Ports and Bows,
Could it mean higher prices for passengers?
Norwegian Cruise Line announced on July 16 that it will be building two more of the Breakaway Class ships — for the time being dubbed Breakaway Plus. The announcement is fuelling discussion about the new emission controls that will go into effect in 2015 under the North American Emission Control Area standard.
Embedded in Norwegian’s announcement was the fact that the two newest ships, scheduled to arrive in 2015 and 2017, will have the latest innovations in scrubber technology. In case you’re not familiar with scrubbers, they are pollution control devices.
Without going into a lot of the technological detail, starting Jan. 1, 2015, all ships — including cruise ships sailing within a 320-kilometre limit of Canada and the United States — must be compliant with 0.1-per-cent sulphur content in fuel when in North American waters.
Some older ships are testing various makes of scrubbers, which are less expensive alternatives to lowsulphur fuel. However, with just a year-and-a-half to go until the new rules are activated, will the testing be done and the limits be met?
Deadlines can be pushed and cruise lines will be asking for exemptions during the testing.
What if exemptions are not allowed? Then you would expect significantly higher prices for Alaska and for New England-Canada cruises; in both cases, they are within the limit (for most of the cruise) and would be burning higherpriced fuel. I doubt that’s going to happen. The Environmental Protection Agency has indicated that it will provide exemptions if the cruise lines are aggressive in developing new technologies to meet the standards.
However, Carnival has already pushed the “we’re changing” button.
Carnival Pride is moving from Baltimore to Tampa at the end of 2014, and Carnival Glory is moving out of Boston and Norfolk in November this year. The line has also said it will “dramatically reduce” the number of Atlantic Canada cruises next year, all so the ships can spend less time inside the 320-kilometre limit.