Interesting article

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This was posted on Maritime Executive as well.

Pretty fascinating! One fact, not mentioned in the article, is that large oil-consuming devices (ships, commercial boilers, etc.) burn heavier grades of oil, not our locally-regulated low-sulphur diesel.
 
You are quite right about ocean going freighters and tankers burning heavier oil than the low sulfur diesel we use.

Outside of territorial waters, these ships can burn No 6 fuel oil, sometimes known as Bunker C oil. It is the "bottom of the barrel", black and so heavy that it has to be kept in heated tanks to be able to pump it. It has as much as 5% sulfur which is thousands of times higher than the diesel we use.

David
 
What I found pretty amazing is the evident correlation when you look at the lightning density map and the ocean crossing lines!

L
 
Interesting article. Not something I would ever have thought of.
 
obviously its just a coincidence and its a normal geologic cycle and humans have nothing to do with it. :p
 
I don't know, if that study is true there should be a perpetual thunderstorm over Elizabeth/Linden, New Jersey.
 
While the Elizabeth/Linden, NJ area is a mess, just like the LA/Long Beach area, it is probably due as much to the diesel trucks who pick up that cargo as the ships that deliver it.

Ocean going ships are requried to switch to 0.5% sulfur fuel as they cross into our territorial waters. So they maintain small tanks for that fuel. It is a big drop from the 5% sulfur fuel that they use in open waters, but a lot more than the 10 ppm diesel required for trucks.

But unless the ports of Elizabeth/Linden buy back diesel rigs and replace them with low polluting common rail engines like LA/Long Beach have done, you will still get a lot of soot and NOx from those engines.

David
 
obviously its just a coincidence and its a normal geologic cycle and humans have nothing to do with it. :p



Yeah must be a magnetic disturbance in these areas that attract the lightnings and as boat are made of steel they are attracted too. Pure coincidence... or ET intervention to fool us!

L
 
Lighting off boilers on an old steam ship is quite a production, and it can be dangerous.

There are not many around anymore, and even fewer people who know how to operate them..

If I remember correctly, in the mid 80s Maine Maritime Academy blew up a boiler and some Cadets were hurt when they lost flame in the boiler, and lit it back up off the residual heat, and in the process created an explosive atmosphere.

Not a "green" way to produce to energy and the waste gasses can be extensive.
 

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