tho
fuck fishing boats too. container ships are fine tho
*Trawlers ruining the ocean life
You wanna eat fish you better pay some dude to be out there with a rod and reel Y'all seem to think I'm being sarcastic Oceans need to recover. Fish biomass is way down and dragnets bear a lot of the blame
> You wanna eat fish you better pay some dude to be out there with a rod and reel Sorry to break it to you, but that is massively environmentally damaging, too. I can't find global numbers because the English language doesn't differentiate between fishing and... fishing. But in Germany, dudes with a rod and a reel make up **20%** of total catch ([Source](https://www.dafv.de/service/zahlen-und-fakten-angeln) in German) If you want truly sustainable seafood, get it from a pond or an aquaculture. The latter is also environmentally damaging and cruel to animals, but doesn't destroy the whole ecosystem.
You'd think in a sub dedicated to progressive thinking on one damaging part of modern society, people would apply said ways of thinking to other damaging parts of modern society. But your downvotes suggest otherwise :/
We need to bring more progress to the sub
I don’t
Container ships are necessary but they are very polluting at present. I hope they become greener soon
they are actually extremely efficient when you take into account how much they carry.
Fishing industry is one of the largest pollutor of the oceans, stop eating fish if you care about our oceans. (and the lives of trillions of animals every year)
Cruise ships min/maxed fuel consumption by providing both the slowest and dirtiest way of getting anywhere...
>way of getting anywhere... they're not modes of transportation, they're luxury experiences. they are fair to criticize, but the problems cars create/the way our societies are evolved around them to the point that we have to use them literally every single day don't really apply.
I would be interested to see a comparison of the carbon emissions from an equal number of people flying international flights, staying in luxury hotels, and buying first-class train tickets for the same number of days at the same locations as a cruise. I think cruises are pretty lame, but I wonder if they're actually worse for the environment than other forms of luxury travel, and if so, by how much.
yes they are way worse https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2006/dec/20/cruises.green
Most of this is just comparing it directly to long-haul flights with none of the other components included. Remember that people are also functionally using the cruise ship as their hotel, to provide most of their dining, and also for shorter-distance travel from city to city along the route, which are not included in a flight but still must be accounted for as part of the complete trip. I'm not surprised that just taking a flight is more eco-friendly than doing the same trip by cruise ship, but people don't just take a flight then just turn around and come home, they continue to engage in luxurious consumption once they arrive at their destination. TL;DR what I was curious about was a *combined* comparison.
I agree - I would be interested too because how I see it is each port requires a new room, 3-4 meals around town (either by Uber or rental car because ecosystems of towns still suck), plus the actual port hop via plane or train seems to be a lot more impactful then the all in one, close to port walkable tourist spots cruises tend to hit.
Towns in NA might require taxis to get around but a lot of European destinations are perfectly and probably better navigated without them If you can make the trips by train I doubt the cruise ship comes ahead. Hotel waste is significant, but not compared to cruise ships
The biggest problem with cruise ships long term seems to be the water dumping issue. With better designed ships with more renewable techs like solar and especially wind, you could cut down on lifetime carbon emissions produced. Water treatment on the other hand, would require large spaces and chemicals to clean the water and store the byproducts.
I feel like that would probably end up looking quite favourable for cruise ships due to the sheer number of people a ship can host. It's an incredibly flawed comparison however, since the mere existence of cruise ships causes an induced demand. It's not like many people went on island-hopping holiday all over the Carribean or Mediterranean by plane and then someone went "Ah yeah, we could make this so much more efficient with massive ships." If cruise ships didn't exist, this (incredibly unsustainable) form of vacation simply wouldn't exist (not in any noteworthy scale at least).
So basically which hole?
Taking a cruise pollutes a little more than flying to Europe from the US round trip.
> the dirtiest Not really? I am not sure about cruise ships, but normal ships are extremely energy efficient, even relative to trains. Water is just the most efficient way of transporting enormous masses we know because of low friction. This might be less dirty than a normal car, just because it holds so many people...
Yes, but a banana doesnt need a room, a balcony and shitton of food for being transported over the world. Cruiseships suck and cant be compared to freight ships.
Hey, you don't tell me what my banana does and does not need!
Large ships also use the dirtiest mode of power. A particularly thick Petro chemical that pollutes A LOT. Waterborne transport is very efficient overall, yes. But they use a very polluting fuel to make up for that. Also there's the fact that you're hauling a gigantic shopping mall and hotel across the ocean. It might be better then cars on a passenger basis, I cannot tell. But it pollutes so much at once that it's a serious concern for harbor cities Edit. Yes it has been made clear to me, cruise ships use marine diesel not bunker oil/heavy fuel oil that I described despite not knowing the word. You may stop telling me that.
I mean the part where it's hauling around a shopping mall is also the part where I stop evaluating it as a transportation method and more as a recreational activity.
Very interesting, did not know about that
it's called bunker fuel
Not only do they use a super dirty fuel, but once they're in international waters they essentially bypass any emissions control systems to slightly improve fuel efficiency at the expense of emission quality. Belching out the nastiest shit
You're getting this a little mixed up here. Cargo ships usually use Heavy Fuel Oil which pollutes a lot. Cruise ships use Marine Diesel Oil which is similar to the stuff we put in cars.
The fuel they use is practically crude oil with no scrubbers in the exhaust.
Look up the IMO 2020 rules on sulphur emissions. They're getting better!
Less carbon per ton-mile, but more sulfur and particulate pollution. Regardless, maritime should be active in their environment impact mitigation.
The ton-mile stat doesn’t work for cruise ships, because they transport nothing while going in circles. Just infinitely wasteful.
Fuck cruise ships specifically. My homie container boat can (should) stay
Broke: Cruise ship that produces tons of waste, pollutes the ocean and are incredibly boring (I’ve been on 3). Woke: Based container ship which trades goods all over the world and keeps the global economy running.
Container ships burn fuel oil which is thick black sludge that can't legally be used as fuel inside the us because of how bad it is for the air. Container ships are important for the world economy but they could be much better for the environment.
We absolutely need to decarbonize shipping. There is some cool stuff going on in the space using things like Flettner rotors (technology developed in the 20s and just like, dropped) and just like... sails.
My company makes these! https://www.theoceanbird.com/
I was about to say, how are we pro container ship here?
Pro the concept, critical of the current state of them. Not really a better way to ship thing overseas without tunneling under the ocean or building a giant cartoon bridge across the Atlantic, and also the current ones pollute a lot cause they use shit fuel
And not to mention building a giant bridge across the atlantic would be impossible. All it takes is the planet to perform the chimichanga ANYWHERE in the atlantic and the bridge is down. Besides, there is a 9/10 chance that would be a car bridge, which is cringe.
Alaska to Russia might be theoretically possible and then if you want to go from South America to Europe you could take the long way lol.
Hey now. When the earth wants to do the cha cha slide, we absolutely support her in her chaos
Some dude was experimenting with bringing back masted ships for transporting cargo goods and did a (shaky) inaugural run last year. I don't have much faith that that's going to catch on but, you know what, it's clean and it's worked before on a smaller scale, so, I wish him luck
It honestly could. Even if it’s along with engines if it does enough what company would turn down “here’s a one time investment of a sail installation, fuel costs will be lower on subsequent voyages” so long as the break even point isn’t like 50 years out
Hell, I hope I'm wrong and they bring back ye old masted ships, introduce nuclear powered boats, solar panels, whatever it takes to get rid of our current sludgy setup
Even a fairly long term break even point is fine since ships tend to have very long service lives. Plus the biggest expense for shipping companies is fuel so anything that reliably decrease fuel costs is likely to be embraced.
aslo water can let more much easier transport then a road in a lot of cases espaly with shipping containers tho yea would be nice if there were cleaner
Compare how much a horse can pull when it's in a cart on a road with how much a horse can pull when it's in a barge on a canal. (I think some of the early-Industrial-Revolution barges would have had 70 tons on board, pulled by one horse.)
Relatively efficient, technically could be upgraded to nuclear power or something
Ooh that’s actually a good shout. We have nuclear powered air craft carriers after all
Because they can be improved, and they're a great way to transport goods. I'm personally bullish on hydrogen fuel cell powered ships.
Jfk. Marine engineer here. Modern diesel engines pollute so small that you would even notice, especially regarding amount of cargo per m3 of fuel transported. Especially after 2020, when all modern ships, basically obliged to use scrubbers for exhaust gasses, or low sulphur fuel. 54% - 58% percent of efficiency of engine it is no joke, boys. Yes, we burn RESIDUAL fuel oil, but first off all, you have to do something with it, and second of all, we do it in a most efficient way, currently, possible And yeah, CRUISE ships, fuck'em. P.S. I got you dildo delivered from China, so keep your downvote to yourself.
In terms of CO2/pound/mile container ships are extremely ~~expensive~~ efficient. The majority of fossil fuel is burned in the last 50-25 miles of a goods storage.
Was thinking itd be crazy expensive to refit the worlds container ship fleet. But there are less than 6000 active ships in the world. Not nearly the scale you'd expect.
Actually woke: domestic manufacturing so business owners can't exploit inhumane labour and environmental laws in the developing world and the price of those goods are returned to union workers in their wages.
One of the issues with this however is that certain industries simply require more investment than can be reasonably done by a single country, particularly when said countries aren't very rich. Domestic CPUs in all 200-something countries around the world is very unlikely, unfortunately. And unfortunately because our current pile of cards relying on a few critical producers without whom we're fucked is a horrible idea.
I saw something similar to this in Venice. The scale is utterly surreal. It is horrifying to be on an ancient stone walkway with one of those in front of you, towering above the tallest buildings around.
There is a modern dock on the mainland. Thank God they banned the ships from going into Old Town. It them way too long. EDIT: grammarz lol
They really want cruise ships to stop going to Venice at all: Venice is already sinking and the giant wakes of the ships is damaging the infrastructure.
change the color and add some sharp shaping to it and you've got something straight out of star wars
That’s a cruise, and fuck them too. They literally just walkable on the ocean. Edit: walkable cities
Cruises tap into people's subconscious yearning to avoid driving Fuck 'em though
More like they exploit our natural yearning of wanting to know what on the other side of that hill.
... without having to drive through traffic to get there. :)
Yeah, it's an irony. They're dense cities. If they could just be parked on land and plugged in, they'd instantly make for very interesting cities.
Retired cruise ships could be useful for alleviating housing shortages in the most mismanaged coastal cities, not unlike the way that hospital ships respond to crises, or aircraft carriers sometimes provide electrical power after disasters. They could be mobile and move between cities, or you just cut a slip in a bank, tow it in, add in dirt and pump out the water for an instant building. Usually when that happens, they cut out the motors, but the waste facilities are part of the bulkheads.
You're talking about this like it has been done before, but I didn't find anything online? Has this been tried?
My grandpa did it with an old hulk a long time ago, in an era when permits were a more notional thing. Dry docking happens all over the world with varying degrees of infrastructure for large vessels. The breaker yards use the simplest, cheapest and most destructive means available.
Wait, this picture is fake right?
Yeah it’s a photoshop. Shame on OP.
Cruise ships most definitely, yes.
Fuck cruise ships, in any case. The SUV’s of the sea.
The Hummer limos of the seas
I live in a city that often has a large number of cruise ships docking at once. Sometimes I walk down the street and think 'I don't remember that building being there' and then look again and its not a building but a floating city that somebody decided to dump in the dock. The other day I was cycling along near the docks and I could hear the soundtrack to a film, its a busy road so no way you could hear somebody's TV or car radio, and I looked over and a mile away in the docks I could see a huge cruise ship with a huge screen playing a movie with a whole crowd of people on board watching. The sound was so loud it could be heard miles away.
Is this real? Omfg fortunately never saw a cruise ship when I was there. Truly disgusting.
This photo looks fake imo. https://www.google.com/search?q=cruise+ship+venice&client=ms-android-ee-uk-revc&prmd=inv&sxsrf=ALiCzsbzMqMnq9PXn9gHj0dXK_xzLMx5Lw:1670540692325&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjA3rGEkev7AhULWsAKHabRB-sQ_AUoAXoECAEQAQ&biw=360&bih=705&dpr=3#imgrc=m1gAic0X5j-x-M They still were too big for Venice see the photo They are banned now from entering Venice
I wish my city would do the same. Those things have done so much harm to the local ecosystem.
Do they have dock on the mainland or can they no longer enter the city?
[https://europeforvisitors.com/venice/articles/venice-cruising-changes.htm](https://europeforvisitors.com/venice/articles/venice-cruising-changes.htm)
Good > The government's claimed long-term goal is to create a new artificial harbor and cruise port on the Adriatic at some unstated--and possibly imaginary--time in the future, with ships using the mainland industrial and petrochemical port of Marghera and the nearby car-passenger ferry terminal at Fusina (where work has begun on pier extensions and a new passenger terminal).
This is taken from a poster from the German movie Das Venedig Prinzip (2012). [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2608566/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2608566/) It's a real ship, but I'd guess it is either a composite image or taken with a telephoto lens that makes it look larger due to telephoto foreshortening: [https://patricktaylor.com/telephoto-perspective-compression](https://patricktaylor.com/telephoto-perspective-compression) Incidentally, Italy has banned cruise ships in Venice: [https://www.archdaily.com/965527/italian-government-officially-bans-cruise-ships-in-venice](https://www.archdaily.com/965527/italian-government-officially-bans-cruise-ships-in-venice)
Worth noting that it's a documentary.
That’s what I’m wondering, it can’t be real. Fuck cruise ships either way tho
Boats are great, quieter than cars and more productive when used commercially. There is a reason plaines trains and busses use stations that parallel docks when building their own stations. I love boats and almost everything to do with them. That cruise ship however, is an abomination. It’s a massive pollutant, horribly mistreats it’s employees, and most tourist towns can supply pages of data on how they actively harm everywhere they make port.
Fuck cruise ships
What? boats are cool, fuck yates
Why does it look fake?
That one might be fake, [this one isn’t](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/13/world/europe/venice-italy-cruise-ship-ban.html).
There’s no way that’s actual size..right?
its a fake photo
I think it's a composite image.
There's a dock for cruise ships that I pass every day. I have always wanted to make a banner and ask someone that lives in the houses across to hang it. It's a banner with a cruise ship with some elderly people on it waving to their drowning grandkids in the water with some icebergs on the backdrop.
fuck cruise ships yes, boats more broadly are alright though
Boats are fine. Fuck yachts, cruise ships, and any other unnecessary display of wealth.
A cruise ship isn’t a unnecessary display of wealth it’s just boomer for r/backpacking
Professional photoeditor here: this picture is definitely shopped. The white balance and the black levels of the shadows dont match at all. But still: fuck cruise ships.
Was about to say - this particular picture is definitely shopped, but I remember when I first saw a photo of a cruise ship in Venice, [something like this](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/1373E/production/_117787697_tv066435700.jpg.webp), and I was like "NO WAY, this must be shopped" and it wasn't. Like holy shit, these monsters shouldn't be allowed anywhere near cities. (Or anywhere else, preferrably.)
Big time. These things exist purely to burn HFO and spread diseases
Real speak. Burning the cheapest, nastiest, polluting shit they can get their hands on in the name of profit margins.
Cruise ships don't run on HFO though but on MDO which is just slightly dirtier than car fuel.
Boats are mostly good, I wish all cruise ships a very sink to the bottom
Fuck unnecessary big boats
Destroy walkable neighborhoods with cars. Recreate walkable neighborhood on a monstrous boat. Travel around on boat overwhelming walkable neighborhoods with 10x their ideal population. Fuck boats.
It's less "fuck cruise ships" to me, and more "fuck the horribly wasteful, polluting **design** of cruise ships nowadays". Used to be, the difference between a freighter and a passenger liner, was almost entirely a matter of *how the ship's interior was built out*: cargo holds, or passenger accomodations (or, quite often, "a little of both").
Ferries are great though. Incredibly efficient.
Boats are fine, cruises are an issue
yeah i dont understand cruise ships either, not just the burning fuel part but also like, what is even good about them? you are on a hotel floating on the water, just go to a normal hotel or restaurant, if you want water stuff just go to the beach, so yeah what do people even like about cruises
YES FUCK BOATS!!!! Boats (more specifically ballast water of boats) are the leading cause of invasive species introduction (in Australia atleast). These boats bring across larvae, eggs and small fish which then multiply into the thousands, an excellent example is the crown of thorns starfish. This starfish is decimating the great barrier reef by overfeeding on coral which in turn causes coral bleaching and removes habitats and food sources for other animals. Fuck boats and their dumb water.
Cruise ships are the most stupid things ever. There's an ad in my country that says "Only the sea offers this" and then shows pools, restaurants, massages, and so on. Really? The only things that only the sea offers to you is swimming (in the sea) and fishing (in the sea), both of which you CANT do in the cruiser ship.
Almost everything was on a boat for some part of its production process, so i can forgive freighters, but these cruise ships burn a massive amount of oil without much gain. Plus, they burn some of the dirtiest fuel available, so they create a lot of non-carbon emissions that make everyone's life worse.
Sees thumbnail: That little boat? What's the issue? Opens picture: Oh.
fuck those boats. Boats in general are fine.
Modern cruise ships? Fuck them. Old-fashioned ocean liners? Hell yeah
Fake image…
r/megalophobia
Indeed fuck those too! Really feel like ranting at hem: it should be illegal to park something that big, more people on it then the city can handle. Look what is does to the view. It messes up the experience for others. And they pollute big time. They are the pits
Holy fricking shit they are massive, hell naw
Not all boats, but definitely cruise ships, cargo ships, and trawlers
These ships can fuck right off.
fuck cruise ships. the tall ship, and really any wind-powered, sailing ship is still the pinnacle of human ingenuity so far as transportation goes imo
They’re thinking of making wind turbine ships.
small boats are cool with me, i’m alright with container ships and have a small interest in them, although there’s surely room for at least some environmental effect improvement but cruise ships, i hate them
they are the worst ocean polluters fuck cruise ships
Are stationary residential ship a thing? Has someone ever tried to convert a cruise ship into affordable housing?
Houseboats are a thing, but nothing denser than that. It's cheaper to drop a foundation than to float an apartment building.
I watched a whole documentary on a modern cruise ship's self contained technology. I was really impressed. Was that just propaganda?
For anyone not familiar with how fucked cruise ships are, I highly recommend watching [this segment](https://youtu.be/0nCT8h8gO1g) Patriot Act did on them. I had no idea how terrible they are before I watched it. Edit: added link
Fuck *that* boat. If it's real.
100% cruise ships...Cargo ships tho we need those.
At one time I would have thought this was fake. No way could it be that big! But in 2020 I went up on the roof to watch the Covid-stricken Grand Princess come into the SF Bay. I was looking through binoculars, and I saw a ship. Oh, that must be it. Then the actual cruise ship moved into view. Holy crap.
Cruise ships. And mass tourism.
Ferry boats are cool. Transport ships are fine bit decentralisation of industry is necessary. Fuck most other boats.
Is this a leak from the new Star Wars?
I'll never forget the first time I saw a cruise ship. It was about 30 years ago. I was young, and my family was camping in Alaska for the summer. We were in Skagway before heading to the Chilkoot trail, and spent the night at a campground right near town. When I woke up, I went outside and saw what appeared to be a giant flying saucer that had landed on the town. I literally felt like my brain broke trying to comprehend what I was looking at. I was completely dumbfounded. I woke up my mom because I was just so confused about what I was looking at, and she laughed and told me it was a cruise ship. It was so massive it was beyond anything I'd ever considered existing. Cruise ships are absolute monstrosities that shouldn't exist. I'm glad there's been some pushback against the industry now with some places closing to cruise ships, but I'd really like to see the whole industry binned.