Vanguard Magazine

www.vanguardcanada.com FEBRUARY/MARCH 2020 13 Marine industry industry oVer the last decade, the marine industry has come under increasing pressure to reduce its contributions to air emissions, with a growing focus on greenhouse gas (ghg) reduction. T he International Maritime Organization (IMO) is the United Nations' specialized agency responsible for safe, secure and efficient shipping and the prevention of pollution from ships, and as such has had the task of de- veloping a strategy aligned with the UN's overall policies on climate change. This overall strategy was released in April 2018 as IMO Resolution MEPC.304(72). It calls for: • reductions of CO2 emissions per trans- port work, as an average across interna- tional shipping, by at least 40 per cent by 2030, pursuing efforts towards 70 per cent by 2050; and • reductions of total GHG emissions from international shipping by at least 50 per cent by 2050. In both cases, those percentages are compared with 2008 baseline values. These are immensely challenging objec- tives. To meet them, the marine industry cannot just do the same things better – it must get ready to do things differently. Ships are long-life, high value assets. Most commercial ships designed for in- ternational voyages have design lives of 20-25 years. Some ship, such as ferries, Great Lakes vessels and other specialized types can have 40+ years of life expectancy. Many government vessels including coast guard and naval assets also reach or ex- ceed these levels. Therefore, for designers, builders and many owners, 2050 is essen- tially now, and 2030 has effectively come and gone. Some progress has been made towards achieving the IMO's goals and targets, but much remains to be done. The balance of this article reviews the steps that will need to be taken and some of the unknowns that will need to be confronted. Progress to Date Previous IMO work in the area of GHG reduction included the introduction of the Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) for new ships, and the requirement for existing ships to develop Ship Energy Ef- ficiency Management Plans (SEEMP). These became mandatory in 2013. EEDI targets are applied to most but not all ma- jor commercial vessel types, and ratchet downwards, requiring large vessels to have values up to 30-50 per cent below the av- erage 2000-2010 performance by 2025, depending on ship size and type. Essen- tially, EEDI limits installed power in re- lation to the weight of cargo that can be carried. At the same time, other IMO measures for environmental protection have had im- pacts on energy efficiency. The introduc- tion of Emission Control Areas (ECAs) for sulphur and nitrogen oxides (SOx and NOx) has led to fuel switching, the use of scrubbers, and the introduction of selec- tive catalytic reduction systems (SCRs) for NOx control. The 2020 ban on heavy fuel oils (HFO) with more than 0.5 per cent sulphur content has accelerated these trends. Bolt-on devices which help achieve compliance reduce fuel efficiency. Fuel switching from HFO to diesel increases GHG emissions somewhat – though changing to alternative fuels such as natu- ral gas gives substantial benefits (see more below). The shipping industry has been able to cope with all these measures to date with limited impact on operations, though

• Cover