Fuel consumption on ships and GHG Emissions from Maritime Industry

The shipping industry has a big pollution problem. Apart from immense amounts of carbon dioxide, diesel engines on ships belch noxious sulfur dioxide-laced smoke, which causes acid rain, respiratory problems and heart attacks. Shipping pollution is estimated to contribute to roughly 14 million cases of childhood asthma and 400,000 premature deaths from lung cancer and cardiovascular disease annually. CO2 emissions from maritime transport represent around 3% of total annual anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These emissions are assumed to increase by 150 250% in 2050 in business-as-usual scenarios with a tripling of world trade, while achieving a 1.5 2 °C climate target requires net zero GHG emissions across all economic sectors. Consequentially, the maritime sector is facing the challenge to significantly reduce its GHG emissions as contribution to the international ambition to limit the effects of climate change.liquefied natural gas (LNG) or methanol. The two major studies on fuel availability performed prior to the MEPC decision agreed on the need for increasing the desulphurisation and conversion capacity at the refineries, to ensure sufficient availability for the shipping sector by 2020. This article aims at quantifying potential reductions of ships emissions to air of greenhouse gases Marine fuel contains 3,500 times more sulfur than the diesel used in cars. So the environment and health community welcomed the International Marine marine fuels by 85 percent by 2020: the biggest improvement in shipping fuel standards in 100 yearsThe International Maritime Organization (IMO) decided at its 70th session of the Marine Environmental Protection Committee (MEPC) in October 2016 to reduce the maximum sulphur content in the exhaust gas to air from 3.5% to 0.5% from 2020. It can be viewed as an extension a globalization of the regionally motivated Emissions Control Areas (ECAs) already in place, though these impose a 0.1% sulphur cap for areas near the coasts of North America and Northern Europe (North Sea and Baltic Sea).Large seagoing vessels currently use heavy fuel oil (HFO) with a sulphur content of up to 3.5%, while smaller vessels use distillates with sulphur content less than 1.0%. Heavy fuel oil, i.e. residual fuel, consists of the fractions of crude that remains in the refinery process after its extraction of lighter and more valuable fractions, such as naphtha, petrol, diesel, and jet fuel. The advantage of HFO for the ship-owners is its low price compared to distillates. For the refineries, selling residual fuel has been an alternative to makinglarge investments (in process equipment) to convert more of the residual fuel to distillates.The IMO 2020 regulation implies that ships can continue to use sulphur-rich fuels by vessels using exhaust gas cleaning systems (scrubbers). The function of a scrubber on a seagoing vessel is to use seawater to wash out the sulphur in the exhaust gas.Alternatively, vessels must use fuels with less than 0.5% sulphur, such as Light Sulphur Heavy Fuel Oil (LSHFO) with less than 0.5% S,distillate (diesel),

Keywords:

Energy , Fuel , Shipping industry , (GHG) emissions