Like more Baltimore-style bridge-ship collisions?

According to a news nugget buried deep in a long Washington Post investigative report, ships losing propulsion is shockingly common and can lead to ships running aground or colliding with bridges and other structures. A look at Coast Guard records showed that more than 100 incidents involved huge container ships. One of the reasons they happen is because of greenie fuel mandates.

The story is actually very good and very long, giving the reader a feel for what drives how ports operate.

But that tiny item about greenie environmental regulations forcing ships to change fuel after they have already left port raising the likelihood of more crashes, such as happened when the gargantuan cargo ship Dali lost propulsion and crashed into the Francis Scott Key bridge, taking the entire structure down, could have used a little more attention.

According to the Washington Post (emphasis added):

Ships are at particular risk of losing propulsion when crews are maneuvering in confined waters such as ports, which can place additional demands on power systems, according to a 2017 report by the London P&I Club, a leading maritime insurance firm. Crews changing the type of fuel being used while the ship is underway to comply with regional environmental regulations has also increased the number of propulsion-loss incidents, the report said.

Which raises questions about why some of these greenie fuel mandates are there in the first place.

Green fuel is expensive and scarce, and the problem is worsened by there not being enough to go around for everyone. It can be methane, ammonia, or other odd substances, all of them less fuel-efficient and more expensive than fossil fuels.

Most of these green regulations are focused on emissions, which is utter nonsense for any local port to focus on as the problem is global and there's no such thing as global warming anyway. I was unable to ascertain what kind of local green regulations the Port of Baltimore had for the Dali, but it's worth looking into as these virtue-signaling laws raise risks for ships traversing in and out of the port.

There may be valid reasons for green fuel mandates to prevent local water pollution or toxics going in the water, but the idea that having ships changing fuel on the journey is the only solution, given the risks, just goes to show how badly greenies plan for anything.

After all, forcing ships to change fuel would hardly the only way to fix this. If the mandate is just about water pollution and not CO2 emissions, there may be ways for ships to pay a fee for harbor cleanup to get them in and out of port efficiently instead of focused on the delicate task of changing fuels which can lead to electrical blowouts, such as happened on the Dali before it crashed into the bridge.

Everything involved with green regulations has tradeoffs, checks and balances, and on the left, they don't like checks and balances, let alone planning for unintended consequences. If green fuel mandates had anything to do with why the Dali collided, the greens have lots to answer for.

In the meantime, the Post's report said that the risks are elevated from these green requirements and the rest of us need to ask 'why?'

Image: www.GlynnLowe.com via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 2.0