As David Hughes reports, the creation of an emissions control area for North America presents shipping with a tough challenge on reducing particulate matter emissions
The US and Canada have asked the IMO to create an emissions control area (ECA) around the two countries coastline, extending 200 miles out to sea. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Environment Canada announced the move at the end of March, saying that they expected that the ECA would save up to 8,300 American and Canadian lives every year by 2020.
This is an important and long overdue step in our efforts to protect the air and water along our shores, and the health of the people in our coastal communities, said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. We want to ensure the economic strength of our port cities at the same time that we take responsible steps to protect public health and the environment in the United States and across the globe.
US Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said: We have known for a long time that our families that live around ports have a higher rate of respiratory illness, including cancer. EPAs announcement today is music to my ears because it means the United States is stepping forward to take a strong leadership role on clean air around ports.
The headline news is that ships within the ECA will have to use fuel with no more than 1,000 parts per million sulphur beginning in 2015, or achieve the same result through abatement technology, and new ships must used advanced nitrous oxide emission control technologies beginning in 2016.
Cutting down on PM
Perhaps of even greater significance is the imposition of an 85% reduction in particulate matter (PM) by 2015.
The recently formed Exhaust Gas Cleaning Systems Association (EGCSA) seized on this aspect of the proposed ECA and made a claim that if borne out will have major implications for the bunker industry. EGCSA says that small PM emitted from ships cannot be met by changing fuels alone. It claims that marine scrubbing technology can meet targets announced by the US and Canada for the planned North American Emissions Control Areas (ECAs).
EGCSA sees the proposed ECA in North America as an opportunity for shipping to widely incorporate abatement technologies in order to meet the impending laws.
An EGCSA statement says: This is the worlds first substantial ruling for the reduction of particulate matter from large ocean-going vessels; while Emission Control Areas (ECAs) have been prevalent in Europe since 2006, neither of the European ECAs (The Baltic Sea and North Sea) have targeted the reduction of particulate matter, which is widely recognised as a major cause of cancer and other cardiovascular diseases in coastal areas.
It had been widely thought by many parties involved in the debate on emissions that a switch to low-sulphur distillate fuel, although expensive and imposing considerable strain on the oil industrys ability to provide sufficient supplies, would solve the emissions question.
However, EGCSA says: The decision to include particulate matter is even more significant as shipowners will be required to do more than switch to cleaner marine diesel or gasoil fuel, which can only reduce particulate matter by a nominal amount, while smaller and more harmful 2.5 micron particles may even increase when using cleaner fuels.
It adds that several companies have developed scrubbing technology for marine applications with test results from sea trials revealing particulate matter reduction of around 80%. EGCSA says that its members are confident that this figure can be substantially improved with further development.
Donald Gregory, Director of EGCSA, said: The US-Canada directive for 230 mile ECAs on the North American East and West coasts sets a new precedent for the reduction in pollution from ships. It has been well-documented that SOx and NOx emissions controls have been put in place through IMO MARPOL Annex VI; however, particulate matter has been overlooked, up until now.
This new ruling gives a clear mandate for the adoption of scrubbing technologies for the 90,000 port calls that are made by vessels every year in the US and Canada simply switching to a lighter marine diesel or gasoil will be a prohibitively costly means of meeting the proposed legislation, Gregory added.
A mandate for distillates?
However, independent tanker owners group Intertanko, which has championed a switch to distillate, says it is standing by its view that the shipping industry should switch to distillate fuels.
ECGSA says marine scrubbing technology can meet targets announced by the US and Canada for the planned North American ECAs while distillate fuels could not.
Intertankos technical director Dragos Rauta said: Intertanko has always recognised that changing to cleaner fuel alone would not provide the ultimate solution. Scrubbers do not provide it either. But Intertanko strongly believes that, in order to achieve the best environmental result, ships need to have a two-step approach: 1. Address the cause of the problem, namely switch to low-sulphur distillate fuels 2. After that, use filters and other technologies to clean the exhaust further, as much as possible.
He continues: The theory of using scrubbers has always been promoted for its alleged economical advantage namely ships continue to use dirty residual fuel because it is cheap. In promoting a product, the maker will always present his product in the best light possible. But such promotion should be more clear on the practicality, efficiency and reliability of scrubbing on different types and sizes of ships. For large ships like tankers, the dimensions and number of scrubbers required would create a lot of practical problems. But what about the reliability? What if the scrubber systems (eg pumps) break down in the middle of the 200 nm ECA declared by US/Canada? What would the ship do? Shut down the engine until the scrubber works again, with the associated safety risks (irrespective of weather conditions) or continue to run and thus breach MARPOL Annex VI regulations?
Rauta claims: The solution proposed by Intertanko is more reliable, although it may not be not the cheapest. If one puts environmental protection and human health first, then the Intertanko solution is the answer. Transportation at sea is cheap when compared with the final price paid by consumers of any item/cargo transported by ships. So, the Intertanko solution would not make too much of an impact on the final price of the product. Therefore, we are confident that the market will absorb the increased operational expenses and shipowners would get the income necessary to stay in the sea transportation business.
However, let us also remember that government taxes (import/export, VAT, etc.) add quite a lot (up to 50% in some cases) to the final price of any product, particularly petroleum products . So, should these governments want to be proactive, at least during a transition period, they could fine-tune the level of these taxes to promote and stimulate the switch to marine distillates. The income losses would certainly be only a fraction of the expenses governments are assumed to have, should one take Jim Corbetts figures for granted. So, a mature thinker might conclude that even governments could make a net profit, should they take the right decisions.
Rauta was referring to University of Delaware academic Jim Corbett who said recently: When there is a clear signal that something will work, then the industry will react. Before the US added sulphur scrubbing on power plants there was a thought that the unit cost would be $2,000 per tonne of SOx, but once the regulation was passed the price came in at $200 to $400 per tonne when the market knew what was needed its likely to be a good news story once the signal is given.
Concluding, Rauta said that Intertanko has presented what we believe is the best solution to all parties and what we believe will lead to the best environmental benefit for the health and well-being of human beings (on board and ashore), and the marine environment. He added: Ship crews, often forgotten in the statistics, will have a much cleaner working and living environment.
This debate is now warming up and clearly has a long way to run. One intriguing possibility is that ships which switch to diesel to meet the SOX requirements may then need to fit a scrubber of some sort to remove PM. Quite what the economics, and carbon footprint implications, of that could be will no doubt be the subject of study before too long.
Source:worldbunkering