Are the cruises adequate for the seas?

The cruises are one of the most important sources of wealth and work of a country. However, a part of the population is against this tourism model moreover the contamination problems derivative of this high vessels.

A study from the Transport and Environment (Brussels) realized that Barcelona is the European city with more pollution caused by the burned fuel. An estimation of the emission of ships is around 4.7 times more SOx than Barcelona’s cars. The cruises contribute to the atmospheric emission with the SOx and NOx emissions and the climatic change.

The sector rejected all the conclusion from the report, and their revindication is the sustainability of the industry and the implementation of technology to reduce the atmospheric emissions and the substitutions of fossil fuels.

This has arrived at the politic field. The Central Government claimed that Spain had applied the European directive related to the ship’s contamination.

43 % of the world cruises have a gas cleaning system, and the sector has implicated to reduce the global emissions of carbon by 40 % for 2030.

Moreover, 82% of the construction ships have a cleaning gas system or work with a liquefied natural gas.

But one the claim to reduce the cruise contamination is the harbor electrification. Some ships have installed connections to use electricity while they are moored, but currently, only the ports of Bergen and Hamburg are prepared so that cruises can be connected to the electric grid.

However, electrification has a cost. According to the Transport and environment calculation, the complete decarbonization needs a renewable electricity generation additional between 11 and 53 % in Europe.