A year ago shipping made a public statement about the environment. This year, the public made an environmental statement about shipping
In October 2018 IMO wished to show the general public it was acting on the environmental issues surrounding the question of air quality and ship emissions. IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) set out an agenda of action points for its member states as they begin to discuss and attempt to define the measures they will take to meet the initial greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions-reduction framework targets agreed at MEPC 72 in April 2018.
The preliminary ‘programme of follow-up actions’ is intended to develop the necessary range of short-, mid- and long-term measures required under the initial GHG framework. The short-term measures that would chart a course to at least halve global emissions from shipping by 2050 could be finalised and agreed between 2018 and 2023; mid-term measures, between 2023 and 2030; and long-term measures, beyond 2030. Saying the actions send “a clear signal” on how to make progress on GHG reductions in shipping, IMO secretary-general Kitack Lim charged the member states of IMO to go further and move more swiftly to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets. “I understand that you have a heavy workload ahead,” he said. “I am convinced that … you will be able to deliver and even accelerate the pace of actions and tackle this immense and global challenge.”
Events have since overtaken that statement. Many people will point to the impact of David Attenborough’s Blue Planet series, where the veteran natural history presenter lamented the decline of species during his 50-year career. In May 2019, a 16-year-old Swedish climate change activist helped bring the main thoroughfares of London to a standstill as Extinction Rebellion operated a well-co-ordinated protest. Over 1,000 people were arrested.
IMO headquarters in London was one of the targets of the Extinction Rebellion protest, with its doorway becoming a stage as a dance troupe performed a haunting rendition of a dying ecosystem to the arriving delegates. If IMO had not understood the message that it was under public scrutiny, it did now.
But elsewhere the good intentions of the EU environmental lobby fail to comprehend the realities of the global shipping business. In an open letter to the industry, Bimco secretary general and chief executive officer Angus Frew explains his concern over the impact and implications of the newly introduced EU regulation on ship recycling:
“I strongly advocate global regulations for the global shipping industry and I believe that we should all vehemently oppose regional regulations when they override existing global regulations developed by IMO. The EU regulation on ship recycling that entered into force in 2013 is an example of how regional bureaucrats can create rules that make life difficult and uncompetitive for shipowners.
On the one hand the EU wants more ships under EU flag, but on the other, they require that all EU-flagged ships be recycled at an EU-approved facility where the shipowner is likely only to receive a fraction of the price that they would have achieved from a recycling facility in, for example, India or Pakistan.
BIMCO employed a consultancy to investigate the list published in December 2018 of EU-approved recycling facilities. It turns out that only nine of the 26 approved facilities are realistically open for ship recycling, and only three of those are able to recycle a Panamax-size ship (or larger).
If you are a facility located inside the EU, you can apply to the European Commission for automatic inclusion on the EU list. Late last year, I personally rang one of the ‘facilities’ on the EU list and they told me that they had not started building the facility at that point, but were intending to start sometime in 2019. Laughable though it may seem, I would have thought it should be a minimum criteria that EU-approved yards should be open for business!
If you own a shipyard outside the EU, you must apply to get on the EU list, your facility must be physically inspected as part of the process, and you must prove ongoing compliance. As of December 2018, 27 facilities outside of the EU had submitted applications but only three had been approved (two in Turkey and one in the US). Currently, over 90% of recycling is performed in facilities in Asia (excluding Turkey); 17 of the applications were facilities from that region but only two had been inspected, or inspections were underway.
It is important that both the people working at the recycling facilities and the environment be protected. If the EU is interested in improving conditions at non-EU facilities, it should at least provide relevant assistance and guidance to the applicants and could even help the facilities achieve full compliance.
In summary, the EU rules are a sub-optimal solution. Ratification of IMO’s Hong Kong International Convention on Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships is the best way forward. This will retain a level playing field for both shipowners and ship recycling facilities, at the same time ensuring that ships are recycled in a safer and more environmentally friendly manner.
The goal of the rules is – at least in part – to make sure ships are recycled in an environmentally friendly and safe manner. I fully approve of that goal, and so does BIMCO. But the way the EU regulation has been implemented to date is detrimental to EU-flagged ships and appears to heavily favour European recycling facilities at the expense of those Asian facilities that currently recycle 98% of world tonnage.”
The battle below the waterline
The talk at IMO, the actions of Extinction Rebellion and the new law on ship recycling in the EU all tackle the visible emissions and debris from ships, but it is below the waterline where the next battle will be fought. In many respects, the ballast water treatment industry is already at the forefront of preventing the spread of invasive species from inside the ship.
On the outside, new techniques in antifouling are having remarkable results.
A Team Tankers International MR tanker’s hull experienced no soft fouling coverage after a 40-month trial of an antifouling coating. The Bermuda-based owner and operator coated Team Calypso’s vertical sides with Chugoku Marine Paints’ SEAFLO NEO CF-Premium antifouling coating, which contains a non-lethal agent called Selektope, during drydocking at Sembcorp’s Singapore shipyard in 2015.
During the trial, the vessel was in active operation across a wide range of trade routes, often operating in global biofouling hotspots with water temperatures between 25°C and 32°C, and spent several extended periods idling in these zones. An inspection carried out during Team Calypso’s in-water survey scheduled 35 months after the coating was applied showed the hull to be virtually barnacle-free with no soft fouling coverage.
Third-party data analysis verified the performance of the coating, showing that at month 40, total added resistance on the vessel’s hull and propeller due to fouling was 16%, compared with an expected 30% for a reference ship of a similar age, size and trading patterns. The development of added resistance was calculated at a rate equivalent to 0.4% per month, compared with an expected rate of between 0.5% and 1.5%.
Developed by Swedish biotech firm I-Tech AB, Selektope works by activating the octopamine receptor of barnacle larvae, which keeps them in swimming mode and prevents them from attaching to the hull. As a result of the successful performance, Team Tankers International has committed to applying the coating to a further four vessels, Team Tapatio, Team Toccata, Team Tosca and Team Leader.
Team Tankers performance and environmental manager Captain Pär Brandholm said: “Team Calypso has operated for over three years since its last drydock, and we can conclude that the fouling of the hull remains at a very low level. We hope the trend will continue being flat.
“We anticipate similar performance for our vessels Team Tapatio, Team Toccata, Team Tosca and Team Leader using the same hull coating containing Selektope.”
I-Tech AB chief executive Philip Chaabane comments: “This tanker owner is reaping the fuel-saving benefits associated with a Selektope-powered antifouling coating. The independent data analysis coupled with the underwater hull inspection prove that Selektope delivers strong protection from hard fouling, whatever the vessel’s activity or trading pattern.”
Biofouling of hulls and propellers can substantially increase frictional resistance and power requirements, in turn increasing fuel consumption and emissions generated. As well as the impact on fuel consumption and maintenance costs, operators face external pressure to act to minimise biofouling. Vessels could be denied entry to ports in certain regions, as authorities take regulatory action against transporting invasive aquatic species via ships’ hulls.
And as average global water temperatures rise, the number and intensity of biofouling hotspots increases. Owners of tankers that trade or idle in these waters, particularly in subtropical and tropical areas, will therefore increasingly demand antifouling coatings that will guarantee protection even if activity or trading patterns change. In 2016, I-Tech’s Selektope solution was recognised at the Tanker Shipping & Trade Conference & Awards in London, where it won the Environmental Award.
Tanker Shipping & Trade Conference & Awards 2018: Environmental Award winners
The winner of the Environmental Award at last year’s Tanker Shipping & Trade Conference & Awards in London was the Teekay and Wärtsilä Marine Solutions’ shuttle tanker project. These innovative vessels will operate in the North Sea and have attracted additional funding from the Norwegian Ministry of Climate and Environment funding vehicle Enova, which contributes to Norway’s transition towards a low-emission society. Altogether, Norwegian funding sources have extended more than US$180M in financing and subsidies to US-listed Teekay Offshore Partners for the series of four shuttle tankers under construction at Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) in South Korea.
The Norwegian Export Credit Guarantee Agency provided guaranteed loans of US$165.5M in addition to Nkr133M (US$15.28M) from Enova.
Teekay Offshore Group chief executive Ingvild Saether claimed the newbuild vessels would be “the most environmentally friendly shuttle tankers ever built”.
“What makes me particularly proud is that bunkering requirements and CO2 emissions will be reduced by approximately 50%, thereby reducing the environmental footprint of our operations significantly,” he said.
The new ‘E-Shuttle’ tankers will operate on liquefied natural gas (LNG) as the primary fuel, and a mixture of LNG and recovered volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as secondary fuel. Technology on board the ships removes up to 100% of VOC emissions, according to manufacturer-supplier Wärtsilä. The VOC recovery system converts VOC emissions into liquid gas, feeding the gas into a secondary fuel tank on board the vessels, reducing annual fuel bunkering by up to 3,000 tonnes, according to the manufacturer.
Breakthrough in above and below the waterline emissions detection
One innovation that could completely change the detection of emissions above and below the water has been proposed by Finnish buoy maker SeaHow. The extreme conditions of the Baltic Sea and the ice pack of the inland lakes in Finland demand a completely different shape and material from the traditional spherical metal buoy. SeaHow has manufactured over 30,000 tall cylindrical polyethylene buoys and navigation aids.
SeaHow’s Smart Buoy uses the hollow space of the buoy to carry a range of instruments to analyse water quality and air quality. The robust polyethylene buoy with monitoring sensors and mobile data transmission collects real-time oceanographic data from the sea, online 24/7.
The Smart Buoy concept has been used in measuring water quality. The main applications where buoys have been used are turbidity spreading during harbour dredging and dumping operations, current magnitude and direction monitoring, and wave monitoring. In addition, multiple systems have been used for blue-green algae, salinity, temperature and oxygen monitoring in the Gulf of Finland and Archipelago Sea.
In 2016, a Smart Buoy with oil detecting sensor was installed for test use near the Neste Refinery in Porvoo. This smart-navigation ice buoy system delivered real-time data on oil in water in that coastal Gulf of Finland station during the winter. The Smart Buoy technology for monitoring of oil was developed within the EU Horizon 2020-funded project GRACE, co-ordinated by the Finnish Environment Institute SYKE. The Finnish company Meritaito Ltd and subcontractor Luode Consulting Oy were responsible for the Smart Buoy development work.
In theory, with the correct instrumentation, a Smart Buoy could fulfil its passive role as a navigation aid at sea while actively analysing exhaust content for sulphur content from passing ships.
© 2023 Riviera Maritime Media Ltd.