NASA AI shows slashing sulfur in shipping fuel cut air pollution at sea

A reduction of sulfur in shipping fuel reduced air pollution levels at sea to the lowest levels this century in 2020, according to an AI model built by NASA. The COVID-19 pandemic also helped here, too, natch. A rule set by the International Marine Organization (IMO) significantly limiting sulfur content in fuel oil for ships …

[b0llchit]

(Inadvertent) Geo engineering

Temperatures may go up when sulphur is reduced. The sulphuric acid in the atmosphere reflects incoming radiation and thereby reduces surface temperatures (just like we've seen after volcanic eruptions). When our sulphur emissions are reduced, we may see another warming trend. What do we want, die in acid rain or die in a boiler?

^{_{Icon: we burn either way}}

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: (Inadvertent) Geo engineering

Comedy aside, wrong kind of sulfur and wrong layer of the atmosphere to do much good if it was.

Bunker fuel is pretty awful stuff, so it is a major issue when the ships are idling their engines to provide power at standby or in a busy port. Acid rain in the middle of the pacific? Maybe a tertiary concern. Upgrading the ports to manage emissions an supply dock side power couplings to prevent the ships from needing to idle their diesels are probably a bigger concern, followed by short haul electrics to get containers to a long haul freight exchange or rail terminal.

Switching fuels for the transoceanic cargo ships is probably a lower return. I suspect hybrid wind and solar might be added to some of them to slightly reduce fuel use in favorable conditions. But bigger changes might not balance out for the existing ships, wasting more resources then they save in emissions. I suspect that new vessels will start to out-compete the old ones with lower running costs and drive the older and dirtier ships out of business. That will happen faster if the emissions are added to the import duties or shipping costs.

We'd probably have as big an impact charging an up front waste disposal fee for all the damn packaging and e-waste they are shipping out on those boats, with the benefit of cutting the number of containers the stuff needs to ship in. That and the cumulative heat generated by steam coming out of our ears as we struggle to get through the 3 layers of tamper resistant plastic before finally resulting to Ye Olde Chaeinesaw.

[Hairy Spod]

pollution shift

It's not just Sulphur either. Marine and coastal air quality is another reason why we need to wean ourselves off of petrol and diesel cars as quickly as we reasonably can. In basic terms every barrel of oil has a certain amount of nasty toxic shit in it. As we don't generally like breathing in toxic air in our cities we lobbied the oil industry to refine as much shit out of the fuel that we put into our cars and trucks as they possibly can, which they duly did for us.

The thing is though, the toxic crap doesn't magically disappear it just gets more concentrated further down the chain, ie goes into marine diesel and bunker fuel.

The more 'clean' city diesel we refine to use in our cars, the more toxic leftovers there are to put into bunker fuel and marine diesel. When we refine less fuel for cars the stuff that gets burned by the marine industry gets 'cleaner'

[NeilPost]

Re: pollution shift

Pollution shift …. Yes … just into the sea.

https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/12/shippings-dirty-secret-how-scrubbers-clean-the-air-while-contaminating-the-sea

[Anonymous Coward]

"Did you own or lease a supertanker between 2003 and 2020? If so, you may be due compensation for killing the planet. Just call our free 0800 number or fill in the claims form at www.not-an-ambulance-chaser.co.uk"

Who knew fuel from scraping the bottom of the oil barrel would turn out to be so polluting?

<IMO looks shifty as they avoid your gaze and draw patterns in the dirt with their toecap>

[Pascal Monett]

Bunker fuel

One ship can emit as much pollution in a day as 100K cars.

I think this needs to be looked into.

[sugrivsur]

The restriction was predicted to cut sulfur oxide emissions by 77 per cent – equivalent to 8.5 million metric tonnes.

[Cuddles]

Not a risk

"The noxious gas increases risk of acid rain"

I don't think this is quite the right way to put it. Acid rain isn't a chance-based phenomenon where you roll a die and depending on how much sulphur you've emitted there's a varying chance of acid rain suddenly appearing, and there isn't a threshold above which you get acid rain and below which you don't. Sulphur oxides dissolve in water to form sulphuric acid. If you put more sulphur in the air, you get more sulphuric acid. Emitting sulphur oxides doesn't increase the risk of acid rain, it simply increases the acidity of rain.

[sugrivsur]

We'd probably have as big an impact charging an up front waste disposal fee for all the damn packaging and e-waste they are shipping out on those boats https://www.surveyzop.com/