Shipping is an important economic sector, responsible for transporting the majority of goods around the globe.
Even though shipping freight is energy efficient in comparison with other transport sectors, there is an increasing awareness that impacts of shipping on the environment can be considerable. It is recognized that this impact, in combination with a steady growth of the sector, has led to a high relative contribution of shipping to the anthropogenic burden of many pollutants, both at sea and on land. Besides contributing to global warming, emissions produced by the ship engines include toxic com- pounds and particles that cause a host of other health hazards causing tens of thousands of premature deaths a year, largely from heart and lung disease and cancer.
Loud anthropogenic underwater sounds emanating from ships, can have a wide range of harmful impacts on marine animals such as injury, permanent or temporary hearing loss, behavioral responses and masking of biologically relevant signals. All fish can detect sound and are vulnerable to underwater noise. However, there are species-specific differences in the sensitivity of hearing and in detection of the particle motion and pressure components of underwater sound. The Arctic environment changes about twice as quickly as other parts of the world, a process called Arctic amplification. When spreading on the snow black carbon from passing vessels,
it darkens. And so, the radiation from the sun is going to be absorbed and not reflected. It then gets transformed into heat. Black carbon emissions from ships increased more than ten times between 2015 and 2019.
Commercial ships are designed to be used for a long time. As a result, their engines are typically older and less efficient than those used by many other industries. Replacing them is prohibitively expensive. Immediate solutions to this problem employing existing technology is improvement of fuel quality, treatment of engine emissions, and adoption of other energy-conservation measures
so that ships burn less fuel. A low hanging fruit is the reduction of speed. There are definitive benefits in reducing speed, there are also some concerns about this strategy, as reducing the speed below the range in which the ship is designed to operate could ultimately affect the performance of the engines, potentially reaching critical loads and increasing maintenance costs. Many ships have gone further and installed energy saving devices in the stern, that modify the flow of water under the ship’s hull reducing drag and increasing fuel efficiency. Corporate responsibility is not passive; it’s active. It plays a huge role in how a company is perceived publicly, and it forms part of a corporate identity.
The sulfur content of fuel has been regulated at the onset of 2020 and measures are in place for the abatement of nitrogen oxides in the exhaust gases. Ships can either utilize higher quality fuel or capture
engine exhaust and pass it through scrubbers. Similarly select catalytic reactors convert nitrous oxide gases into harmless nitrogen and water. One advantage of this approach is that it allows ships to meet the different pollution regulations around the world without having to swap fuels. IMO introduced a sulphur cap on bunker fuel to reduce sulphur con- tent from 3.5% to around 0.5%. This is still between 100 and 500 times more toxic than the diesel used in cars.
Shipping holds a significant potential to help create a carbon neutral economy by 2050. Carbon neutral by 2050 is a huge undertaking because the technology and fuel distribution doesn’t currently exist. However, there are a number of fuels and technologies under development. In addition, non-traditional fuels and energy sources, such as biofuels, batteries, hydrogen or ammonia, are emerging as possible alternatives for shipping, with the potential to decarbonize the sector and lead towards zero emissions. The full compliance of shipping with carbon reduction targets is gradually leading to the replacement of conventional carbon fuels by other alternative fuels. Recently, the IMO has agreed on
a roadmap for substantial reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from shipping which requires a shift from the use of fossil fuels to fossil-carbon-free alternatives such as biofuels, hydrogen, electric propulsion or ammonia. This roadmap will need to involve a gradual shift away from fossil fuel use, because the energy efficiency improvements alone are not enough to meet the 50 % reduction target. Hydrogen and ammonia have low energy density, necessitating frequent bunkering and reduced cargo space. Hydrogen requires more storage space than ammonia but the latter is highly toxic and difficult to burn. Both require pilot fuel of fossil hydrocarbons. They are not thus carbon-free as advocated. Methanol is the simplest form of alkali. It is biodegradable in water and safer that hydrogen and ammonia. Its storage and combustion do not require that high CAPEX of LNG. It is necessary though that its production must be with renewable sources of energy.
MO has launched two new regulations: The Existing Ship Energy Efficiency Index, EEXI and the Carbon Intensity Indicator. The Energy Efficiency Index refers to ships that are already in the water and serve the international trade, essentially setting limits on the power of ship engines in order to reduce CO2 emissions. These limits will put operational pressure on older ships, making them potentially uneconomical for global shipping competition. Following is the second regulation, Carbon Intensity Indicator, inspired by the European EU MRV regulation. The recorded data from IMO Data Collection System will rank the ships according to their ecological efficiency. These regulations are expected to bring about huge changes in the freight market, as ships that do not meet the criteria are unlikely to be selected by charterers, pushing them out of the market. Small shipping companies will certainly be under pressure as most of them do not have new ships and their financing is already difficult. This is not the first time that the shipping industry has taken tough measures to protect the environment. In the past, there was a change in the design of tankers with the imposition of double walls, which also drastically changed the entire tanker market. But then the situation was different, there was a political will to support the industry and access to sources of funding was clearly more favorable. With these new regulations, however, there are many who believe that every year new regulations will force shipping companies to find ways and money for even more “efficient” ships, creating a regulatory framework of witch-hunting.
At the present the most technological mature technology is the use
of LNG, LPG and biofuels. The main sources for the production of biofuels are edible crops, non-edible crops, organic waste, various by-products of agriculture and industry as well as algae, which grow in water and is not competitive with the food chain. Biofuels pose a lower risk to the marine environment as they decompose much faster in
the event of a leak. There is also the possibility of blending them with conventional fuels in conventional engines. At present, their availability remains a challenge. LNG as a fuel is considered a tried and tested solution with engines available that cover a wide range of power output. The benefit of using LNG is the drastically reduced SOX, NOX and to a lesser extent CO2 emission. Bunkering is available at specific locations although expanding worldwide. Disadvantages are the requirement for increased tank volume and the relatively high CAPEX. LNG is now more competitive than ‘clean fuels’ such as hydrogen or carbon capture and storage.
Fuel cells are primarily H2 consumers. Several technical arrangements exist whereby different fuels are directly fed into the fuel cells, such as LNG or methanol, which are used as chemical carriers/sources of the H2. Fuel cell power production is a technology that has the potential to eliminate SOx, NOx and PM emissions and to reduce CO2 emissions, especially when compared with emissions from diesel engines.
Wind is the most promising form of renewable energy. Wind-powered systems may produce electricity on board or may directly assist in propelling the ship. Wind power has the potential of improving the energy efficiency of ships, thus contributing to reducing the environmental pressures of the maritime transport sector. Wind can supply a substantial part of the power needed to operate a ship, decreasing both its fuel consumption and its emissions. In relation to WASP, several technologies are currently being developed and tested, including the use of soft or rigid sails, wing sails, hull sails, towing kites, rotors and wind turbines.
Shore power has recently gained popularity because of present and future stringent international regulations to reduce air emissions from ships. Shore power allows ships to shut off their diesel-powered engines when berthed and connect to the electricity grid to reduce local air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, recent developments in the field of ship electrification are very promising in terms of more efficient energy management. Renewable energy sources in the land network can be used to supply electricity to ships in berthing and to charge the batteries of fully electric or hybrid ships.
Charterers and other stakeholders are not willing to risk investments in technologies which may lead to stranded assets. Lack of transparency on emissions prevents the decision making. Reports of emissions on a global scale is utilized for regulatory purposes and it is confidential under the Data Collection System of IMO. It is well understood that ship- ping will not apply significant changes without new rules. Rulemaking by IMO is a tantalizingly slow and complex process subject to many conflicts of interest. Industry is afraid that non-alignment of global and local legislation like the EU initiatives, may lead to unfair competition. Delays to legislate will trigger local rules. Traditionally, new technologies are first tested on land before they find their way on-board. We have seen this with the advent of scrubbers in shipping and we will see it in the near future with Carbon Capture and Storage. There is also hope that as the production scale of the new fuels will be higher their cost will be more competitive than what it is today.
World fleet consists by many small companies. This makes the decision making more complicated. The largest companies control less than 20% of the global fleet with a notable exception perhaps the container sector.
It is thus expected that these container companies will be the pioneers in the utilization of alternative fuels. There are many pathways to de- carbonization depending on the type of fuel and the type of ownership. Shipping is governed by charter contracts, which do not allow a lot of leeway. Ship-owners are expected to invest in the new fuels but they rarely get a large piece of the pie following eco-improvements and financial benefits. Uncertainty and lack of important information on the future fuels have imposed a somewhat conservative path towards decarbonization. Catalysts can be the design flexibility including the propulsion systems to future-proof the investments, enabling multi-fu- el engines. It is mandatory to promote fuel production with renewable sources of energy to avoid unbalance between well to tank and tank
to wake emissions. With the exception of LNG and LPG, bunkering of green fuels remains limited. The society has dropped the gauntlet to shipping.
In recent years, the European Union began to make serious efforts
to address the industry’s environmental issues. The new European Commission President Ursula von Der Leyen pledged to impose a “European Green New Deal” to force radical cuts to greenhouse gases and emissions. Target is that Europe becomes a zero-carbon continent by 2050. For the first time, a green effort included ships. The first proposed legislation was to include shipping’s emissions in the EU’s carbon credit system, the Emissions Trading Scheme, the ETS. Companies must buy carbon credits to exceed limits, making the prospect of newer vessels and higher-quality fuels cheaper to them. At the same time innovative technologies like CCS appear to be more feasible and attractive for shipping.
* Technical Director, South-East Europe Black Sea & Adriatic (SEEBA) Zone, Bureau Veritas