Tag: reducing shipping emissions

My presentation on emissions regulations may be a little controversial because I'll discuss about things that more and more people start to realize but so far nobody likes to speak about. The IMO makes environmental regulations by looking at one issue at a time and that sometimes results in regulations which have conflicting effects with other environmental issues. The pressure at IMO to do something fast is high and as a result, the regulation may come before technologies are ready or without enough scientific justification for the effectiveness of the regulation, such as the example of ballast water treatment or even by over simplifying the problem, like in my opinion is the example of EEDI and EEOI. This is not a 100% IMO's fault because Member States threaten to proceed with their own regulations if IMO doesn't do it. ECAs will come down to a limit of 0.1% sulfur from next year with an intention for a global ECA for fuel to be used to contain only 0.5% of sulfur from 2020. However, science tells us that reducing SOx warms the atmosphere i.e. SOx cools the atmosphere according to an article from a scientific magazine actually written by eminent scientists, ...

Rickmers-Linie has declared its support for the introduction of stricter sulphur regulations but expects that they will inevitably lead to an increase in the cost of marine fuels. "While shipping is already the most environmentally friendly mode of transport, the new regulations help to further reduce the impact on the environment and our health," says Ulrich Ulrichs, Chief Executive Officer of Rickmers-Linie. "But low sulphur fuels are more expensive and growing demand is widely expected to further increase the costs of these fuels." The new regulations come into effect on 1 January 2015 in the Emission Control Areas (ECA) in the US and Canada as well as the North Sea, English Channel and the Baltic Sea (see map). The maximum content of sulphur allowed in marine fuels used in the ECAs will be 0.1%, compared to 1.0% today. Outside the ECAs, sulphur content in marine fuels will need to be reduced from the current 3.5% to 0.5% by the year 2020. As the result of a review by the IMO in 2018, this deadline might however still be postponed to 2025. "Rickmers-Linie fully supports the introduction of the new regulations," says Mr Ulrichs. "Using these fuels during navigation in the ...

Damen Marine Components will supply a total eight 5,050 millimetre propeller nozzles for four ultra long distance towing and anchor handling vessel newbuildings. They are the largest nozzles that DMC will have manufactured with its spinning machine technique to date. The order was granted by Caterpillar Propulsion of Gothenburg. Caterpillar is to provide the complete main propulsion units and has commissioned Damen Marine Components, a member of the Damen Shipyards Group, to design, engineer and produce the nozzle and head box sets. The four sister vessels are under construction in Japan for ALP Maritimes Services, a recently acquired Teekay Offshore Partners subsidiary. The 300+ tonne bollard pull, 24,400 BHP ocean towing and anchor handling vessels will have two propulsion units each in a CPP stern-drive and rudder configuration. "We'll manufacture the nozzles with the spinning machine in our plant in Jiang Yin, China", DMC director Steef Staal says about the novel manufacturing technique which includes one single weld only. The nozzles - of DMC's Optima design - have a 5,050 millimetre inside diameter to accommodate a 5,000 mm CP propeller. They will outsize any nozzle manufactured with DMC's first spinning machine in the plant in Gdansk, Poland. The nozzles' 0.5 ...

BSR's Clean Cargo Working Group's 2014 "Global Maritime Trade Lane Emissions Factors" report-which provides data from more than 2,900 ships, representing around 85 percent of global ocean container capacity-indicates that average carbon-dioxide emissions for global ocean container transport have declined year on year, and by nearly 8 percent between 2012 and 2013. While changes in carrier representation or global trade conditions may account for part of the emissions reductions described in the report, the continued performance improvement is also attributed to carrier fleet efficiency and year-on-year improvements in data quality. The report, which includes data from 23 of the world's leading ocean container carriers, helps global ocean transport providers and their shipping customers to measure, evaluate, and report on environmental performance data. Additionally, for the first time, the report includes aggregated average utilization factors for each trade lane. Users can include this data in carbon-footprint calculations as a more accurate approach to calculating shipment-level transport performance. The analysis of the data over the two-year period assessed show that the average utilization across all the largest trade lanes is close to 70 percent, with some variation from year to year. "By reporting using a standardized methodology, the ocean container sector is ...

A small group of EMSA staff were recently invited by Royal Caribbean Cruises and Tui to view the new Hybrid Scrubber System that has been installed on Tui Cruises new ship, the Mein Schiff 3, which had called into Lisbon during its maiden cruise to Malta. During the visit the EMSA group was given a presentation on the exhaust gas cleaning system installed on board, which is currently under trial. They also visited the engine room to see the system in situ and were briefed on how the system removes sulphur oxides from the exhaust gases. The Hybrid Scrubber System enables the ship to meet the requirements of MARPOL Annex VI and the EC Sulphur Directive (2012/33/EU), without using low sulphur fuel. Source & Image Credit : EMSAIn the beginning, I was open with you propecia before and after has changed my essence. It has become much more fun, and now I have to run. Just as it is improbable to sit.

The Danish Shipowners' Association expects the new Italian presidency to take the lead in the implementation of the EU's MRV proposals, which will restrict CO2 emissions for shipping. Italy took over the EU presidency from Greece on 1 July, and the Danish shipping industry has great expectations of both the Italians and, naturally, the new parliament, which will get started in earnest after the summer holidays. Italy's tenure marks the beginning of a new presidency trio, consisting of Italy (1 July 2014), Latvia (1 January 2015) and Luxembourg (1 July 2015) respectively. This means that the Italian presidency will set the course for the Council's programme for the next 18 months. For many, the summer has been dominated by the football World Cup. But the Italians in particular must have had plenty of opportunity to prepare themselves for taking on their new EU responsibilities because, as you know, they checked out of the World Cup early in mid-June, following the first round of matches. But there are now also even stronger professional reasons for the Danish shipping industry's great expectations. Apart from putting innovation, competitiveness and employment on the agenda, the Italian presidency also wants to focus more closely on ...

The UK P&I Club issued a Knowledge bulletin regarding the stepped up enforcement in the North American ECA. In a new enforcement initiative, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in cooperation with the United States Coast Guard (USCG), has boarded vessels to collect bunker samples to determine whether the vessels’ fuel sources meet the 1.0% fuel oil sulphur limit applicable within the North American Emissions Control Area (ECA). The EPA also disclosed that it has been “experimenting” with vessel flyovers to assess vessel smokestack plumes for the same purpose. The EPA’s unprecedented action, coming on the heels of its issuance of administrative subpoenas to several large companies operating ships within the North American ECA, announced stepped up efforts to enforce low sulphur fuel requirements within the North American ECA. Until this recent initiative, EPA and USCG officials seemed content to simply monitor compliance efforts by reviewing ECA-related records and documents such as Bunker Delivery Receipts during Port State Control inspections. These joint EPA/USCG initiatives to enforce fuel standards should serve as a warning to Club’s Members operating within the North American ECA. The commercial and legal consequences of a failure to comply with the ECA’s fuel oil sulphur limits ...

A careful study by Clean Air Network (CAN) of the data collected from the Environmental Protection Department's (EPD) fifteen air quality monitoring stations from January to June 2014 has revealed that Hong Kong's air quality continues to be far from satisfactory. All monitored air pollutants (NO2, PM10, PM2.5, SO2, and O3) reached levels that exceeded the World Health Organization's (WHO) air quality guidelines at every single monitoring station in Hong Kong, with only two exceptions. The Hedley Environmental Index estimates that, from January to June 2014, air pollution led to 1,430 premature deaths, 17,892 million in dollars lost, 93,655 hospitalizations, and 2.37 million doctor visits. The death toll due to air pollution for the first six months in 2014 is four times higher than the total number of deaths caused by SARS in Hong Kong in 2003. (For comparison, from January to June 2013, air pollution led to 1,606 premature deaths, 18,683 million in dollars lost, 100,688 hospitalizations, and 3.61 million doctor visits.) CAN recommends a series of measures, including limiting the growth of cars; setting up pedestrian and low emission zones such as the Des Voeux Road Central Project; and increasing roadside remote sensing equipment to strengthen the control of emissions from petrol and ...

Ocean Yield ASA, the Oslo-based shipowner, has placed orders for three LEGCs (Liquefied Ethylene Gas Carriers) of 36,000 cbm capacity, to be built at Sinopacific Offshore & Engineering, China. Each will be powered by a single MAN B&W ME-GI low-speed, dual-fuel engine. The engines will run on ethane, which ethylene carriers are also equipped to transport, and represents the first time ethane has been used as fuel to propel an oceangoing vessel. Hartmann Schiffahrt, part of Hartmann AG, the German ship-owning and management group, has acted as technical leader on the LEGC project, while Gaschem Service, another Hartmann division, is commercially responsible for the employment of the vessel. The vessels are scheduled for delivery in August, October and December 2016 respectively. MAN Diesel & Turbo reports that ethane was chosen as fuel, in preference to HFO, due to its more competitive pricing as well as the significantly shorter bunkering time it entails. As a fuel, its emissions profile is also superior to HFO - in which respect it is similar to methane - and compared to HFO contains negligible sulphur, 15-20% lower CO2and emits significantly fewer particles under combustion. MAN Diesel & Turbo also states that the ME-GI engines will ...

According to China Daily, experts have suggested China to establish emissions inventories to details pollutants which account for as much as 20% of the cities airbone pollutants and they have also called for the diesel fuel standard for ships to be strengthened to reduce pollution. Pollutants generated by ships and the port in Hong Kong contributed to more than 50 percent of the region's airborne pollution, according to Ding Yan, deputy head of the Environmental Protection Ministry's vehicle emissions control center. "The proportion for some major port cities on the mainland, as some research has shown, can reach as high as 20 to 30 percent," Ding stated while speaking at a seminar last week held by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an international nonprofit environmental organization. A white paper from the National Resources Defence Council (NRDC) on the prevention and control of shipping and port air emissions said pollutants generated by ships and ports include PM2.5 - particles smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter that can enter the lungs - PM10, nitrogen oxide and volatile organic compounds. The white paper said the amount of PM2.5 emitted by a medium-sized container ship in one day is equivalent to that emitted by ...