Environmental impact

[NickCDN]

I went to the SHE manager talk on the last sea day on the Zuiderdam. The SHE manager is Marcel. We watched a propaganda video on environmental initiatives HAL has undertaken, but Marcel refused to discuss the carbon foot print of cruising.

 

My question is this.. Is cruising sustainable form of vacation? The Zuiderdam used an average of 57000 gallons of fuel each day. The translates to 300 gallons or 1154 litres of fuel per passenger based on the 1918 people we had on the boat last week. When you add the carbon foot print from flying to the departure port, I would suspect that more fuel is burned per person than an average person would use in a year for their car (not SUV) based on 12000 miles a year.

 

I personally invest in Canadian oil sands, so the more fuel the better, but these ships must have an enormous carbon foot print.

 

Discuss?

[Shmoo here]

I went to the SHE manager talk on the last sea day on the Zuiderdam. The SHE manager is Marcel. We watched a propaganda video on environmental initiatives HAL has undertaken, but Marcel refused to discuss the carbon foot print of cruising.

 

My question is this.. Is cruising sustainable form of vacation? The Zuiderdam used an average of 57000 gallons of fuel each day. The translates to 300 gallons or 1154 litres of fuel per passenger based on the 1918 people we had on the boat last week. When you add the carbon foot print from flying to the departure port, I would suspect that more fuel is burned per person than an average person would use in a year for their car (not SUV) based on 12000 miles a year.

 

I personally invest in Canadian oil sands, so the more fuel the better, but these ships must have an enormous carbon foot print.

 

Discuss?

 

Why?

[CruiserBruce]

Ah, you have missed a huge number of variables. How is your house heated? How is it powered? How is your drinking water produced? Your sewage "recycled"? Garbage handling and disposal? Remember that 300 gallons takes care of a lot of that.

 

I am sure, if your 300 gallon figure is applied to heating, lighting and otherwise powering your life for that week, the number would have a whole different meaning. Zuiderdam is doing 10 day cruises, so is this figure related to 10 days, or a week? If 300 gallons powered (and to0ok care of a big portion of the other issues mentioned) me for 10 days- that seems pretty reasonable given all the electrical and other needs we have.

[NickCDN]

Why not?

 

Your not the least bit concerned about burning 57000 gallons of bunker oil a day?

[quanta88]

You're probably right - pushing a floating hotel across the world's oceans probably uses quite a bit of fuel.

 

I rationalize it this way - is it more or less sustainable compared to the alternative?

 

Do I use less fuel if I travel by personal vessel? Probably not - cruising allows for economies to scale.

 

Do I use less fuel if we all flew into each port destination? Maybe...but I'm not accounting for the carbon footprint for meals, entertainment, etc.

 

One can argue that one minimizes one's carbon footprint by just staying at home - but that's not the point. Cruising provides a unique vacation that would be unsustainable via another transportation type.

[NickCDN]

Ah, you have missed a huge number of variables. How is your house heated? How is it powered? How is your drinking water produced? Your sewage "recycled"? Garbage handling and disposal? Remember that 300 gallons takes care of a lot of that.

 

I am sure, if your 300 gallon figure is applied to heating, lighting and otherwise powering your life for that week, the number would have a whole different meaning. Zuiderdam is doing 10 day cruises, so is this figure related to 10 days, or a week? If 300 gallons powered (and to0ok care of a big portion of the other issues mentioned) me for 10 days- that seems pretty reasonable given all the electrical and other needs we have.

 

That is based on 10 days. You make a good point here.

[NickCDN]

You're probably right - pushing a floating hotel across the world's oceans probably uses quite a bit of fuel.

 

I rationalize it this way - is it more or less sustainable compared to the alternative?

 

Do I use less fuel if I travel by personal vessel? Probably not - cruising allows for economies to scale.

 

Do I use less fuel if we all flew into each port destination? Maybe...but I'm not accounting for the carbon footprint for meals, entertainment, etc.

 

One can argue that one minimizes one's carbon footprint by just staying at home - but that's not the point. Cruising provides a unique vacation that would be unsustainable via another transportation type.

 

Another very good point. I was just in shock when I was told how much fuel is used daily on a smaller cruise ship.

[CruiserBruce]

I was very interested when I heard, on a 10 Noordam cruise in 2010- don't remember what the price of oil was then- that we went thru $700,000 in fuel oil in 10 days. That is $360 per person for that cruise, assuming 1950 fare paying pax on board. So when you are squeezing that fare done by $1-200, understand what the costs are. We aren't talking about food or the crew costs yet- there is about 700 crew onboard, just the fuel alone.

[Arusha]

Will you give up cruising?

 

You might want to try cruising for several days on a Maine windjammer, such as the Stephen Taber, to see what it's like under canvas sails on a wooden ship. Meals cooked on a woodstove. Shared head. Teeny weeny "carbon footprint."

I loved it, the food was really good, but it's more like camping than what most cruisers want.

 

 

[rafinmd]

I think you're off by a factor of 10. In the handout I got with sister ship Queen Elizabeth, they indicated 58 gallons per hour at full speed, which works out to 66,400 per day, about 33 per person per day over 2000 people. I think ships rarely cruise today at top speed today to save on fuel. At top speed again, that works out to 21 miles traveled per gallon on a per person basis. Not great, but I don't think shameful either. I am concerned about the amount of fuel cruising uses, but I take the position that the ship will sail if I'm on it of if not. The thing I can control is the extra trips I require, and I rationalize it by using shared transportation and public transit as much as possible in my travels.

 

Roy

[NickCDN]

I think you're off by a factor of 10. In the handout I got with sister ship Queen Elizabeth, they indicated 58 gallons per hour at full speed, which works out to 66,400 per day, about 33 per person per day over 2000 people. I think ships rarely cruise today at top speed today to save on fuel. At top speed again, that works out to 21 miles traveled per gallon on a per person basis. Not great, but I don't think shameful either. I am concerned about the amount of fuel cruising uses, but I take the position that the ship will sail if I'm on it of if not. The thing I can control is the extra trips I require, and I rationalize it by using shared transportation and public transit as much as possible in my travels.

 

Roy

 

33 per person over 10 days is 330 gallons. Almost the same as 300 per person for 10 day cruise. The 57000 gallons per day was told to me by captain and cruise log distributed on final day.

[indokiwi]

So sorry, this post has nothing to do with carbon footprints, etc - but I think that this Marcel person would like his name corrected to SEH Officer, and not SHE Officer :o I just checked our last Cruise Log for the fuel information and noticed that it's Safety, Environmental and Health Officer. So, I went back to our final sea day when they had this "Custodians of the Sea" presentation that must be similar to what you attended and it lists "Custodians of the Seawith SEH Officer Mark". Marcel probably would prefer not be called a SHE Officer....that might mean something else entirely :D

[Boytjie]

Why not?

 

Your not the least bit concerned about burning 57000 gallons of bunker oil a day?

 

 

You don't really, apparently:

 

I personally invest in Canadian oil sands, so the more fuel the better, but these ships must have an enormous carbon foot print.

 

:rolleyes:

[IRL_Joanie]

I do not mean this to be snarky or rude or anything in the way of a negative comment, so I hope you will understand my reasoning in asking this question of you............

 

Why are you asking about the Environmental impact now after you've taken your cruise?

 

It would seem to me that you are very concerned about our environment and would have thought of these questions and done research on it before you booked........

 

I am just trying to understand the reason that you took the cruise and then almost immediately upon your return you question the environmental impact:confused:

 

Joanie

[NickCDN]

I do not mean this to be snarky or rude or anything in the way of a negative comment, so I hope you will understand my reasoning in asking this question of you............

 

Why are you asking about the Environmental impact now after you've taken your cruise?

 

It would seem to me that you are very concerned about our environment and would have thought of these questions and done research on it before you booked........

 

I am just trying to understand the reason that you took the cruise and then almost immediately upon your return you question the environmental impact:confused:

 

Joanie

 

I was shocked at the amount of fuel used per person for 10 days. As an investor in oil, this makes me happy, but I admit I was shocked and now wondering if this is sustainable long into the future?

 

As a cruise lover I know we use a of fuel but would never have thought of using 570 000 (2 100 000 litres for non Americans) for a 10 day cruise.

[serendipity1499]

Why not?

 

Your not the least bit concerned about burning 57000 gallons of bunker oil a day?

 

I was shocked at the amount of fuel used per person for 10 days. As an investor in oil, this makes me happy, but I admit I was shocked and now wondering if this is sustainable long into the future?

 

As a cruise lover I know we use a of fuel but would never have thought of using 570 000 (2 100 000 litres for non Americans) for a 10 day cruise.

 

Now that you have been shocked by the amount of fuel used per person for your 10 day cruise, are you going to stay home & stop cruising?:confused:

[Hflors]

I was shocked at the amount of fuel used per person for 10 days. As an investor in oil, this makes me happy, but I admit I was shocked and now wondering if this is sustainable long into the future?

 

As a cruise lover I know we use a of fuel but would never have thought of using 570 000 (2 100 000 litres for non Americans) for a 10 day cruise.

 

I also don't want to come over a critical, but I would like to ask. If you are worried about the impact on the usage of fuel why are you an investor in oil? You have invested in something that you are shocked at the amount that people use. I don't think anyone knows if this is "sustainable long into the future" but I would think that the quarterly reports and year end reports you receive from your investment would give you more of an idea than a message board about cruising. If you are worried about the "carbon footprint" I think you would want to be invested in a green energy co not fuel.

[Duckroll]

Your not the least bit concerned about burning 57000 gallons of bunker oil a day?

 

No.

[DeepWaterMariner]

Sustainability isn't at the top of my worry list, but I guess it would be a reason to like mega ships like the Oasis or Allure. No doubt there are economies of scale that reduces the per passenger carbon usage as ships get larger.

[pirate cruiser]

I think we have come a long way-my first cruise we were shooting skeet off the back of the boat and now we are recycling and conserving water-I asked our capt. 2 wks ago if he had noticed any changes in the oceans in his travels(10 yrs) and he said he had not noticed any-he did say he has not been to antarctica in a long time but overall he had not seen anything obvious-I also asked about biodiesel fuel for the ships-it is not available in large quantities so not yet viable but he said they can request lower sulphur grade fuel when available-so yes I believe cruising is sustainable for a long time