From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Doug Brodie
You just could not make this up!
The SNP’s delayed ferries have been hit by a new farce after it emerged that their special ‘green’ fuel must be imported 8,000 miles from Qatar then driven thousands more miles each year by road.
The vessels were designed with ‘dual-fuel’ engines which can run on liquefied natural gas (LNG), designed to cut emissions, as well as conventional diesel.
However, eight years after work began on the ferries Glen Sannox and Glen Rosa, the Scottish Government says there is no clear date for when LNG tanks, known as a bunkering facility, will ever be built here.
As a result, LNG must be imported in diesel-powered ships from Qatar to a terminal in England and then driven 450 miles to Scotland.
It is feared that will lead to emissions far in excess of savings generated by the supposedly environmentally friendly engines.
The complex dual-fuel design has been cited as one of the main reasons behind the shambolic delivery of the vessels for the route from Ardrossan, Ayrshire, to Arran.
This is the type of incompetence that we Scots have come to expect from the Scottish government which thinks that Scotland is too warm.
Scotland too warm? Much as I love the place, all I can say is, “That’ll be the day!”
Same for New England politicians. We just had our 3rd day over 70F since October, yet they scream every day that we’re having a climate emergency- gonna burn up the planet, boil the oceans, wipe out most species, blah, blah.
It’s been a classic case of politicians continually interfering with a project. Normally warship design, the late 19th century French politicians being especially good at meddling with similar results.
The French politicians of the late 18th century were even worse meddlers. Everybody including the king lost their heads back then.
There are reasons behind this sort of development and changes are being debated,
Most ships now have to meet efficiency levels set by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and if LNG is intended as the primary fuel this does have a lower emissions rating than oil fuels.
At this moment in time all IMO efficiency ratings are assigned on a tank to wake basis. i.e. only the emissions actually produced on board are taken into account. However, with new fuels now being developed and in use such as methanol and ammonia, the IMO is now embarked on rating fuels on a well to wake basis taking into account production emissions, refining emissions and transport emissions.
As you can imagine this is a complex process and for many fuels there will be massive variations depending upon how produced, how the energy needed for production, refining, transport etc is produced whether using fossil fuels, renewables or combinations and where in the world initial production and eventual delivery takes place.
There may be further developments at the IMO’s MEPC 82 meeting due to be held later this year but in reality it will take a few more years yet before agreement is reached at the IMO.
Ah, that explains why if I take a Brittany Ferries boat from Portsmouth to Santander it takes twice as long than if I take the ferry from Plymouth to Santander as the Portsmouth ferry is run on LNG and goes a lot slower.
Unless that was an attempt at sarcasm, it does not make any sense. LNG has nothing to do with the speed of the vessel.
So years ago, and possibly still to this day, Denver had busses that used the POWER output of diesel to start the bus moving after a stop then switched to natural gas after the vehicle was up to speed for the clean burning. I believe the dual fuel system also helped to keep the engine exhaust and cylinders clean and increased their longevity.
I have a generator. It can run on natural gas or propane. It has a higher output when operating on propane.
So, please explain how LESS power from the same engine when using different fuels:
Propane has much less Btu/lb than nat gas
And NG has less btu/lb than diesel I’m sure, since Propane has less btu/lbs than hearing oil aka diesel.
Not quite the whole story, in gaseous form Nat Gas about 1000 Btu/scf, Propane 2500 Btu/scf…so propane has more energy available per intake stroke for the same size engine…..sorry about the units, showing my age…. Yes the M.Wt of Nat gas is about 16 and propane 44, gasoline is rated compared to octane M.Wt. 114, so you aren’t “wrong”
High test and low test gasoline?
All I know is that I sailed from Plymouth and it took I think about 22hrs A friend of mine sailed from Portsmouth and he took about 33hrs (two nights). It wasn’t the extra time that was the problem but the truck drivers partying on the first night (and day) because they had another night to sober up before driving off the ferry.
Perhaps the ship sails slower because LNG costs more than diesel and needs to at an economical speed?
Just did a search on Brave and it said this:
Ferries may travel slower overnight due to various reasons. According to the search results, it is not surprising that overnight crossings last eight or nine hours. This is because the slower speed of the ships benefits the operators by reducing fuel consumption per mile, which is a cost-effective measure. Additionally, overnight crossings allow passengers to sleep or enjoy onboard amenities, which increases revenue for the ferry companies.
So a ferry that travels over two nights is going to take longer than a ferry that travels over one night. Also, Plymouth is nearer to Santander than Portsmouth is.
Plymouth is closer to Spain than Portsmouth 🤔 wow that’s incredible.
Did you research how much difference there is in fuel costs between marine diesel and marine LNG?
Proof again, if it were needed, that there’s no free lunches in physics.
Does this apply to ferries for use solely within the UK’s territorial waters?
Don’t forget that the envirowacos in UK bureaucracy (as in the US) will do whatever they can to harm efficiency in the name of SAVE THE EARTH!
So the UK requirements probably exceed the worldwide standard.
Glen Sannox’s design was probably started before these regulations were finalised. She was laid down in 2017 meaning design work would have started a two or three years before that more if government was involved from the beginning.
There are two further ferries on order from Turkish yards.
Calmac ferries are a disaster area. Worth becoming a case study on how not to support remote island communities.
I guess they missed Econ 101 explanations of how prices answer all those questions without any need for burrocratic meddling.
I hope the picture is not real..
In Australia it would be 1 semi with its trailer and tow trailers attached. Much less nasty carbon dioxide..
Like this? A bit of a problem on most UK roads.
4 trailers, and another small tank mounted behind the cab?
Where was that picture taken?
Where is username to tell us that in the UK it would be delivered by electric trains, not diesel trucks???
Sorry but that part of the railway system has not been approved for electrification – too expensive! 🙂
They may have distinctly different destinations, and this picture was taken relatively close to the origination point; there may be road/bridge weight limits that must be adhered to; or there may be other road restrictions along the way, e.g., steep inclines and declines, hairpin curves. One size does not fit all.
All the ferries leave from the same point. 😉
I hope the picture is not real..
Three trucks driving that close to each other in wet weather… hmmmm !!
It depends where you are. I don’t think anything bigger than B-doubles is allowed along the east coast and Tassie, and only triples in the remainder of Vic, NSW and Qld.
The quads are only in WA, inland SA, and the NT.
Slightly O/T, but here is the green party candidate celebrating his win in the recent UK local elections:
we ain’t seen nothing yet! Muslim Vote group issues 18 demands to Starmer
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/9481989a-4b5c-4446-b47d-b0fd2df9b572?shareToken=0d69b73aca9998992baab712431b8ccb
Reminds me of Star Trek…. Corbomite.
Oh, you couldn’t make it up! I despair…
The SNP can outwoke or outbonkers anyone you care to mention. But don’t be fooled into thinking that Labour will be any better, all the progressive parties voted for the SNPs disastrous legislation programme from the gender cult to the named person guardian to the climate crisis etc.
Science?
To quote the leader of the Green party, Patrick Harvie, who was in coalition with the SNP
“Mr Harvie told BBC Scotland’s Sunday Show that he did not believe the Cass Review was a “valid scientific document” as he has “seen far too many criticisms of it so far to be able to say that.” This led to accusations he believed trans activists over Dr Cass.
And he doubled down on these comments during an appearance on the Today Show as he refused five times to say whether he accepted her findings, instead hitting out at people allegedly “politicising and weaponising” it. He said: “That report, whether its intended that way or not, has been politicised and weaponised by those who are trying to attack and undermine transgender people’s very existence in our society.”
https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/shameful-patrick-harvie-doubles-down-32642297
I say yes to Scottish independence!
Scottish independence MAY save the rest of the UK from woke destruction. Just like Quebec independence could save Canada.
Let me get this straight. Instead of just filling them up with diesel from the local garage, they’re shipping LNG from Qatar on diesel-fueled ships, then transporting them to the ferries on diesel-fueled lorries? The mind boggles…
What actually boggles MY mind is that the UK has plenty of frackable natural gas of their own. They (leftists) would rather spend much more to import from elsewhere then employ their own people to drill and liquify their own resources.
Out of sight, out of mind….
Obviously, critical thinking skills have not been employed.
Likewise drillers and laborers in the LNG sector have not been employed.
You must have said skills to employ them. Critical thinking died about the same time as common sense, politeness, and consideration of others.
With the side benefit of financing the next attempt to engineer a “final solution.”
Yes.
Similarly, UK home heating and hot water boilers are all now, by law, condensing. So their efficiency is over 90%. The Government proposes to replace these as they wear out with heat pumps. The heat pumps will use electricity mainly generated by gas, burned in stop start mode to accommodate wind intermittency, and thus with an efficiency around 35%. Then you have the losses in the pumps themselves, and in the transmission to the houses.
The claim is of course that the heat pumps will return a multiple of the electricity used. They are air source, so this is true but not huge. Maybe you get a factor of 2.
So with the aim of saving the planet we replace a process with 90% efficiency with one having something like 70%.
But of course, the wind is free fuel…when it blows.
I’m sure it’ll be far less than 70% after t&d losses are accounted for. Not to mention the heat pumps are not very effective in bitter cold conditions, and the backup is then what, electric resistor heating?! Do we even need to discuss the “efficiency” of those?!
SNP – (Scottish Nationalist Party)
Scottish NSDAP….Party
What is the SNP?
Stupid Numpty Proles
On the plus side, more CO2 means more plants and so Scotland may look as green as Ireland.
Classic example of dogma and ideology driving really bad decisions…..
but…..as far as I know there are no LNG production facilities in the UK. A bunkering facility suggests to me resupply by a small tanker to a larger storage facility/tank. Having worked on an LNG plant, I know how big and complex a “simple storage tank” for LNG needs to be.
from the get-go this fuel would always have had to come to the UK from overseas. Those are big vessels….
and then moved to a smaller LNG tanker?
never going to happen….
It is not a surprise, the U.K. has become an ungovernable mess, the sick man of Europe, still dreaming of being “ruling of the waves”, after two world wars
Scotland should start an Adam Smith Free-Enterprise Party
No big a mess than some other European countries, or the US for that matter. And no, we are not ‘still dreaming of being “ruling of the waves”‘.
France and especially Germany are in even deeper trouble.
There are many more examples of renewable fuels requiring shipping over fast distances defying logic if what you want to do is “Save The Planet”. Neste Oil produces renewable diesel from Used Cooking Oil and animal fats in Singapore but ships the vast majority to California where they receive credits under the Renewable Fuels Standard and the California Low Carbon Fuels Standard. Without these subsidies, there would be no need to do this. But California wants to eliminate all use of crude oil and the State is willing to pay for it using taxpayers funds through the LCFS scheme that is not listed as a tax but as a fee. Fully 45% of all diesel in CA comes from imported renewable diesel (most from Singapore, but much from other states such as TX.
The even more ridiculous import of fuels is importing of Ethanol from Brazil to make Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) which is the darling of the airline industry and fully supported by a White House program to produce 3 Billion Gallons per Year (GPY) of SAF using the Alcohol-to-Jet (ATJ) process. But the US based corn ethanol has too high of Carbon Intensity (too much GHG emission) to be of use to airlines. Corn ethanol based ATJ is no better than conventional crude based jet fuel in terms of CI. So the producers look to import Ethanol from Brazil which is made from Sugar Cane syrup and has lower CI (GHG emissions) so it makes ATJ look better. But it takes 2 gal of EtOH to make one gal of ATJ SAF making ATJ SAF very expensive.
From a renewable fuel producers’ standpoint, it is about profit and not Saving The Planet. They would not and could not exist without subsidies so they ship feedstocks and fuel products to where they make the most money, just like the Evil Oil Companies. Heaven Forbid.
“it is about profit and not Saving The Planet”
It has been from the very beginning. This is exactly the point of the new religion.
Previous cults charged for saving souls. The new one saves the planet.
Otherwise, they are all about power, control and profits.
The article says that the fuel is “driven thousands more miles each year by road.”.
But only says that the fuel is driven 450 miles to Scotland.
Either way it is stupid to do this but there seems something is left out.
Presumably the road tankers have to return to the loading docks empty, load up again and drive back to Scotland. So its the tankers that have to drive thousands of miles during the year.
Sounds reasonable. Thanks.
A pipeline would help with cost and efficiency. Unfortunately the idiots pushing this fiasco are also opposed to pipelines.
It is totally beyond me why anybody would vote for the totally incompetent SNP. They have ruined Scotland over the last decade or so.
We’ve reached the point in the UK where you should expect incompetence whoever you vote for. That’s certainly the case with all parties currently well represented in Westminster or devolved parliaments.
They’ve been trained by the school system to believe that anything provided by government is both free and morally superior to anything provided by evil capitalists.
They have also been trained to believe that any economic failures are the results of too little socialism.
You have to understand it from the perspective of city-dwellers, now that they are in the majority just about everywhere. Their perspective is that cities have services like electricity, water, supermarkets, phones, public transport and/or EV chargers, etc, etc. Nothing actually supplies any of these services, they are just there. Electricity comes out of the wall, Water comes out of the tap. Supermarket food comes out of cardboard boxes. etc.
Yes,but the symbolism. Don’t you Scots feel better about yourselves because you’re doing something?
Canada has plenty of NG they could send. If only our PM could see the business case. So instead we import from the middle east, giving billionz of dollars to people that would like nothing better than to rain nukes down on us.
Dual fuel is plain dumb. A marine diesel will burn just about any oil. Pumping sea water into the exhaust as a scrubber solves the exhaust problem.
An LNG engine needs an OTTO cycle, which means rebuilding the diesel to reduces compression which reduces efficiency.
Regulation is driving this, not common sense
The shortages of LNG created by the Ukraine war are going to expose the folly of using LNG in place of bunker C.
But just look at the progress toward net zero energy that has been made!
[QUOTE FROM ARTICLE]”As a result, LNG must be imported in diesel-powered ships from Qatar to a terminal in England and then driven 450 miles to Scotland.
It is feared that will lead to emissions far in excess of savings generated by the supposedly environmentally friendly engines.”
…said Captain Obvious.
This is the equivalent of flying from New York to Washington DC with a stop-over in Seattle.
Maybe next time, someone planning to switch fuels should arrange for a local supply of the new fuel. But that would require some not-so-common-any-more sense.
How does that add up to the “thousands more miles each year by road?
450 miles, one-way, for one delivery of just a fraction of what is in one shipment. How many miles PER YEAR are driven to deliver the fuel? Thousands.
The Case for Nuclear Cargo Ships
A very in depth article on using SMR’s for powering cargo ships. However, getting from here to there won’t be smooth sailing by any means.
Proof positive why government should not be in the energy business. This is madness.
Yes? It does not matter in the least whether those LNG tanks are built or not. The fuel still has to be transported the same distance from the same source. It doesn’t magically appear in the tanks, any more than electricity magically appears from the socket.
(Well, it does matter, but not for anything that mitigates the “climate crisis.” Sourcing it from Qatar is financing rape and murder, which would be a good thing to stop doing.)
Perhaps Mark Zuckerberg can haul some fuel to Scotland on his newly purchased diesel power 387Ft Mega Yacht “Launchpad”.
This would be more economical than using Jeff Bezos Mega Yacht, since it’s even bigger.
When you get smacked in the head by reality you go looking for weasel words-
Peter van Onselen: Teal MP’s humiliating fossil fuel climbdown (msn.com)
Perfect. Don’t ever try to parody the stupidity of these people: what they dream up in all seriousness will far outdo anything you can dream up as a joke.
Diesel and LNG is a stupid choice! The fuels work in different ways, the ignition method is completely different. I am amazed it works at all, perhaps it doesn’t and that is the reason for overbudget and very late!