Cruise Start

 The cruise business continues to rebound from COVID restrictions, although some companies failed and some ships were scrapped. Those hoping for a wakeup call over the massive carbon footprint of the cruise industry remain disppointed. Even such token gestures as shore power, seem to have fallen by the wayside in some ports. 

Despite the Port of Halifax's investment in shore power infrastructure few ships are making use of it as evidenced by today's first arrival of the cruise season. Of course there is something perverse about using Nova Scotia's shoreside electricity which is mostly generated by fossil fuels, including a significant portion by coal. Nevertheless, diesel generators and boilers on ships, pumping out soot if not noxious byproducts, are less efficient than the shoreside generating plants.

The cruise industry may be beneficial to the port, but at what cost to the environment? Someday soon there will be a massive backlash against the despoliation caused by cruise tourism. Although methane, hydrogen, wind, even solar - may be alternatives for ships, they are still a long way off, and will probably not be adopted by older ships. In the meantime enforcement of current standards and use of available shore power should be mandatory.

Today's 2023 inaugural arrival, the Norwegian Dawn was built in 2002 and is thus one of the cruise industry dinosaurs. A product of Meyer Werft in Papenburg, Germany, the 92,250 gt ship has a capacity of 2,340 passengers and 1,032 crew. It holds numerous ECO ratings, and energy and pollution certificates, which are probably the highest current standards, but if these are to be more than window dressing, some better enforcement is obviously needed to prevent the kind of display we saw today.

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