‘Green’ Scottish Ferry Emits Far More CO2 Than Old Diesel Ship
The CO2 emissions of a long-delayed and over-budget ‘green’ Scottish ferry will be far larger than that of the 31 year-old diesel ship it is set to replace. BBC News has more.
An emissions analysis by CalMac has calculated MV Glen Sannox will emit 10,391 equivalent tonnes of CO2 a year compared with 7,732 for MV Caledonian Isles.
The dual-fuel ferry has more car capacity but requires larger engines which also emit methane, a greenhouse gas with a far greater global warming effect than CO2.
Ferries procurement agency CMAL, which owns the ship, said the comparison was “inaccurate” as Glen Sannox is a larger vessel.
The size of Glen Sannox is a factor in its carbon footprint, but so too is the liquified natural gas (LNG) fuel which is less climate-friendly than previously claimed.
One expert on transport emissions told BBC News that if the “upstream” carbon cost of importing LNG from Qatar is included in the emissions calculation, it might be better to run the new ship on diesel.
Prof Tristan Smith, from University College London’s Energy Institute, said: “In a best case scenario there’s a negligible benefit of using LNG, and at worst there would be a deterioration.”
Glen Sannox is the first ferry ever built in the U.K. capable of running on both LNG and marine gas oil (MGO), a low-sulphur type of diesel.
At its launch in 2017, then First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said it would contribute to “Scotland’s world-leading climate change goals”.
But the LNG technology also added complexity. The Ferguson shipyard had to overcome many engineering and regulatory challenges before the ship was delivered last month, years late and over budget.
The size of the ship also means it cannot berth at the usual mainland harbour at Ardrossan until a major redevelopment takes place.
Once again the benefits of a ‘green’ technology are hugely oversold. When will they learn that they’ve immersed themselves in a delusion?
Worth reading in full.
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Ah they should have made it electric instead – with a battery the size of a small building. What could go wrong?
Better: two boats, one to carry the cars, the other to carry the battery.
The boat with a battery could TOW the other boat. Even less to go wrong. Or make it a bendy boat, as the bendy buses were such a success.
Make sure they only carry one EV at a time. Those EV fires are a bugger to put out.
I think just one battery car on fire would be enough to burn the ferry out.
The article repeats the claim that methane is “a greenhouse gas with a global warming potential (GWP) 28 times more potent than CO2″. Methane absorbs IR in two narrow bands around 3 microns and 7.7 microns. Water vapour absorbs at 3 microns, so all the energy in that band is already being captured before it can fly out into space. No more than 3% of the IR energy is in the 7.7 micron band…and CO2 is credited with absorbing 8% of the energy being radiated up towards space.
I see you’re trying to use logic and a rational argument. But these are sacred numbers; methane really is 28 times as bad (as the bad CO2). This becomes important when we need to add artificial chemicals to the feed of factory cattle, which already have an artificial diet.
CO2 does not absorb any IR energy, it attenuates it by instantaneously emitting a photon of energy of exactly the same magnitude and wavelength of the incident photon but in any direction through 360° thereby diverting it, delaying its travel into space, and increasing the possibility it will strike a water molecule.
But only at specific wavelength I think.
That is actually irrelevant to the discussion. The emission wavelength will always exactly match the absorption wavelength. Why is this? The molecule must overall be in an equilibrium energy condition. Thermodynamics again!
Duh! Am I missing something here? I was always under the impression that diverting something by 360° ends up with it going in exactly the same direction as original!
Ah – silly me! That’s Net Zero, of course, so all’s well after all, a cunning plan, perhaps?
That is the only way it can go, towards cooler space. The second law of thermodynamics! The rest is a lye. Good comment.
And the whole discussion is contrary to the second law of thermodynamics anyway! Unless the atmosphere where this absorption takes place is warmer than the surface, zero energy will be radiated down. Never mind it was a clever lie to suggest that it could!
Well, obviously the net zero mob will seize on this to say that no form of motorised transport is good for the environment, and it all needs to be done away with. If we’re all restricted to areas a 15-minute walk or cycle ride from our homes, then that will be better for the planet, they’ll say.
Horses produce methane too! Will they be banned?
Did they take into account the co2 required to build the ship? Make the steel, and plastic and furnishings, as opposed to maintaining the old ship. Further they would need to factor in the disassembly and scraping of the old vessel. Then there’s all the concrete and steel required to build the new harbour. As we have purposely destroyed our native steel industry, one can only assume this steel and that in the new ship was made using cheap, clean coal generation. The only way now to overcome this delusion is to over zealot the zealots, that’s the only way religions are quickly broken.
Since the Horse Hill oil drilling planning permission was suspended due to not taking into consideration the emissions due to using the oil it might produce. It seems reasonable to apply similar tests to whatever the ferry would be used for. Travelling? Banned. Transporting farm products? Banned.
Should have made the ferry oar powered.
Import a few Vikings then, or perhaps slaves? That would be a fun discussion!
“…methane, a greenhouse gas with a far greater global warming effect than CO2.”
It has: but with an atmospheric concentration of a million times less, and non-accumulative as it quickly breaks down in the presence of water vapour, its actual effect is approaching zero.
The BBC modus operandi – lying by telling the truth but not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Co2 only intercepts two tiny portions of the IR spectrum. Methane intercepts far more, however the entirety and more of its absorbtion spectra are covered by water vapour, which is almost infinately more abundant.
Water vapour makes up virtually all “greenhouse gas” content, and its abundance is a function of the planet not us mere hairless apes scurrying about on the surface.
DT don’t give vredence to this scam that trace gases can control the weather.
So, another triumph of which we can all be proud.
Hugely over budget.
Years late.
Incompatible with existing assets.
Worse than what we had.
All boxes ticked.
Nicola Sturgeon said it would contribute to “Scotland’s world-leading climate change goals”.
But the Scottish people do NOT have ‘world-leading climate change goals’ because they have never been asked. The goals are those of the politicians not the public. Perhaps every politician who makes this erroneous attribution should have their head dunked in crude oil.
Sturgeon is discredited totally as a lier and perhaps a fraudster.
I watched the news in the Netherlands yesterday. All climate doom and gloom. Hottest year ever, wettest year ever.
No debate.
If nuclear can power a submarine why not a ferry
Money, it is expensive to build.
If they are getting gas from MFG, the company that took over Morrisons filling stations and promptly put the price of LPG up to uneconomic levels for dual fuel vehicles, they won’t be saving any money.
Sounds much like Norfolk County Council. Pleading poverty then spending 500000 pounds each on a fleet of battery buses when Diesel are no more than 350000 pounds. But also add the cost of a replacement battery at current prices 50000 pounds half way through the lifespan of the EV.
New name required, some suggestions
How about expensive Nutzero?