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The port of Baltimore claims to be in talks with another major line to replace her in the future. Most likely NCL or Celebrity may return. For now only Royal Caribbean is scheduled to remain in 2015.
And it's not just the Chesapeake - the ECA stretches 200 miles from the US coastline, so even a cruise to the Caribbean is basically within the ECA until you hit the Bahamas.
These cruises are all extremely price sensitive and the extra cost of the distillate fuel would add an estimated $140 to the cost of the ticket on a 7-day cruise.
But cruises are not the half of it - wait until early 2015 and see what a sharp rise there is in the costs of consumer goods arriving through US ports.
Tim
I don't know the ins and outs but did the EPA approve the use of scrubbers instead or not?
Pam
yes, the operational and logistical challenges are numerous - esp. the switching back and forth as many of the older engines do not fare well with this. I liken it to running your car alternately on diesel and distillate. From what I understand, many of the ships built within the past five years or so have fared better but on a passenger ship, one of the biggest problems is having adequate bunker capacity.
So far as to my knowledge, the EPA has not issued any waivers for scrubbers which is part of the big problem. Cruise lines need to set deployments 15 to 18 months out, so lines cannot wait for the EPA to decide at this time next year whether or not scrubbers are acceptable.
Funny that considering how many of the EU nations are embracing the scrubber technology - a great example is the new Viking Star.
With the amount of waste food prep oils floating around I am amazed that someone has not set up a large system in Florida to refine the waste oils into a biodiesel blend.
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