What’s up with liquified natural gas and cruise ships

I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention to the news lately, but the world’s largest cruise ship has hit the high seas and people are super excited.

Reporters have been writing articles and showing tons of videos about the Icon of the Seas, bragging about its amenities, which includes six waterslides, seven pools, ice skating rinks, a theater and it’s eight separate neighborhoods that include 40 restaurants, bars and lounges.

The ship weighs 248,266 gross tons — roughly the size of five Titanics — and can carry 7,600 guests and 2,350 crew members.

The ship runs on liquified natural gas, which, its owner Royal Caribbean Group says is “the cleanest fossil fuel available.”

However, environmentalists say it may burn cleaner, but the builders of the ship didn’t include methane leakage from the fuel system in its emissions calculations.

The environmentalists warn that methane is about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to warming the atmosphere, and scientists have warned that methane emissions must be dramatically reduced to avoid the worst of what the climate crisis has in store.

“It’s a step in the wrong direction,” Bryan Comer, director of the Marine Programme at the International Council on Clean Transportation, was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.

“We would estimate that using LNG as a marine fuel emits over 120% more life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions than marine gas oil,” he said.

For some reason, the federal government has it tentacles into everything we do including the kinds of cars we drive, the fuel we use in those cars, the food we eat, how we use our private lands and how we should power our homes.

So, this ship was allowed to be built even though I’m sure regulators knew the problems with methane emissions. But this is a huge industry, so everyone looks the other way. And it’s easier to bully livestock producers than it is to take on the massive cruise ship industry. From what I’ve been reading, the cruise ship industry is planning to equip all of it ships to run on liquified natural gas.

This begs the question, where’s U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry when he’s desperately needed?

In my mind, this just proves the point that the climate crisis is a sham and that government officials are picking and choosing which industries to regulate, and which can go on unfettered. These government officials are also no doubt benefitting from these regulations.

What is strange about the liquified natural gas issue is that the Biden Administration recently paused exports of new liquified natural gas projects, warning about the health risks that new export facilities post to nearby communities.

So, the president thinks liquified natural gas projects endanger residents but he’s OK with enormous ships being built that use this toxic fuel.

As you can imagine that has driven U.S. natural gas prices down considerably. Maybe Biden has invested in Royal Caribbean. But I think the real reason behind Biden’s action is to cripple Texas, which is one of the largest natural gas producers in the U.S. Biden and Texas governor Greg Abbot are in a battle over illegal immigrants crossing the southern border.