The lead Dog at the EPA says:
Whether you think it’s a good thing or a bad thing, if you live in Hawaii, your cost of living is going up! The EPA has ordered all ships visiting Hawaii to burn low sulfur fuel when they enter waters within two hundred miles of the islands. This will have a significant impact on costs to deliver all goods to Hawaii.
Perhaps it’s time to go down and buy those goods you wanted before the markup shows up on the sticker price, everything from homes, cars, food, and more.
Most of us understand that this is the beginning, not the end, and we should expect the EPA to extend those limits in increments. Some have calculated that this first move will cost 3% or more, and don’t we all know, that gets passed on to consumers.
DIYers, we all understand that the Marine Fleet lives or dies according to the efficiency of their vessels, and this is exactly why so many Maritime steam plant ships have been beached and salvaged in third world countries. Marine Diesels are remarkably efficient, if there was anything more efficient, it would be in the water now.
We might ask.. how will the Maritime fleet respond? We are all aware that there are ripple effects to decisions like this, and perhaps there are opportunities for investors who anticipate what will come out of this mandate?
Will the higher cost of building homes soon be reflected in home values in Hawaii? Will we see a new fleet of sailing ships operating between the mainland and Hawaii? How about Maritime Nuke boats? No doubt in my mind they can be made safe, and Marine Nuke power plants have an excellent safety record, why not?
The hybrid diesel electric Cargo Ship? Imagine the Room aboard for battery packs? Imagine your opportunity to place a WEB ad for Investors in your design? You think it’s not a workable idea? Since when did that matter? Consider all the Solar Companies going bankrupt, they are doing so because the major reason to invest in Solar was to capture the subsidies. When subsidies are rolled back or cut after a Country finds they are up to their necks in solar and debt, we should expect the suppliers to go bankrupt. Germany is an excellent example, read the current news articles.
The Maritime Fleet has always embraced efficiency, they do it in order to stay profitable, and we need ask.. what happens if they are no longer profitable?
The Nuke powered cargo ship is in our future, perhaps we should anticipate who will build it and invest? It may be a chance to buy something that could appreciate as much as Apple stock.
But thoughtful people will study the ripple effect further, where does all that used motor oil go now? As the EPA ratchets up their demands to burn nose bleed high low sulfur fuel, won’t the demand for used oil products that have been blended into Maritime fuels in the past to go down? Perhaps you sell your stock in companies who collect this stuff before there’s no market for it at all? All those people saving used oil, all the people making money collecting it, if the demand goes down, then what?
But don’t we know there are opportunities when there are mandates. Imagine the need to verify the compliance of these new EPA laws, maybe we’ll need a new department within the EPA? I’d call it the ‘Department of Maritime Compliance’. Maybe we put a circle of boats around Hawaii at the 200 mile limit, Force all traffic entering to take aboard a compliance officer, he takes a sample of the fuel, and the owner pays a huge fine if the fuel doesn’t pass the lab test. Of course he stays on board and sniffs the stack to assure the fuel is in use right up to the dock.
So, what are we going to do with all that cheap waste oil if we don’t use it in the Maritime fleet? Or perhaps I’m wrong, maybe they never used it for fuel?
Now that we have clean coal plants, will we see the maritime fleet return to coal for power? Don’t we know, the ripple effect is real, so many will attempt to figure out how to make money by predicting the winners and losers.
A sure winner is the EPA, they’ll need more money and more people, and as we heard the President Speak about the highest Court in our land this week, it appears the Justices role in our Government is near obsolete, why would they dare overturn anything a partition majority would vote into being? Maybe all those law clerks, and the justices themselves should consider applying to the EPA for jobs? But.. perhaps it’s not necessary, many who vote believe the EPA is already the higher authority, so perhaps the Supreme Court Justices already work for the EPA?
If you think you’re back in the 1930s, welcome aboard! If we find the new health care law is deemed Constitutional, we should assume the Federal Government has the authority to regulate the size of our families as well. So if you wanted that family of five?…. you better get busy while it’s still legal Son.
GB
Unfortunately George, This goes into effect for all Ports. The video I sent you has a graphic outlining Hawaii, West, and East Coast. THat’s why they are saying it will cost Billions instead of Millions!!!
So What happens to the surplus Bunker fuel? Does it go cheaply to the lower 48 to run boiler? Maybe they want to make sure polution is spread evenly?
Thank you EPA!!!
Duane, here’s you opp to post the video 🙂
This is what they have to say about tier 4 off road requirements. 805 billion dollars saved. So maybe the Hawaiian price hike will be offset by hundreds of billions in saved dollars. This is sarcasm.
I was looking here because I might have read that their estimate for tier 4 offload compliance was 3 percent too. Maybe 3 percent is something they pull out of their ass when needed.
http://www.epa.gov/nonroaddiesel/2004fr/420r04007a.pdf
“The overall quantifiable benefits will total over $83 billion annually by 2030, with a 30-year net present value of $805 billion.”
Just called one of our DIYer brothers who is a Marine Engineer, he says a lot of ships have trouble burning this low new fuel, since they never were designed to use it. Moving off the thicker stuff onto the light fuel, causes problems. In some of the smaller engines, adding a percentage of biofuel does cut wear, and allows injectors to operate.
As for the used waste streams of oil, does anyone know if this can be included in the stock used to make more lube oil or fuel oil?
How frustrating life must must for regulatory types. On par with mine, even. But for opposite reasons. For them some small piece of regulation none have ever heard of saves 805 billion. If that is what they truly believe then it must follow that they would like countless more regulations saving 10s or 100s of trillions of dollars. If only weirdos opposed to regulation would shut up we could all be floating on piles of wealth.
Additionally, think what high esteem they must have for themselves(EPAers). If a little engine regulation is worth 805 billion saved then add up the rest of their good work. It would certainly be in the trillions. Each EPA employee adds to our productivity by 10s if not hundreds of millions. It would only make sense to get as many of them as possible. 805 billion/17000 full timer EPAers = 47 million each. Just for the tier 4 off road. What would tier 4 on road be worth?
Will that include the navy?…..Just thinkin of all the money and all the directions the trickel will go…..
Imagine! movng off bunker to low sulpher to power the Navy! I did hear that the Washington State Ferry System went to low sulpher the day it became available, an Engineer tells me they mix in biofuel to add enough lubricity to keep things running. We need anticipate where the waste streams will go..they’ll go somewhere for sure, before they were collected, they often got dumped on the ground!
George, you are right, the ships do burn WMO. Years ago I was dumping my WMO into the local auto parts store’s tank. I was told it went to Long Beach where it was filtered and burned on the ships headed back across the Pacific. Sometime later I read an article that traced 60 percent of the particulate emissions in the air of the central valley of California to ships heading west, because the prevailing winds blow it back across California. Therefore all the foolish expensive trucking regulations attempting to reduce particulate emissions are very misdirected. The cost to the trucking industry has been enormous, and will force out smaller trucking companies.
Yes the motor oil can be “recycled” to be made into new lube oil. I do think the EPA could make a positive move by mandating synthetic oils, and reducing the oil change frequencies, which would reduce the waste oil stream. I generally hate government mandates, but if they are going to do them, this is one I might be able to live with.
The EPA does allow for the burning of WMO for heat in waste oil burners, and my understanding is they are pretty clean due to high heat and a rather complete burn, almost like a bomb calorimeter we used to talk about in chemistry class!
Elden,
If we can burn it responsibly in such a device, maybe it’s time return to the steam boilers of the past? They can burn it with the same high temps with a few mods.. STOP! There’s a ship about to be pulled out of the water to be cut for scrap! Considering the cost of low sulpher fuel, could these old vessles burn WMO cheaper and actually compete against the super efficient Diesels now forced to burn these new fuels?
Umm . . . haven’t any of them noticed the elephant sitting quietly in the corner of the room? It’s name is Kilauea.
Czech out: http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/kilauea/
Last time I visited it the old girl was belching all kinds of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. Tons of it each day, I would presume. And it’s been doing so since long before the first Polynesians arrived. So they want to regulate sulfur in bunker fuels? WTF? I guess it’s like the Scorpion and the Frog. It’s just what regulators do.
I couldn’t resist not knowing, so I looked it up on the USGS website:
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/archive/1997/97_03_07.html
“This period of better air quality is a direct result of the low level of current eruptive activity. After the collapse of Pu`u `O`o and the start of eruptive episode 54 early in the morning on January 30, east rift zone SO2 gas emissions were 15-30% of the 2,000 tons per day or so that we have measured during eruptively active periods over the last several years. When the short-lived episode ended on January 31, SO2 emissions decreased even further. Although there is lava ponding, once again, within Pu`u `O`o, current SO2 emissions from Kilauea appear to be less than 10% of the daily emission rates measured since 1993.”
So it’s on the order of thousands of tons/day. Now, granted, Kilauea is on the southern extremity of the Big Island and the NE tradewinds tend to blow the stinky gas away from the islands most of the time. Still . . .
Where’s the like button?
George-steamships using cheap fuel with low emissions, I wonder if it can be done? Makes more sense than Solyndra….
Quinn-thanks for the links. I’ve often commented on underground coal fires and their CO2 contributions to our atmosphere, apparently quite significant. I must conclude that some environmentalists think people are the worst things that happened to our planet, and there is money to be made regulating them.
Under ground coal fires, there’s quite a few of them and no one in the IPCC want to put them out! Follow the money..
And the US geological society reports the oil industry has cleaned up, from naturally occurring leaks, more oil than it has ever spilled. Isn’t it a good thing that we are getting all that tar out of the sand in Alberta?
Bottom line-sulfur dioxide, crude oil leaks and CO2 from mother earth acceptable, but highly toxic if caused by man……
Operating atmospheric engines makes more sense.
I visit this article today wondering… Has the EPA added verbage to their rule? Shouldn’t they include more detail as per wind direction? If you are traveling west, and the wind blows from the west, shouldn’t there be a need to adjust the 200 mile range, and shouldn’t they provide the means to calculate a weighting factor? Maybe every ship will have an EPA official aboard?