The marine industry claims to have no control over its rising emissions. It blames the growth in global trade. However, it is a fact that low-carbon alternatives such as wind power do exist.
Dutch Shipping company Bore – Cost saving exercise on the cargo ship MS Estraden – use of wind power
MS Estraden looks is like a normal cargo ship. It is one of the 50,000 vessels transporting pretty much everything we buy, sell and consume. Having a second close look at the ship will bring to light two large cylinders rising from the deck. These are rotating devices that capture wind and help propel the ship forward. This technology was first trialled back in the 1920s. However, only now it has been brought into commercial use.
MS Estraden, which belongs to the Dutch-owned shipping company Bore, has been testing out the cylinders for the last 1 year on its regular journey between Rotterdam and Teesport, on the north-east coast of the UK. The result: it has cut fuel costs by 6% (pdf).
Tristan Smith, shipping and climate change expert at UCL, says that it is hard to generalise because unlike many other technologies, the savings are dependent on the route sailed (and the weather conditions specific to that route). The savings on large tankers and bulk carriers could be greater than 10%. He says that recent new ships have regularly been achieving design improvements not because of the regulation, but because of market forces including an oversupply of ships forcing greater competition and increased pressure for owners to seek margins through efficiency.
Low awareness
Shipping is the main form of transport that brings us 90% of everything we buy and consume. However, most of us are not aware of its role in our lives and its contribution to global climate emissions. The industry has no targets for reducing emissions. The climate talks in Paris last year were skillfully negotiated with warnings that a cap on emissions for shipping would be a cap on global trade and growth. Based on the lhe latest estimates, the sector could be contributing upwards of 6% (pdf) of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
The UN agency that regulates shipping puts out glowing press releases. However, little has been achieved. There is an agreement for ships to record and report data on fuel consumption, but not until 2018 at the earliest, and rules to ensure new ships being built are more efficient.
Tuomas Riski, CEO of Norsepower, the Finnish company that developed the wind-powered cylinders used on MS Estraden, says that shipping is a conservative industry. Although he does now have interest from other shipping companies in Europe and Asia, the original funding for his research came from venture-capitalists rather than the shipping sector.
German Company SkySails
Germany-based SkySails is another company pushing wind technology. It has equipped five ships so far with automated kites to help propel them and cut fuel consumption. Despite average fuel savings of 2-3 tonnes a day, it has found it difficult to attract interest from ship companies.
Henning Kuehl, head of business development at SkySails, says that many shipowners struggle to survive and there’s not much money for investing in the solutions improving long-term profitability. They do not even know if they will be still therein five years. There is a structural problem slowing down the process. Ship owners often don’t pay for the fuel. This is the charterer’s duty. The charterer on the other side doesn’t charter the ship for long enough a period to make low-carbon technologies pay back.
Efforts at making green shipping work
Conor Walsh, research associate on shipping at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, says that with a wariness about renewables, low fuel prices and little political incentive, the onus is on numerous trials to convince shipping companies of the benefit. The sector is risk-averse so expanding uptake requires a high burden of proof. Most of the technologies at the moment are low-scale and not mainstream. There are not yet many in commercial use.
Suggestion
One fast-track solution could be for major users of cargo such as retailers and commodity companies to start insisting on the use of more efficient, low-carbon ships. This is starting to happen – Cargill, for example, says that where possible it refuses to charter the most polluting vessels – but doesn’t involve renewable technologies such as wind.
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Source: The Guardian
