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Everything has a cooler name when you’re on a boat. A kitchen becomes a galley. You’re not parked, you’re at berth. There is even a fun, old-timey name for cutting emissions when you’re at port by plugging into the local power grid: cold ironing.
Right now, lots of smart people are working to lower ship emissions, and for good reason: Container ships cart between 80% and 90% of global trade, yet more than 95% of them run on petroleum products (mainly an extremely dirty sludge called bunker fuel). By one estimate, a single large ship can emit as much CO2 as 70,000 cars, as much nitrogen oxide as 2 million cars, and as much fine dust and carcinogenic particles as 2.5 million cars. By another estimate, shipping pollution is responsible for 60,000 premature deaths per year. Though fully electrifying container ships remains distant and challenging for a number of reasons (albeit not for lack of trying), alternate fuel sources ranging from liquid natural gas to ammonia to hydrogen to nuclear propulsion to that oldie but goodie, wind, are all on the table.
Until that gets sorted out, though, container ships need to keep doing what they’re doing, which is moving stuff (we can all remember what happens when they don’t!). And that means the ships need to berth at ports to transfer their cargo, idling all the while with their auxiliary engines so the crew onboard has basic power for things like emergency equipment, lights, plumbing, temperature controls, and refrigeration. This is bad for all the same reasons a car idling for days on end would be bad if that car used the energy of a small town. It’s also bad for another reason that usually only gets mentioned in passing: Idling container ships are really, really loud.
The ‘Rio de Janeiro’ ship auxiliary generator noise at 30mwww.youtube.com
When you hear about container ships being loud, it’s usually in the context of distressing whales. That’s because container ships are also noisy when they’re at sea, and most marine life depends on sound and sonar that gets drowned out by human activity. But much of the sound a ship at sea makes comes from its propellors, a design issue that will require solutions regardless of what kind of energy source is powering the ship.
At berth, though, container ships continue to make a racket. “During port stay, [the diesel generator] will often be the most predominant source of noise radiating from the ship to the surroundings,” a 2010 paper on noise pollution by the Danish Ministry of the Environment found. According to a report by Signol, a U.K.-based software company that markets its product as a potential solution for inefficient idling, “in close proximity to auxiliary engines, noise levels can reach 80-120 decibels — in comparison, a chainsaw averages 110 decibels!”
It’s a given that ports are loud: Idling ship engines join a cacophony of cranes, trucks, heavy machinery, trains, horns, and the like. Historically, this was fine, since ports were usually built away from residential areas, on land zoned for industry. But as cities grow more crowded, former industrial areas are becoming residential; some 39 million Americans lived near ports according to a 2016 EPA estimate, many of them people of color. “Complaints about noise from seagoing ships at berth are increasingly becoming an environmental issue ... mainly due to the rising population in residential areas around ports, the increase in the number of residential areas being built closer to the port itself, and changing expectations from people living in these residential areas,” explained the Noise Exploration Program To Understand Noise Emitted by Seagoing ships (NEPTUNES), a now-defunct collaboration between 11 ports in Europe, Australia, and Canada.
And whales aren’t the only mammals that hate ship noise. “Research on the effects of low-frequency noise has … shown that this is a stressor that can lead to headaches, dizziness, insomnia, depression, loss of concentration, and distortion of heart rhythm” in humans, the NEPTUNES report added.
Beyond health concerns, the noise is also just ... really annoying. In 2019, residents of Port Otago, New Zealand, were terrorized by what sounded like “a V8 running in your driveway” but were in fact 10-year-old container ships idling out in the harbor.
In Vancouver, in 2022, residents offered a similar simile for their acoustic tormentors: “It’s like having a garbage truck revving at the bottom of your driveway all day long,” one local told Vancouver Is Awesome.
When a supply-chain-related backlog forced container ships to idle off Seattle in 2021, an afflicted islander complained, “We’re getting the noise, the throbbing noise at night.”
Even in the best of circumstances, container ship noise is a persistent nuisance; some have even attributed a worldwide phenomenon called “the hum” to the racket made by container ship generators.
Everyone hates how container ships sound.www.youtube.com
Addressing the problem of ship noise, though, is tricky. There isn’t an international standard for how loud ships can be, and the most NEPTUNES was ultimately able to do was produce a list of unenforceable “best practices.” Many of the recommendations would also be tricky to implement on pre-existing vessels. While boats can be built to be quieter from the get-go, container ships are in circulation for decades; it might be 20 years or more before quiet fleets take over.
Ports also don’t want to rock the boat: “A strict noise policy is ... seen as a competitive disadvantage,” noted a 2013 study by Sweden’s Transport Research Institute (TRI), noting that shipowners must obey a long list of mandatory environmental regulations that they’re loathe to follow voluntary ones.
Thankfully for anyone who’s ever had to listen to the monotonous chuckling of a ship generator, two birds can be killed with one stone. Remember cold ironing? The term harkens back to the age of coal-fired ship engines: At port, the fires didn’t need to be fed, and the ship’s iron engines were allowed to go cold. Today, cold ironing refers to when a ship turns off all its engines at berth — including the smaller auxiliary ones belching sulfur oxide, nitrogen oxide, and CO2 over port cities — and instead plugs into onshore power (or “OSP,” in the industry lingo). “The overall emitted sound ... of a ship at berth could be reduced by up to 5 to 10 decibels by replacing the use of auxiliary engine(s) with external power suppliers,” NEPTUNES found.
In the EPA’s sexily titled “Shore Power Technology Assessment at U.S. Ports — 2022 Update,” the agency reported that there are currently 10 American ports that offer OSP for container and cruise ships, including the ports of Seattle, Tacoma, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Brooklyn (future upgrades are planned for Miami and Galveston). By all accounts, it’s working on both the environmental and the noise pollution fronts. “Port representatives report that neighbors notice when the shore power system is non-operational and vessels are emitting at-berth, compared to times when vessels are plugged in with no emissions coming from the vessel stacks and engine noise is reduced,” the EPA wrote. Unsurprisingly, “The community is strongly in support of the shore power system at the port.”
Cold ironing doesn’t reduce all port noise, of course; you can still expect the clanging of dropped containers, the vibration of ships, and the rumble of trucks and trains. There are other considerations, too: On-shore power generation needs to be low-emission, otherwise you’re just transferring pollution from the ship to the power plant. Still, the EPA is optimistic, noting that almost anything is better than ship engine emissions and that the situation will only improve as renewables roll out in force.
The possibilities only get more exciting from there. Stillstrom, a subsidiary of the Danish shipping conglomerate Maersk, is working on creating “charging buoys” that can power idling ships before they dock via underwater cables connected to offshore wind farms or onshore renewable power sources. OSP availability is rapidly expanding in the meantime. The Port of Seattle aims to install shore power at all of its major cruise and container berths by 2030. Starting this year, California will require 90% of vessels berthing at state-regulated ports to either use shore power or an approved emissions-reducing alternative. Abroad, the Port of Rotterdam is also working toward 90% shore power usage by 2030, and other European ports are pursuing OSP, too.
The impacts will be huge. The California Air Resources Board, for example, boasts its regulations will result in a 90% reduction in pollution from ships at port — and a 55% reduction in potential cancer risk.
That is, of course, great and worthy of pursuing in and of itself. “People will live longer, healthier lives” is a pretty unbeatable top line. But let’s not forget there are other laudable upsides to plugging in container ships — like living those longer lives in blessed peace and quiet.
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On executive orders, the Supreme Court, and a “particularly dangerous situation” in Los Angeles.
Current conditions:Nearly 10 million people are under alert today for fire weather conditions in southern California • The coastal waters off China hit their highest average temperature, 70.7 degrees Fahrenheit, since record-keeping began • A blast of cold air will bring freezing temperatures to an estimated 80% of Americans in the next week.
High winds returned to Los Angeles on Monday night and will peak on Tuesday, the “most dangerous” day of the week for the city still battling severe and deadly fires. In anticipation of the dry Santa Ana winds, the National Weather Service issued its highest fire weather warning, citing a “particularly dangerous situation” in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties for the first time since December 2020.
A new brush fire, the Auto Fire, ignited in Oxnard, Ventura County, on Monday evening. It spread 55 acres before firefighters stopped it. Meanwhile, investigators continue to look for the cause of the Palisades Fire, which ignited near a week-old burn scar, a popular partying spot, and damaged wooden utility poles, according to a New York Times analysis.
National Weather Service
Trump is planning an executive order banning offshore wind developments on the East Coast, Heatmap’s Jael Holzman reported Monday. The news came from New Jersey Republican Representative Jeff Van Drew, who said he’s working with Trump’s team to “to prevent this offshore wind catastrophe from wreaking havoc on the hardworking people who call our coastal towns home.”
Van Drew’s press release also said that this order is “just the beginning,” and that it would be finalized “within the first few months of the administration,” a far cry from the Day One action Trump has promised. Van Drew had earlier told New Jersey reporters that the ban would last six months.
Meanwhile, in other executive order news, Biden issued an order on Tuesday directing the Energy and Defense departments to lease federal lands for “gigawatt-scale” data centers, according to E&E News, but only if they bring online enough clean energy to match their facilities’ needs.
On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to hear a lawsuit brought by Utah attempting to seize control of the “unappropriated” federal lands in the state. Opponents argued that the lawsuit, if successful, would have put public lands across the West on the path to privatization since Utah and other states likely couldn’t afford to manage them and would have had to sell off much of them. However, “while the Court’s decision denying original review of Utah’s claims is welcome news for our shared public lands, we fully expect Utah’s misguided attacks to continue,” Alison Flint, the senior legal director at The Wilderness Society, said in a statement.
As I reported last month, the Utah lawsuit organizers “seem prepared to make an appeal to Congress or the Trump administration if the Supreme Court doesn’t make a move in their favor,” given that “funding for the messaging for Stand for Our Land, the publicity arm of the lawsuit, has reportedly outpaced the spending on lawyers.
Also on Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear a fossil fuel industry argument to block states, municipalities, and other groups from seeking damages for the harms caused by climate change. The appeal by Sunoco, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and others stemmed from a high-profile lawsuit in Honolulu that seeks to hold energy companies accountable for causing “a substantial portion” of the effects of climate change. Had the Supreme Court taken up the case, similar lawsuits by California and others likely would have been paused during deliberations. The American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, responded to Monday’s decision by claiming activists will now “make themselves the nation’s energy regulators.”
A little over a week after the start of New York City’s congestion pricing, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority released data showing significant decreases in the amount of time passengers spend in inbound traffic. On average, during the morning commute, traffic times have decreased by 30% to 40%; in some cases, such as during rush hour in the Holland Tunnel, travel time has been cut in half, going from over 11 minutes to under five. Due to the traffic reductions, some bus routes are up to 28% faster now than at the same time last year. “It has been a very good week here in New York,” MTA deputy chief Juliette Michaelson said in a news conference.
So far, the MTA has seen an average of 43,000 fewer drivers entering the congestion pricing zone, which begins below 60th St. and costs $9 during the day. While Gothamist notes that this is only a 7.3% reduction compared to last January, many New Yorkers say congestion pricing effects are visibly noticeable in the streets of lower Manhattan.
The Brooklyn Bridge as congestion pricing went into effect. Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Oil and gas magnate Harold Hamm is throwing a “swanky party” to celebrate the inauguration of Donald Trump, on whose campaign he spent more than $4.3 million, according to the research group Fieldnotes and The New York Times. Interior Secretary nominee Doug Burgum was among the invitees, although an advisor has said he does not plan to attend; one of the party’s several major oil and gas industry sponsors, Liberty Energy, was founded by Chris Wright, Trump’s nominee for Energy Secretary.
In May, Trump met with oil and gas executives at his Mar-a-Lago resort and promised industry-friendly tax and regulatory policies and an aggressive stance against wind energy if they helped fund his White House bid. The oil and gas industry ultimately invested some $75 million in efforts to help re-elect the former president and contributed millions to his legal defense.
25% — That’s the level of tariff Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said Canada should prepare for after a meeting with incoming President Trump — and not expect exceptions for its crude oil exports to the U.S., per Bloomberg’s Javier Blas.
Though it might not be as comprehensive or as permanent as renewables advocates have feared, it’s also “just the beginning,” the congressman said.
President-elect Donald Trump’s team is drafting an executive order to “halt offshore wind turbine activities” along the East Coast, working with the office of Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, the congressman said in a press release from his office Monday afternoon.
“This executive order is just the beginning,” Van Drew said in a statement. “We will fight tooth and nail to prevent this offshore wind catastrophe from wreaking havoc on the hardworking people who call our coastal towns home.”
The announcement indicates that some in the anti-wind space are leaving open the possibility that Trump’s much-hyped offshore wind ban may be less sweeping than initially suggested.
In its press release, Van Drew’s office said the executive order would “lay the groundwork for permanent measures against the projects,” leaving the door open to only a temporary pause on permitting new projects. The congressman had recently told New Jersey reporters that he anticipates only a six-month moratorium on offshore wind.
The release also stated that the “proposed order” is “expected to be finalized within the first few months of the administration,” which is a far cry from Trump’s promise to stop projects on Day 1. If enacted, a pause would essentially halt all U.S. offshore wind development because the sought-after stretches of national coastline are entirely within federal waters.
Whether this is just caution from Van Drew’s people or a true moderation of Trump’s ambition we’ll soon find out. Inauguration Day is in less than a week.
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Imagine for a moment that you’re an aerial firefighter pilot. You have one of the most dangerous jobs in the country, and now you’ve been called in to fight the devastating fires burning in Los Angeles County’s famously tricky, hilly terrain. You’re working long hours — not as long as your colleagues on the ground due to flight time limitations, but the maximum scheduling allows — not to mention the added external pressures you’re also facing. Even the incoming president recently wondered aloud why the fires aren’t under control yet and insinuated that it’s your and your colleagues’ fault.
You’re on a sortie, getting ready for a particularly white-knuckle drop at a low altitude in poor visibility conditions when an object catches your eye outside the cockpit window: an authorized drone dangerously close to your wing.
Aerial firefighters don’t have to imagine this terrifying scenario; they’ve lived it. Last week, a drone punched a hole in the wing of a Québécois “Super Scooper” plane that had traveled down from Canada to fight the fires, grounding Palisades firefighting operations for an agonizing half-hour. Thirty minutes might not seem like much, but it is precious time lost when the Santa Ana winds have already curtailed aerial operations.
“I am shocked by what happened in Los Angeles with the drone,” Anna Lau, a forestry communication coordinator with the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, told me. The Montana DNRC has also had to contend with unauthorized drones grounding its firefighting planes. “We’re following what’s going on very closely, and it’s shocking to us,” Lau went on. Leaving the skies clear so that firefighters can get on with their work “just seems like a no-brainer, especially when people are actively trying to tackle the situation at hand and fighting to save homes, property, and lives.”
Courtesy of U.S. Forest Service
Although the Super Scooper collision was by far the most egregious case, according to authorities there have been at least 40 “incidents involving drones” in the airspace around L.A. since the fires started. (Notably, the Federal Aviation Administration has not granted any waivers for the air space around Palisades, meaning any drone images you see of the region, including on the news, were “probably shot illegally,” Intelligencer reports.) So far, law enforcement has arrested three people connected to drones flying near the L.A. fires, and the FBI is seeking information regarding the Super Scooper collision.
Such a problem is hardly isolated to these fires, though. The Forest Service reports that drones led to the suspension of or interfered with at least 172 fire responses between 2015 and 2020. Some people, including Mike Fraietta, an FAA-certified drone pilot and the founder of the drone-detection company Gargoyle Systems, believe the true number of interferences is much higher — closer to 400.
Law enforcement likes to say that unauthorized drone use falls into three buckets — clueless, criminal, or careless — and Fraietta was inclined to believe that it’s mostly the former in L.A. Hobbyists and other casual drone operators “don’t know the regulations or that this is a danger,” he said. “There’s a lot of ignorance.” To raise awareness, he suggested law enforcement and the media highlight the steep penalties for flying drones in wildfire no-fly zones, which is punishable by up to 12 months in prison or a fine of $75,000.
“What we’re seeing, particularly in California, is TikTok and Instagram influencers trying to get a shot and get likes,” Fraietta conjectured. In the case of the drone that hit the Super Scooper, it “might have been a case of citizen journalism, like, Well, I have the ability to get this shot and share what’s going on.”
Emergency management teams are waking up, too. Many technologies are on the horizon for drone detection, identification, and deflection, including Wi-Fi jamming, which was used to ground climate activists’ drones at Heathrow Airport in 2019. Jamming is less practical in an emergency situation like the one in L.A., though, where lives could be at stake if people can’t communicate.
Still, the fact of the matter is that firefighters waste precious time dealing with drones when there are far more pressing issues that need their attention. Lau, in Montana, described how even just a 12-minute interruption to firefighting efforts can put a community at risk. “The biggest public awareness message we put out is, ‘If you fly, we can’t,’” she said.
Fraietta, though, noted that drone technology could be used positively in the future, including on wildfire detection and monitoring, prescribed burns, and communicating with firefighters or victims on the ground.
“We don’t want to see this turn into the FAA saying, ‘Hey everyone, no more drones in the United States because of this incident,’” Fraietta said. “You don’t shut down I-95 because a few people are running drugs up and down it, right? Drones are going to be super beneficial to the country long term.”
But critically, in the case of a wildfire, such tools belong in the right hands — not the hands of your neighbor who got a DJI Mini 3 for Christmas. “Their one shot isn’t worth it,” Lau said.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that the Québécois firefighting planes are called Super Scoopers, not super soakers.