Used Oil - Large Ship Air Pollution

[userfriendly]

I would have taken a bribe. In hindsight?

 

[OilFilters]

Bottom line is there is a TON of used motor oil to be used as fuel. There is no other good use for it. Nobody wants to put recycled oil in their car. The major ships need fuel and we need to get rid of all that oil. Win Win as far as I'm concerned. If not burned in ships that used oil is going to be burned somewhere. Much too high of energy content to let go to waste. Nobody lets used oil go to waste, it's a commodity like scrap metal. Even if we ignored the need to get rid of all that waste oil, if ships were burning nothing but clean diesel fuel, what effect do you think that would have on diesel and gas prices?

 

[ENGINEER60]

Lets all go back to wooden sail boats and live in caves

 

[DeepFriar]

Nyogtha Thanks for resurrecting this and updating it. I haven't had anything new to add so...I haven't. Dumping the NOX/SOX directly into seawater is downright diabolical! Hopefully some or all of that will be addressed in these upcoming meetings. For Engineer60: No offense but if you have not read the whole thread and the source materials please do. This was no treehugger, Luddite concern or discussion. When a mere handful of emitters (this began with 15 ships) can give us more of some of the worst parts of atmospheric pollution than all the cars on Earth, well, Houston we have a problem.... Meanwhile you, me and everyone are paying through the nose for vanishingly small, improvements beyond diminishing returns in cars and other sources. Doing nothing would be the epitome of havng your head up and locked.

 

[CT8]

Then after all the whining we have the volcanoes spewing pollution.

 

[CT8]

Originally Posted By: DeepFriar

Nyogtha Thanks for resurrecting this and updating it. I haven't had anything new to add so...I haven't. Dumping the NOX/SOX directly into seawater is downright diabolical! Hopefully some or all of that will be addressed in these upcoming meetings. For Engineer60: No offense but if you have not read the whole thread and the source materials please do. This was no treehugger, Luddite concern or discussion. When a mere handful of emitters (this began with 15 ships) can give us more of some of the worst parts of atmospheric pollution than all the cars on Earth, well, Houston we have a problem.... Meanwhile you, me and everyone are paying through the nose for vanishingly small, improvements beyond diminishing returns in cars and other sources. Doing nothing would be the epitome of havng your head up and locked.

What do you own that is made in China?

 

[DeepFriar]

Originally Posted By: CT8

Originally Posted By: DeepFriar

Nyogtha Thanks for resurrecting this and updating it. I haven't had anything new to add so...I haven't. Dumping the NOX/SOX directly into seawater is downright diabolical! Hopefully some or all of that will be addressed

What do you own that is made in China?

Yep. Couldn't agree more.

 

[CT8]

All ships must be retired and Nuke reactor ships will be the standard. Freight rates may at least quadruple but we will FEEL good about our "greenness"

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: CT8

All ships must be retired and Nuke reactor ships will be the standard. Freight rates may at least quadruple but we will FEEL good about our "greenness"

With the present surge in SMR development that may not actually be that far off.

 

[Shannow]

Now we've got to work out what to do with this "waste stream"... If we legislate to stop using it for the marine applications, and are still producing it at the same rate, what are we proposing to do with it ?

 

[CT8]

Originally Posted By: Shannow

Now we've got to work out what to do with this "waste stream"... If we legislate to stop using it for the marine applications, and are still producing it at the same rate, what are we proposing to do with it ?

The used oil market will be disrupted and then the new oil market will be disrupted. End volcanic activity first.

 

[turtlevette]

I wonder what the pistons of those big engines look like burning that gunk.

 

[bunnspecial]

Originally Posted by Nyogtha

It's good to find folks willing to read still about these days. Long haul trucking and railroads use diesel instead of gasoline engines for a reason - the higher density of diesel contains more energy per unit volume. Marine diesel is not typically the same as highway diesel for this reason; the push for higher cetane ratings and lower sulfur in highway diesel reduces the aromatics content and therefore the density, but also decreases the resistance to ignition. Marine fuel oil (and heavy fuel oil in general) has higher density - you can see some of the heaviest grades are "heavier than water" - if they were liquids at 15�C, and even the heaviest grade has a maximum pour point of 30�C / 86�F so it's still not really "tar / asphalt". There is a lot of energy per unit volume available in heavy fuel oils for propulsion across the oceans (or generating electricity in a fuel oil powered generator as another example). FWIW, the term "bunker fuel" is a holdover from when oceangoing vessels had actual coal bunkers with men shoveling coal into the furnaces.

As an historic note, it's also worth mentioning that railroads-or at least out in the Western US-were once heavy consumers of Bunker C also. Of course, most of it went to steam engines(Union Pacific's surviving steam fleet is oil fueled) but there were a handful of notable other experiments that used Bunker C. The Union Pacific made several "oil turbines" that burned it. The start-up procedure for a cold oil-fired locomotive-to me-is quite interesting. You have to have a small amount of steam in the boiler both to heat the oil to where is can be easily transferred from the tender to the firebox, and then to atomize it at the burner tip. I recall reading an account written by a volunteer at a tourist railroad of starting one-basically they stuck a kerosene torpedo heater in the firebox for a few hours to raise ~5psi of steam, which was enough to light the main burner. Back in the day, at least the pilot on the main burner would have been left on all the time, which would have been enough to maintain pressure overnight or even a couple of days. The boiler would have only been allowed to cool completely for major work, such as work on the boiler.

 

[Rmay635703]

Frac rigs burn 380,000 gallons of #4 every time they start an oil well and every time they need to restart an old one.

 

[Nyogtha]

You sure it's not #2 fuel oil?

 

[Rmay635703]

It's kerosene that is the active fluid that gets pumped down and anything from jet fuel to drain oil depending on what is doing the pumping

 

[Bjornviken]

Would be better to use LNG engines on ships

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted by Rmay635703

Frac rigs burn 380,000 gallons of #4 every time they start an oil well and every time they need to restart an old one.

Coal Power takes about 50,000gal for a cold start, and burns about 900lb of fuel per MWh to charge those EVs. It take 7,000-10,000 cubic feet of Natural Gas t make that same MWh

 

[Rmay635703]

My point is that the supply side of gasoline produces more pollution bringing the gallon of gas to your pump than your car could ever produce burning that same gallon of fuel and perhaps it's worth stopping the practice of transporting our crude overseas in trade for someone else's petroleum products. According to the WPS Weston 3 has been used in 3 year continuous use cycles since it opened. The startup fuel is a small fraction of 1% of the runtime fuel. This area has around 50-80% of local energy needs met by hydro and over 90% of energy generated locally is exported. We have a natural gas station and the coal fired ones burn off waste from the paper mills on an as needed basis. Personally I rather see MSR Thorium redeveloped we could do it in the 50's but forgot how. 99% less waste and it can't melt down. Ah well.

 

[Nyogtha]

Originally Posted by Bjornviken

Would be better to use LNG engines on ships

LNG tankers in fact do this.