Zuiderdam prevented from leaving port by protesters

[cruisemom42]

35 minutes ago, Hawaiidan said:

Like most of  green movement  they are protesting to gain power and recognition**.   This is the philosophy  of  how to gain media attention and give it free press coverage.    It this quest for power every small achievement emboldens  the movement for the  next and the next. until they feel that they are now in total power and can dictate  to society what to do.... there is no end to it.  Give them an inch  they take a mile  and so on. Its not about right or wrong..its about power and who has it.

 

 

** I believe you meant to say "like nearly every important movement seeking significant change".

 

After all, the American Revolution, so it is said, was kicked off in part by an act of civil disobedience involving a ship -- the Boston Tea Party. I guess if all modern day precautions/recommendations listed in this thread were carried out, it would never have happened. 

[RMLincoln]

9 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

I think you are referring to "fuel cells" that use liquid hydrogen and air to create electricity.  To the best of my knowledge, the Viking plan is to only provide hotel load via hydrogen fuel cells, and the remaining power to be petroleum fueled.  RCI, as I've said, is supposed to be running small scale fuel cell tests, but using LNG as the fuel, not hydrogen.  There is no way that an existing ship could be retrofitted for fuel cells to provide all the power needed in a cruise ship.

 

Whether hydrogen or LNG fueled fuel cells, both fuels require cryogenic storage (-260*F for LNG, -423*F for hydrogen), so tankage is completely different from conventional liquid fuels.  Conventional fuel tanks are merely parts of the hull, while the LNG and hydrogen tanks will need to be insulated, with void space around the tank to allow for leak detection, and these fuels have a lower specific heat than conventional fuels (less energy per ton or cubic meter), so lots more space will be needed just for fuel storage (and the tanks cannot be along the side of the ship, where conventional fuel tanks are, for safety reasons, or the infrastructure to refuel the ships more frequently, in more ports would need to be implemented.  Then there is the equipment needed to "inert" the fuel tanks (replacing the atmosphere above the liquid with a non-combustible atmosphere, typically nitrogen or carbon dioxide), and the reliquifaction equipment needed to deal with the inevitable "boil off" of the liquid fuel (remember the vapor streaming down the side of the NASA rockets?), and you've got a whole lot of space taken up, before you get to anything that generates power from this fuel.  Hydrogen is far more expensive than LNG as well.  I would say that fuel cells capable of powering the hotel load of a cruise ship may be 4-5 years away (again the infrastructure problem hasn't been solved), and a totally fuel cell powered ship is likely a couple of decades away.

Great look forward to the future of what new systems may be coming, and the difficult design challenges the options being considered will bring.  I have done some materials science research on various types of fuel cells... hydrogen, salts, lithium, others... and worked with cryogenics too, all small scale stuff, but to consider scaling up to cruise ship size is very challenging....  can't even begin to imagine.  And LNG is not a pleasant thought either, bunkering it?  oiy!  But I am only a bit familiar with the transfer stations outside of ports, like Boston's... outside the ports for a good reason. 

As always, thank you for sharing your insights here.  Maureen

[RMLincoln]

2 hours ago, scubacruiserx2 said:

 

Yes ! We have cast off lines and are under way .

Thank you for your updates!  As I said in a post above, I have friends on your cruise, and wish you all a good voyage to these exceptional ports, what a great itinerary.  I'll look for your continued info.  Enjoy!  m--

[chengkp75]

1 hour ago, RMLincoln said:

Great look forward to the future of what new systems may be coming, and the difficult design challenges the options being considered will bring.  I have done some materials science research on various types of fuel cells... hydrogen, salts, lithium, others... and worked with cryogenics too, all small scale stuff, but to consider scaling up to cruise ship size is very challenging....  can't even begin to imagine.  And LNG is not a pleasant thought either, bunkering it?  oiy!  But I am only a bit familiar with the transfer stations outside of ports, like Boston's... outside the ports for a good reason. 

As always, thank you for sharing your insights here.  Maureen

Millions of tons of LNG have been transported by tanker for decades, without a single incident.  It is flammable and explosive only within a narrow band of oxygen content, hence the use of inerted tanks, and it requires a much hotter temperature for auto-ignition than diesel fuel, hence the need for spark ignition on buses using LNG, or the injection of 5% diesel with the LNG for marine diesels, just to get the combustion going.  Bunkering would not be a problem, there are a couple of container ship companies that currently bunker LNG for their ships, in Seattle and Jacksonville, and as long as you don't empty the tank completely, you don't have to spray LNG into the tank to flash to gas and supercool the tank to prevent shattering.  As I've said on other threads about the upcoming LNG fueled cruise ships the major stumbling block will be the bunkering infrastructure.  Carnival has Shell building an LNG bunker barge, but it will load in Savannah, for bunkering in Port Canaveral, so there will be transport time, and a limited amount the barge can carry.

[scubacruiserx2]

8 hours ago, RMLincoln said:

Thank you for your updates!  As I said in a post above, I have friends on your cruise, and wish you all a good voyage to these exceptional ports, what a great itinerary.  I'll look for your continued info.  Enjoy!  m--

 

You're welcome . Todays forecast for Alesund  52 F , 60% chance of rain . Sunrise 3:40 AM sunset 11:32 .

[scubacruiserx2]

8 hours ago, cruisemom42 said:

 

** I believe you meant to say "like nearly every important movement seeking significant change".

 

After all, the American Revolution, so it is said, was kicked off in part by an act of civil disobedience involving a ship -- the Boston Tea Party. I guess if all modern day precautions/recommendations listed in this thread were carried out, it would never have happened. 

 

That was about becoming a new country apart from England . The other is about eliminating cruise ships and cruising . Goodbye Cruise Critic and this format . 

[Despegue]

23 hours ago, G.M.T. said:

Some laws are lax but our gun laws are very tight, how about yours?

fantastic return!

 

[JMHamburg]

On 6/11/2019 at 11:01 PM, G.M.T. said:

We protest where we want, we live here.

Would you mind stop talking of German people in general, please. Your words may let the people get wrong impressions of Germans. We are not all equal! Such aggressive activists destroyed entire streets at G20 summit in Hamburg, they enter ships and secure harbor areas without being punished. Sometimes, I'm just only ashamed of being a citizen of this country called Germany, embarrassing ...

[Ulsteinvik]

28 minutes ago, JMHamburg said:

Would you mind stop talking of German people in general, please. Your words may let the people get wrong impressions of Germans. We are not all equal! Such aggressive activists destroyed entire streets at G20 summit in Hamburg, they enter ships and secure harbor areas without being punished. Sometimes, I'm just only ashamed of being a citizen of this country called Germany, embarrassing ...

You are completely right. I live also in Germany and this protest was just illegal and a shame!!

[echoshipmate]

Way too many people with way too much time on their hands. This horse is dead, way past time to get off.

[rafinmd]

An irony in this--I suppose they will chalk it up to a loss for a greater good--I wonder how much extra fuel Zuiderdam used making up 6 of the 8 hours they were detained on the way to Copenhagen.

 

Roy

[scubacruiserx2]

41 minutes ago, rafinmd said:

An irony in this--I suppose they will chalk it up to a loss for a greater good--I wonder how much extra fuel Zuiderdam used making up 6 of the 8 hours they were detained on the way to Copenhagen.

 

Roy

 

We were in the aft and we could really feel a difference with the increased speed .

[scubacruiserx2]

We had an absolutely beautiful day and weather in Geirangerfjord on a private tour . Looking forward to sharing the photos .

[Turtles06]

On 6/11/2019 at 11:12 PM, GeorgeCharlie said:

Overall, we did not find what happened (and the response by HAL) to be all that much different from our cruise on the Zuiderdam last fall. On that cruise we missed one port (which upset a lot of people) because the ship had been directed to assist in the search of a person who had gone overboard from another ship. In addition, because a cruise ship had damaged the berth where the Zuiderdam was schedule to dock in New York, the ship ended up having to go to a different terminal – which caused headaches for people debarking.

 

A big thanks for your first hand account of this most recent incident.  As someone who was on that earlier Zuiderdam cruise with you (as you know), I am starting to think you must be the jinx.  🤣

 

Seriously, I was glad to read from your post how well HAL handled the issue and made things as convenient as possible for disembarking passengers who needed to make new arrangements, catch tight flights, etc.   It was very different on that earlier cruise -- no offer of phone or internet access for passengers who had to rearrange things from the middle of the  North Atlantic, and apparently no notification to the necessary folks on the ground of our un-scheduled docking in Brooklyn, which meant no taxis and created a total mess that morning.   So yes, we were a couple of disembarking guests with those "headaches" you mentioned, and I'm glad HAL did a better job this time around!

[chengkp75]

2 hours ago, rafinmd said:

An irony in this--I suppose they will chalk it up to a loss for a greater good--I wonder how much extra fuel Zuiderdam used making up 6 of the 8 hours they were detained on the way to Copenhagen.

 

Roy

Did some rough calculations based on Zuiderdam's plant, and the original itinerary to go the 162 nm from Kiel to Copenhagen at 10 knots (16 hours, 2pm to 6am?) and the actual steaming of 16 knots (10 hours, 10pm to 8am).  The difference in fuel consumption is about 14mt ($4200), or an increase of 12% in consumption.

[terrydtx]

12 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

Did some rough calculations based on Zuiderdam's plant, and the original itinerary to go the 162 nm from Kiel to Copenhagen at 10 knots (16 hours, 2pm to 6am?) and the actual steaming of 16 knots (10 hours, 10pm to 8am).  The difference in fuel consumption is about 14mt ($4200), or an increase of 12% in consumption.

Did you figure any extra fuel for the extra time in port, if any?

[cruisemom42]

12 hours ago, scubacruiserx2 said:

 

That was about becoming a new country apart from England . The other is about eliminating cruise ships and cruising . Goodbye Cruise Critic and this format . 

 

So then it appears that you don't disagree with the methodology as long as you feel the goal is worthy?

 

But who gets to decide what is "worthy"?  Therein lies a slippery slope....

 

Sometimes it takes radical "attention getting" to move the thermometer even slightly up or down. I can imagine most of us don't want to eliminate cruising. However, most of us would probably be in favor of making it more environmentally friendly.

[chengkp75]

1 hour ago, terrydtx said:

Did you figure any extra fuel for the extra time in port, if any?

Yes.  8 additional hours in port, is only running one of the small diesels.  I think the only reason they didn't make up all the time is that it would have involved cranking up the gas turbine, and that would have sucked up some fuel.

[old mike]

On 6/11/2019 at 4:51 PM, chengkp75 said:

There are not really any "innovative" propulsion systems, but ships are being built to utilize cleaner fuels.  The newest ships that will be LNG fueled use the same diesels as the ships burning high sulfur residual fuel.  Only the fuel handling equipment changes, but there will still be challenges with LNG until the infrastructure for bunkering ships with this fuel meets the demand the cruise lines are creating.  RCI is experimenting with "fuel cells" on a limited basis, but this again is a long way from being practical for the amount of power a cruise ship needs.

 

Well said. hydrogen based fuel cells are a technology that has been quoted as being just 5-10 years away from  commercial viability, the problem is that statement has not changed for fifty years, it is like a ships bow wave, never to be caught.

 

Hydrogen is not a freely occurring  gas and the only truly commercially viable way to produce large quantities is to use steam methane reformation. When the furnace fuel is accounted for It takes 2 SCF of Natural gas to produce 1 SCF of hydrogen, all that has been achieved is to re-locate a carbon dioxide emission from an energy user to a centralized location at great cost not to mention high risk. Anyone who has practical experience knows that hydrogen should not be treated  casually, it's wide flammability limits and exceptionally high flame front propagation speed,  deserve respect.

 

Based on personal experience I would not want to even be in the same port as a vessel with the potential for a hydrogen leak into an enclosed space.

As a species we found the best way to utilize hydrogen as a fuel source centuries ago, it's called hydrocarbons where the hydrogen atom is combined with and stabilized by carbon atoms. 

Hydrogen Fuel cells of all types, are a pipe dream for general transport. ask anyone who lost their investment in the Ballard fuel cell company debacle, At the time it was trumpeted as the next great revolution in transportation and even mercedes benz  and others who should have known better were taken in by the hype. https://electrek.co/2019/06/11/hydrogen-station-explodes-toyota-halts-sales-fuel-cell-cars/

 

The problem is we have too many  journalists with zero STEM education and no critical thinking skills who just regurgitate  ideologically motivated rubbish for air time. 

Edited June 13, 2019 by old mike
grammer

[TAD2005]

4 hours ago, old mike said:

 

Well said. hydrogen based fuel cells are a technology that has been quoted as being just 5-10 years away from  commercial viability, the problem is that statement has not changed for fifty years, it is like a ships bow wave, never to be caught.

 

Hydrogen is not a freely occurring  gas and the only truly commercially viable way to produce large quantities is to use steam methane reformation. When the furnace fuel is accounted for It takes 2 SCF of Natural gas to produce 1 SCF of hydrogen, all that has been achieved is to re-locate a carbon dioxide emission from an energy user to a centralized location at great cost not to mention high risk. Anyone who has practical experience knows that hydrogen should not be treated  casually, it's wide flammability limits and exceptionally high flame front propagation speed,  deserve respect.

 

Based on personal experience I would not want to even be in the same port as a vessel with the potential for a hydrogen leak into an enclosed space.

As a species we found the best way to utilize hydrogen as a fuel source centuries ago, it's called hydrocarbons where the hydrogen atom is combined with and stabilized by carbon atoms. 

Hydrogen Fuel cells of all types, are a pipe dream for general transport. ask anyone who lost their investment in the Ballard fuel cell company debacle, At the time it was trumpeted as the next great revolution in transportation and even mercedes benz  and others who should have known better were taken in by the hype. https://electrek.co/2019/06/11/hydrogen-station-explodes-toyota-halts-sales-fuel-cell-cars/

 

The problem is we have too many  journalists with zero STEM education and no critical thinking skills who just regurgitate  ideologically motivated rubbish for air time. 

I agree.  Same with totally electric cars.  "Oh look, I am not using any hydro-carbons in my electric car".  Where does the electricity come from that you used to charge up your electric car ?   Most likely it came from natural gas or coal.   I'm sure somebody has computed how much natural gas or coal must be burned to fully charge an electric car's batteries to go 200 miles, compared to the carbon produced by simply burning gasoline for the same distance.

[*Miss G*]

Natural gas or coal?  Is that still a thing?  I thought most electricity was from hydro or nuclear plants.  I think I’m on a different planet.  lol

[Germancruiser]

Living in Germany - I think I, too am on a different planet, sometimes ! After the accident in Japan we decided to close done all those nuclear plants! Ever since that day we kill birds and insects with our wind plants- or even back to coal or gas..!

If you see a japanese guy bowing low when greeting a German- they do not so out of respect- they cringe in the middle - from laughing..!

[old mike]

1 hour ago, *Miss G* said:

Natural gas or coal?  Is that still a thing?  I thought most electricity was from hydro or nuclear plants.  I think I’m on a different planet.  lol

Closed cycle or open cycle gas fired turbines are a significant source of dependable power globally, look at  the UK power generation website http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/index.php the CCGT are natural Gas fired generators. there are similar sites for other countries, I have not bothered to list them. 

 

One of the dirty secrets of those pushing unreliable wind and solar energy is that somewhere on the grid l there has to be a fossil fuel  based generator on standby, one that is capable of being turned up to full capacity quickly when the sun is hidden by clouds or the wind stops blowing. The cost to keep these units on standby should really be a cost that is born by the owners of the so called renewable power source, however it isn't and instead the grid customers pay and they also pay for very generous and unwarranted  subsidies  to the wind and solar power facility owners.The so called renewable energy industry is one of the most corrupt and dishonest assembly of people you could ever wish to not meet.  A typical trick for example is to announce a new wind farm that can power x thousand homes when the reality is that over an extended period the system will only deliver at best 33% of the theoretical KwH's of the claimed nameplate capacity.  Check the cost of electricity in Germany which has one of the highest fractions of wind and solar power in the world.

 

One the most egregious and somewhat amusing cons by this charming group of industries took place in Spain.

Spain was playing the "virtue signaling game" and had the highest government subsidies for new solar power installations in Europe. An astute  individual noted that the  "solar"  power company was claiming high generation numbers at night? The company had installed a large number of diesel generators which they turned on after sunset.

Edited June 14, 2019 by old mike
grammar

[old mike]

 tad 2005 said

 " Same with totally electric cars.  "Oh look, I am not using any hydro-carbons in my electric car".  Where does the electricity come from that you used to charge up your electric car ?   Most likely it came from natural gas or coal.   I'm sure somebody has computed how much natural gas or coal must be burned to fully charge an electric car's batteries to go 200 miles, compared to the carbon produced by simply burning gasoline for the same distance."

 

 Yes those numbers have been calculated, I don't have my files  to hand but one fact I do remember off the top of my head is that an it takes 7 years of typical driving of an electric car before you reach a break even point in carbon dioxide emissions for a conventional IC car. that is how much more energy is required to fabricate the electric car  and it's batteries.  The comparison should be done on a full life-cycle basis including the energy input for both the manufacturing and the ultimate disposal of a vehicle as well as emissions during it's active use. A new small conventional car will beat the best that Musk can produce.

[fatcat04]

1 hour ago, *Miss G* said:

Natural gas or coal?  Is that still a thing?  I thought most electricity was from hydro or nuclear plants.  I think I’m on a different planet.  lol

 

 

A very informative site to see what energy sources are used in each state of the US, which sector uses how much,  who produces what energy sources, and all kinds of good info can be found here. https://www.eia.gov/state/