Monday 26 January 2009
In absentia
Your blogger has left the light on at the Lighthouse, but is away from the island for a week. Back next Tuesday. Looking at Hebrides News, I notice that MV Isle of Lewis is away for a refit in Denmark, to be fitted with sulphur-belching engines which are better for the environment. Can't quite see the logic behind that, but then I'm only a simple observer, not a mechanic, not Calmac, and overendowed with a propensity towards lateral thinking. Just as well I'm flying back to Stornoway, and not sailing in a cloud of SO2, CO2 and the like. Oh, a plane pollutes as well, doesn't it?
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Now here we can agree, Arnish! What a retrograde step! How much is £600, 000 of the total operating costs of Calmac? And will those savings be passsed on to the consumer?? (Silly question).
ReplyDeleteThe distritc of Scania is surrounded by ferry lanes and heavily-trafficked shipping lanes and on cloudless (was going to write "clear" but that would be a misnomer, see below) days the horizon is not blue but yellow.
Ships, like powerstations, are point sources of emission and it should not be beyond the resourcefullness of global engineering to come up with SO2 scrubbers that would clean the emissions of sulphur and provide a little side-line in a raw material that could be used to make sulphuric acid.
Apparently the global nature of the shipping business makes it extremely hard to regulate. Back to sail!
I can just see you in a cutty sark Barney:-D...oooooooooooooo!
ReplyDeleteAnd wouldn't you like too? But that sort of treat is reserved for others, who shall be nameless....
ReplyDelete