It’s been a busy last few weeks in terms of news stories about reducing the carbon footprint of oceangoing ships. Much of it has focused on the benefits of switching to cleaner-burning fuels, including liquefied natural gas (LNG).
On October 7, Wärtsilä Corporation announced it’s been awarded a contract to provide the propulsion system for a pair of platform supply vessels (PSV) owned by Harvey Gulf International Marine (see accompanying artist’s rendering). The ships will operate in the Gulf of Mexico and the 6-cylinder 34DF dual-fuel engines will be powered by LNG. What’s significant here is that these ships will be the first U.S.-flagged
PSVs to use LNG as primary fuel; until now, the majority of LNG-fueled vessels has been based in Norway, where the government provides substantial carbon credits to owners of vessels fueled by LNG.
The two ships, the first of which has a targeted delivery date of November 2013, will be built for Harvey Gulf by Trinity Offshore of Gulfport, Mississippi, which is a sister company of Trinity Yachts. We’re working with Trinity to bring you a Vessel Report on its luxury mega-yacht, Carpe Diem, for the January issue of (mt) magazine. Carpe Diem isn’t LNG-powered, but the Harvey Gulf-Trinity collaboration may mean that we’ll see super-yachts using the cleaner-burning fuel in the next few years.
If you want to go more in-depth and learn about the issues surrounding the use of LNG as a vessel fuel, you need to check out John Boylston’s feature, “Fueling with LNG,” which appears in the October issue of (mt) magazine. In fact, we cover a range of maritime environmental issues in this issue, including managing shipboard waste streams on cruise ships and how government vessels can adapt and benefit from sustainability practices in the commercial sector. The cherry on the sundae is a Vessel Report on Wärtsilä’s LNG-powered platform supply vessel, Viking Energy. If you haven’t already, access the October issue at www.sname.org/mt/home.
You can also do a deeper dive on the cleaner-burning fuels issue by catching up with the research being done by NOAA. In September, the agency released the results of a study that it funded in collaboration with the California Air Resources Board, working with the Maersk Line. In the report, the research team concluded that “New clean fuel regulations in California and voluntary slowdowns by shipping companies substantially reduce air pollution caused by near-shore ships.” The research included monitoring and measuring the emissions levels of Maersk Line’s Margrethe Maersk, a container ship, as it approached the coast of California.
Researchers measured emissions levels on the ship both before it switched to using lower-sulphur fuels and slowed down voluntarily, and after. The study reports “Sulfur dioxide levels, which were expected to drop, did do so, plummeting 91 percent from 49 grams of emissions per kilogram of fuel to 4.3 grams. Particluate matter pollution, regulated because it can damage people’s lungs and hearts, dropped 90 percent from 3.77 grams of emissions per kilogram of fuel to 0.39 grams.”
These kinds of numbers loom large as vessel owners and designers wrestle with the regulations—including those requiring ships to switch to lower-sulphur fuels when they approach U.S. and international coasts—that’ll be imposed in the coming year by the International Maritime Organization. Learn more at the Environmental Science & Technology Web site:http://pubs.acs.org/action/doSearch?action=search&author=Daniel+Lack&qsSearchArea=author&type=within&publication=40025991