The incredible Icon of the Seas, Royal Caribbean’s flagship, launched in Miami: a floating city with 10 thousand people on board. Which raises controversy over the promised sustainability
It is five times larger than the Titanic, 365 meters long (more than three football fields lined up), has twenty decks, 250,800 gross tons and it can carry 7600 passengers plus 2,350 crew members: Icon of the Seas is the largest cruise ship in the world, part of Royal Caribbean International, and left from Miami for the first Atlantic tour. The godfather, for the record, was the footballer Lionel Messi. Built in the Finnish Meyer Turku shipyards, The Icon of the Seas cost almost two billion dollars and is essentially a floating water park: seven swimming pools, nine hydromassage tubs, 40 bars and restaurants, a mega swimming pool, surf simulators and water slides. water, a waterfall about twenty meters high. And again the AquaDome Area with an amphitheater from which to observe the ocean as if in front of a giant cinema screen and 28 different types of cabins, some so luxurious that they would make a five-star hotel pale.
JEWEL
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There is no doubt that we are faced with a technological and naval work never attempted before but someone, irreverently, defined it as a “human lasagna” comparing the bridges to the layers of the dish and the passengers to the filling. In reality, Icon of the Seas has long been in the sights of environmentalists who dispute what Royal Caribbean claims: she is a latest generation ship, powered by liquefied natural gas – with six Wärtsilä engines that generate 67,500 kW power totals – i.e. the cleanest fuel to use in navigation, which is increasingly used by all the major companies. Furthermore, it is equipped with a system that allows the ship to connect to the electricity grid of the ports where it arrives, so as to avoid keeping the engines running and polluting.
the doubts
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But various studies by environmental organizations, comparing the carbon footprint of a week-long holiday on a European cruise to one where you fly and stay in a hotel, have concluded that a similar cruise ship consumes a eight times higher than a carbon emissions. As has been noted, two ports out of a hundred are currently equipped to allow ‘giants’ of this kind to attach themselves to the electricity grid.
Different data
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The biggest doubt, less ideological but technical, was raised by Bryan Comer, director of the marine program at the International Council on Clean Transport (ICCT). “By our estimates, using LNG as a marine fuel emits more than 120% more lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions than marine diesel,” he said. And he brought up controversial numbers: the most efficient cruise ships emit around 250 g of CO2 per passenger kilometre. Using the same methodology, the carbon intensity of a short-haul flight is approximately 110 g of CO2 per passenger-kilometre. From here the ICCT calculated the emissions of a five-night, 2,000-kilometre cruise in the United States on the most efficient cruise line and compared it to a return flight and a stay of the same length in a hotel. It turned out that the person choosing the cruise would generate approx double the total amount of greenhouse gases of the person who takes a flight, without considering that many people use the plane to reach the ship’s port of departure. Additionally, Corner expressed concerns about potential methane leaks from LNG-type engines. “This extremely potent greenhouse gas has climate impacts more than 80 times greater than CO2 over 20 years.” On the opposite front, Royal Caribbean says Icon of the Seas is 24% more efficient from an energy point of view compared to what is required by the IMO (International Maritime Organization) for modern ships and plans to introduce a zero-emission unit by 2035. The debate on the sustainability of ships of this size is only just beginning: However, never forget a fact that has a very strong weight. An estimate by Future Market Insights highlights that by 2032 cruise tourism will have a value of approximately 17.4 billion dollars, three times what was recorded ten years earlier. Thanks also and above all to the 13 mega flagships with a capacity of over 4,000 passengers, which will come into operation between now and 2028.
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