The Shipping Industry’s Responsibility: Clean up the Emissions

That name may not ring any bells with you right now, but you’d soon know it if she happened to be bearing down on you – at 397 metres long (more than four football pitches) and weighing 156,907 tonnes at full capacity (that’s more than 900 adult blue whales), this container ship would do some damage!
When she’s travelling at top speed, she will take more than 4 miles to come to a complete stop (rather a lot longer than a Ford Escort in the rain…) and can burn through roughly 230 tonnes of bunker fuel in a single day.
Bunker fuel gives off a lot of pollution – when you take it all into account, the shipping industry as a whole produces almost a thousand tonnes of sulphur oxides (SOx) and more than 32,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2); and that’s just in a single year!
It is thought that the global shipping activity accounts for roughly 5 per cent of the total human-created carbon dioxide emissions; something has to be done.
One Solution: Low Sulphur Fuel
The Eugen Maersk was creating a lot less pollution than usual when she was in port in Singapore at the end of last year, however – using a low sulphur fuel, her owners claimed that the ship was putting out 85% less sulphur dioxide emissions. This huge cut is of great benefit to the environment, as the gas is a toxic one.
The shipping industry is not in its best condition at the minute, financially speaking at least. Oil prices are high, and there is an excess of capacity. Instead of increasing revenue, the best way to raise profit margins is to find ways of cutting costs.
These so-called “green ships” – also known as “eco ships” – are a good method of doing so, especially when fuel consumption is decreased; fuel is expensive, so using less of it can only be a good thing.
One mantra that the industry seems to be going by is the age-old adage “bigger is better” – the bigger the vessel, the lower the fuel usage. These big ships, while travelling more slowly than usual, have a much smaller fuel consumption rate.
Finance Meets Function
Sometimes, when lower fuel consumption is better for both the pockets of the shipping company owners and for the environment, the interests overlap. Shipping businesses are looking for any way to cut costs by lowering the dependency on traditional fuels, and this can only mean good things in terms of pollution.
Newly-built ships, such as the afore-mentioned Eugen Maersk, have a whole host of fuel-saving features. Recently, scientists have come up with a type of specialist hull paint; this reduces friction through the water (and therefore drag), which means it takes less effort to power it through the waves.
The IMO (International Maritime Organisation) has launched a greenhouse gas reduction programme. It comes into effect this year, and will regulate CO2 emissions for the very first time. It aims to reduce carbon dioxide by 160 million tonnes by 2020; these small modifications hope to make a big enough change to reach that outcome.
Source: Ecoseed