Last night the heads of some of the most significant players in world shipping put their names to a commitment to make shipping more sustainable. Enabled by Forum for the Future, the Sustainable Shipping Initiative (SSI) launched its ‘Vision 2040’ at one of the more elegant venues in London, Trinity House – for over 400 years responsible for lighthouse, seamarkers, deep sea pilotage and navigational safety.
Picture: Soren Stig Nielsen, Senior Director and Head of Sustainability, Maersk Line and Michael Harvey, Chief Operating Officer, Rio Tinto Marine
The sixteen members of SSI present outlined their approach and there is now a handsome document available detailing what happens now to move us from a vision towards the reality of a more sustainable shipping business: We commit to working towards this in all our own operations and/or activities that involve shipping, and in all our dealings with and support for the shipping industry to make our vision a global reality by 2040.’
Representing Lloyd’s Register as one of the signatories was our Marine Director, Tom Boardley. He said “The SSI is an important initiative. At a time when many are struggling to stay in business investing in a cleaner future is perhaps not everybody’s favourite subject. But what makes a business sustainable is changing. At Lloyd’s Register we are putting ever more resources into helping owners, builders and all marine stakeholders better understand the implications of new regulation and technology in our more complex world.”
Leading environmentalist, Forum for the Future’s Jonathon Porritt, who was on the front page of Lloyd’s List yesterday, looked forward to a future where cargo volumes increased, but at no net increase in environmental impact. He underlined how important shipping is in his introductions to the three industry speakers.
Pier Luigi Sigismondi, Chief Supply Chain Officer, Unilever, talked of decoupling its economic growth from its environmental impact – quite a feat as his company is looking to double the size of its business.
Maersk Line’s Soren Stig Nielsen spoke of the need for change and the need for, ‘a standard of standards.’
Rio Tinto’s COO, Michael Harvey talked about making the step changes to becoming ‘fundamentally more sustainable.’ He said that shipping was behind the times, ‘bulk carriers (scale apart), are much the same as they were in the 1950’s or 1960’s but with 300 million tons of cargo to move Rio Tinto is looking to make changes – ‘We don’t know what the answer is, but we know that the opportunities are out there.’
Needless to say, some said in the audience that they were looking to hear and see something more concrete. Jonathon Porritt addressed this head on, saying that yet another vision statement, ‘has no intrinsic value – only when we can look back will we see if it has value.’
The industry has to start somewhere and there were plenty in the room, looking on, who are looking to join such an initiative – an initiative that might help lay down some seamarkers and throw some bright light on the issues that shipping needs to address.
The hard work in the work streams (see the vision document) that have been identified starts today as the SSI Steering Groups get underway.
4 Responses to A vision of the future
Comment from Robert Walsh on
Improving energy efficiency significantly for propelling ships generally can be only achieved by applying several diverse incremental improvements, which requires precise measurement approaches to validate their individual benefit. Ship Propulsion Solutions LLC (SPS) is associated with MARIC in Shanghai to custom engineer and supply Stern-Appended Hydrodynamic Energy Saving Devices (ESD) for specific ship designs. Because of the challenge to establish small savings within the “noise” of a 15 per cent sea margin for wind, waves, and hull/propeller fouling, very few of these devices have been installed by the industry. Even the Propeller Boss Cap Fin (PBCF) in over 20 years has only been installed in about 1800 ships. The designer of the PBCF has been guilty of sales puffing the gains and owners have always struggled in measuring incremental improvements in service. Other restrictive elements are that shipbuilders want to build the next ship like the last one and they are unwilling to share technical details of their designs, which is needed in order to custom engineer these devices.
The alternate design to the PBCF by MARIC is called the Propeller Cap Turbine (PCT) and it was proven in MARIN (Netherlands) to be superior to the PBCF, as part of Stolt-Nielsen’s evaluation in the 1990’s. The PCT will provide superior performance because the PBCF is built as a fixed flat-plate while the PCT is made just like the propeller with aerofoil shaped blades and varying radial pitch, which is custom-engineered to match the propeller. In fact, to properly design the PCT the propeller design and hub details, including off-sets, are required in order to model test the PCT to optimize the pitch of its fins. This testing is done in an open-water cavitation tunnel and not with a self-propelled ship model, because scale-effects cannot provide proper flow modeling.
There is an additional approach which should be considered because it can be more cost-beneficial and that is the Rudder Thrust Fin (RTF) with a Costa Propulsion Bulb (CPB). Because the RTF and CPB are also made of steel and not propeller bronze, and the amount of steel forming is reduced since there are no nozzles involved, the cost can approach the cost of a PCT with expected greater energy savings, say in the range of 4 to 7 %. The CPB is a substitute for the PCT and the RTF will recover rotational energy coming off the propeller blades. Of course this assumes that the propeller is properly matched to the varying wake being produced by the hull.
Several installations of the RTF have been done by Japanese, Korean, and Chinese shipbuilders. To further evaluate the application of the RTF with CPB, stern arrangement details
are needed, including rudder and rudder stock details, and eventually hull lines and propeller details for self-propelled model testing. The RTF with CPB are most appropriate for twin-screw ships and behind controllable pitch propellers
Much has been done with Computerized Fluid Design or Dynamics (CFD), but the stern area of the ship, where there can be separated flow, and the unsteady wake from the propeller, make CFD applications challenging and inaccurate for energy savings predictions without there being cross reference to model tests followed by shipboard evaluation.
Please refer to my company’s web site: www.shippropulsionsolutions.com, especially the section on Shipboard Performance Measurement.
Comment from Prof.Paul.V.John on
With 300 million tons of cargo the present situation is very thought provoking.
1. To standardise a particular tonnage for unit carriage -maybe 300,000 DWT ship.
2. To run it with twin six cylinder screw with nozzle,common rail engines.
3. To have it run gearless-no cranes.
4. To run it with LNG fuel and dual fuel generators and turbo alternators.
5. The size of the vessel suggests that it should be hardy with fifteen years life with
standard tried and tested equipment.
Well it neednt be a high speed yacht-That is a pleasure craft for Rio Tinto owners.
Prof.paul.v.john at Coimbatore Marine College-5th Nov 2011.
Comment from Caroline Clarke on
Salutations,
Esteemed industry members have brought to light “starting somewhere” – and have raised the issue on standards. In keeping on scope the information provided serves as an invitation in understanding standard Protocols are on hand and here we defer to the World Resources Institute (WRI) and World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). The GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard http://www.wri.org/publication/greenhouse-gas-protocol-corporate-accounting-and-reporting-standard-revised-edition – this together with the principals on star rating applied by www.shippingefficiencies.org supports the concept and provides a practical instrument to baseline the fleet and for industry to have the visibility on action.
The context on the model applies sea freight shipping mandated under developing country status.
Here overlaying standards with a mandate in line with UNFCCC Clean Development Mechanism methodology http://cdm.unfccc.int/methodologies/index.html and in keeping with Kyoto Protocols sea freight shipping separate from National Accounting provides the standards to identify technical initiatives to apply to the shipping fleet.
In the case of initiatives the standards applicable are in accord with WRI and WBCSD Project Protocols http://www.ghgprotocol.org/standards/project-protocol recognising primary and secondary implications.
The above provides the framework to apply Cap and Trade systems development within the industry.
Supporting this framework is the model on applying offsets to develop initiatives – here we defer to the standards – WRI and WBCSD – Transport and Distribution sea freight shipping methodology http://www.ghgprotocol.org/feature/download-new-ghg-protocol-product-life-cycle-standard
We view the application on offsets to apply in keeping with fair play. Here fiduciary 33.3% share applied to the following stakeholders 1. Technical initiatives 2. IMO and 3. Origin/destination – Review using a “what if” scenario on US$23 as a carbon price applying 5% savings on fuel consumption through technical initiatives reduces emissions 0.110 t-CO2-e/TEU – cumulative savings on a fraction of the world’s cellular fleet amounting to Millions of tonnes of t-CO2-e – and here we note the terms of reference on standards Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) http://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/gp/bgp/2_4_Water-borne_Navigation.pdf CO2/N2O/CH4 as the coefficients or greenhouse gas measures applied to.
Application on offsets applied to the buyer in accord with International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Incoterms (2009) Named Port http://www.iccincoterms2010.org/
Fiduciary is key applying cost/benefit to stakeholders engages industry, ‘wages are a cost and an income” Rhode Scholar, and here our review calculates the sums are not an impost.
Administration in keeping with harmonised tariffs http://www.iccwbo.org/policy/customs/id1204/index.html including customs entry http://www.iccwbo.org/policy/customs/id587/index.html are all our Custom – This information seeks to aid in the development provided here. Our industry has compliance obligations it fulfils. Clear definition on application on dues regulated through this instrument with Clear application on terms of reference and compliance of is based on quantitative and qualitative evidence.
We have a future and we see this detail supporting the fundamentals appreciating 1st and foremost the good and excellent body of work from those included in the above detail, and, many many more thank you. Forecasts on energy consumption and what can be achieved can be best appreciated reviewing recognised industry associations – Interantional Air Transport Association
http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/environment/pages/fuel_efficiency.aspx – you will find very astute business people in many industries.
In seeking to contribute – the ambition is to support all stakeholders upstream and downstream.
Kind regards
Caroline
Comment from Tar Kovacs Systems on
Very pleased to learn about this discussion. The question for me is to know why it is so difficult to find interlocutors to start building new concepts of ship, new concepts of propeller that Tar Kovacs Systems has designed. Majors are totally closed to propositions before to have any glance to it, and things are living like in a silent world.
New type of hull, new touch on water, new energy source (100% clean and renewable) new security, new propeller…seems to be not enough to get interest of shipbuilders.
Why ?
Thanks for any light.
TKS