scrubbers

amenity · scrubbers

From Lloyds List today

By Neville Smith - Monday 16 April 2007

THE GLOVES have come off in the war of words over a regulated solution to managing SOx, NOx and particulate matter emissions from ships.

As the International Maritime Organization’s BLG sub-committee meets to hammer out recommendations for the Marine Environmental Protection Committee, scrubber manufacturer BP-Krystallon has described owners’ association Intertanko as “badly informed” and “ignorant” and of spreading “disinformation” about its abatement solution.

Intertanko managing director Peter Swift told last week’s Sea Asia conference that residue from scrubbing would still end up in the water as sulphur, that multiple scrubbers would need to be fitted to main and auxiliary engines and boilers and that retrofitting could take up to 30 days.

Intertanko and many owners favour a wholesale switch to cleaner distillate fuels but many see scrubbers a workable alternative for abating airborne pollutants.

In a point by point rebuttal, BP-Krystallon describes Mr Swift’s assertions as “wrong” and “not true”.

BP, it says has “developed a 100% solution to meet wash water criteria”. Further, the company has “orders to install on main engines only [which] eliminates virtually all SOx, reduces NOx and particulate matter”.

It added that fitting was straightforward and could be accomplished in between three and five days.

In a statement, BP-Krystallon added that it did not believe the “anti-scrubbing claim made against it by Intertanko would slow the commercial evolution of its emissions reduction and monitoring technology”.

But it warned that a “blinkered approach” and “misinformation" fueled by "Intertanko interference were harming the shipping industry’s chances of steering a clear course out of tightening legislation”.

And BP-Krystallon’s Andy Osbourne warned that despite his company’s collaborative approach, it would not “stand back and allow the shipping community to be sold false information”.

“Intertanko is doing its members a dis-service by telling them that scrubbing is not a viable option when it is,” he added.

Mr Osbourne called the Intertanko claims “ignorant” and “badly informed” but said that a programme of type-approved installations for Holland America Line and BP would be “proof that scrubbing is a viable commercial solution”.

amenity

More from LL today.

Emissions trading for ships

Tuesday 17 April 2007

THE European Commission has proposed adding shipping companies to the European Union emissions trading scheme, reports Reuters.

EU officials have previously said Brussels was studying the possibility of introducing vessels such as cruise and containerships into the scheme, which effectively allows companies to trade emissions permits if they overshoot or come in below their caps.

A commission official confirmed yesterday that the EU executive will propose including shipping into the system rather than waiting for action at the international level to tackle ship emissions.

“Not enough progress has been made in the international framework,” she said.

It was too early to say how and when the industry would be introduced into the scheme and how much of the world's fleet would be covered. Consultations with interested parties would start in September at the earliest.

amenity

IMO chief wants new approach to emissions

Mitropoulos calls for special group to consider issue against a scientific background, writes Michael Grey - Friday 20 April 2007

A “CROSS-government industry-scientific group” should be commissioned properly to evaluate strategies being proposed to minimise air pollution, the Secretary-General of the Inter- national Maritime Organization Efthimios Mitropoulos, said yesterday.

His intervention came during the London meeting of the sub-committee on bulk liquids and gases, which has been considering revisions of Marpol Annex VI as it applies to the prevention and minimisation of harmful emissions from ships.

Mr Mitropoulos said there were “so many voices expressing positions from so many directions” that a holistic approach was necessary, involving governments, industry and the scientific community to consider the issue from a scientific background.

He will now take the matter to the next session of the influential Marine Environment Protection Committee in July, proposing the commissioning of “a comprehensive study, with specific terms of reference”.

The findings of such a scientific group would, he said, enable the MEPC to make informed judgments about the effects of the various changes being proposed.

The sheer complexity of the large number of controls being proposed in the cause of cleaner emissions from ships’ engines and the lack of up-to-date scientific assessments is believed to have led Mr Mitropoulos to his conclusion that such a commission is now necessary.

The meeting this week has been faced with a range of very different proposals, with even the shipping industry unable to agree on a common stance on harmful emission reduction.

Intertanko and the Hong Kong Ship Owners’ Association have called for a wholesale switch to the use of cleaner distillate fuels.

This is rejected by the International Chamber of Shipping, which has put forward proposals permitting a wider range of choices, largely on the grounds that additional refining may neither be practical nor reduce the amount of emissions entering the atmosphere.

BIMCO has called for a “differentiated and multi-speed” approach with gradual reductions of sulphur in ships’ fuels. A range of other proposals have come from member states.

There is also some concern that, with the environmental spotlight on marine emissions, there is limited time to make changes, while the industry must be seen to be both proactive and re- ceptive to pressures for cleaner air.

Additional pressures are being exerted by a growing number of local or regional schemes for emission control or reduction, which include calls for “cold ironing” techniques and controls on ships in transit past coasts, which require them to switch to low sulphur fuels.

Earlier this week, Mr Mitropoulos cautioned against the “patchwork of differing regulations” that would make the operation of ships difficult and threaten the primacy of the IMO as shipping’s global regulator

amenity

In defence of sea water scrubbers and their contribution to cleaner shipping

Letter To The Editor - Friday 20 April 2007

From DM Gregory

SIR, I refer to the article ‘Intertanko is spreading disinformation on sulphur scrubbers says BP-Krystallon’ (Lloyd’s List, April 17, 2007) reporting on comments made by Peter Swift, managing director of Intertanko, and the rebuttal from the sea water scrubber manufacturer Krystallon.

I believe that Mr Swift has been seriously mis-advised by his organisation on some of the factual claims he has made at the recent Sea Asia conference. To help resolve these mis-understandings I would like to invite Mr Swift to accompany me on a visit to one of our sea water scrubbing installations so he can see for himself how effective and compact these systems and that in many cases they are a relatively easy retro-fit installation.

It is hard to imagine that the rational shipowner or charterer would wish to constrain his or her future choice of marine fuel. Unfortunately, life is not as simple as a switch to a “cleaner fuel” and then all your air quality challenges go away.

In fact with the cleanest road fuels, all modern cars are being required to be fitted with after-treatment systems. Exhaust gas after-treatment is also common in large combustion plants in industry and utilities.

The big advantage a ship has over most other modes of transport is that there is usually sufficient space to locate after-treatment systems, enabling continuing fuel choice, while achieving very low, and I forecast as after treatment technology develops, close to zero harmful emissions.

The P&O Ferries’ Pride of Kent has a Krystallon sea water scrubbing system fitted to the starboard outer auxiliary engine. With over 8,000 hours of operating experience it continues to reduce emissions of sulphur oxides to less than 10 ppm or about a 98% scrubbing efficiency.

The emissions are monitored continuously and are recorded along with the ship’s position on a secure data logger, so there is no doubt as to the contribution to improving air quality that is being made by this ship. The system pumps are rated in total at about 5kW and the engine on average generates about 700kW.

Retrofit requirements are not new to the shipping industry. Tanker owners will remember that inert gas systems, (very similar to sea water scrubbing to clean exhaust gas for inert gas blanketing), were retro-fitted after several disastrous explosions identified the potential for an explosive gas mixture, and an ignition source to be present during tank cleaning on large crude oil tankers.

Krystallon estimates that for a typical ship installation on a 100,000 dwt tanker, the ship would have to be out of service alongside for less than five days, to complete work that can only be undertaken alongside.

There is a desperate need for the shipping industry and all the stakeholders to engage in informed, rational and coherent assessment of the challenges facing the industry over the next 10 to 20 years.

If shipping is to make a successful and cost effective contribution to improving air quality, an international and well thought out regime and set of rules needs to be established, and that requires honest debate, revealing the issues each sector of the industry faces, and how best to meet the different needs.

Creating an effective process for tackling emissions to air will undoubtedly contribute to the process needed to tackle the next big emissions issue, the greenhouse gas footprint of shipping.

With one third of the current fleet on order and global fuel consumption growing at around 5% per annum, reducing carbon dioxide emissions will be a real challenge.

Let us ensure we have the facts, consider the implications and consult widely before nailing the industry in a coffin of poor decisions.

DM Gregory

Director

Environment & Sustainability

BP Marine

Chertsey Road

Sunbury on Thames

TW16 7LN

amenity2

Slow change here, so lets hope we live to see the clean air around ports and the coasts of Britain.

New IMO ship emission controls confirmed
ENDS Europe DAILY 2634, 13/10/08
New global limits on the sulphur content of marine fuels were confirmed last week, when governments meeting at the London-based International Maritime Organisation (IMO) formally approved amendments to the UN Marpol convention on ship-source pollution.
The current global limit on sulphur in marine fuels is 4.5 per cent. Under the revised convention this limit will fall in stages to 3.5 per cent in 2012, and finally to 0.5 per cent in 2020 subject to a review in 2018 (EED 03/04/0 Cool

. The revised law will now enter force in July 2010.
Governments approved tougher nitrogen oxide (NOx) emission standards for new ship engines, and the final draft text of a new IMO convention on ship recycling. The new law will be formally adopted next May (EED 16/07/07). Revised guidelines on exhaust gas cleaning systems and management plans for volatile organic compounds were also adopted.
But governments failed to make any significant progress in talks on addressing greenhouse gas emissions from shipping, according to green group T&E. The group says developing countries reiterated their opposition to any IMO initiative on climate change that fails to respect the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" (EED 01/07/0 Cool

.

guihuomao

As night falls on the town of Mayong in south China's Guangdong Province, container trucks emblazoned with the logo "Nine Dragons Paper", a local household name, take to the streets.
Wealthier than US television host Oprah Winfrey and author of the Harry Potter series J.K. Rowling, Zhang is wow gold, described by acquaintances as a "round-faced, not very tall" woman who "doesn't like dressing up and looks like a person of action".
Over the years, Zhang's low profile has helped her remain largely unknown.
"I'm an entrepreneur. A high profile is unnecessary," Zhang was quoted as saying by the Shanghai-based China Business News, whose reporter described her speaking as "extremely fast"
ACN wow power leveling, took good care of that, ranking the largest U.S. exporter of raw materials for paper-making and the biggest container exporter among all US industries for the past five years in a row.
However, domestic supplies are insufficient, as only 30 percent of China's scrap paper is recycled each year, compared with 70 percent in the United States.
Forced to buy foreign scrap, China imported 12 million tons of waste paper in 2005, nearly half of the world's waste paper available for export.
"With more wow gold, advanced awareness of environmental protection, the United States, Japan and European countries have formed standard waste paper recycling systems," said Zhang Yin, explaining the geographical advantages of the ACN.
"Paper-making can't do without environmental protection," said Zhang. "That's the motto of the Nine Dragons Paper, which puts an average of two to three percent of each project's wow gold, investment into preventing pollution and monitors its waste water discharges 24 hours a day."
Nine Dragons Paper was set up in Guangdong in 1995, when the Chinese market was dominated by imported wrapping paper.
"Foresight is the key," said Zhang. "While most domestic producers were using machines with a production capacity of less than 50,000 tons, our first machine had a capacity of 200,000 tons. We have higher goals."
Zhang's vision paid off after 10 years of efforts. By the end of 2005, the Nine Dragons had become China's largest container board maker and one of the world's largest in terms of production archlord gold, capacity, according to a report by the Resource Information Systems Inc., a major information body for the paper and timber industry.
In March, Nine Dragons went public in Hong Kong, with its share price jumping nearly 40 percent on the first trading day.
"My sister hates lazy people the most. She is always energetic and more diligent than any other person I know," says Zhang Yin's sister Zhang Xiubo. "We obey her unconditionally."
Five of Zhang's sisters and brothers as well as her husband help in the business, but Zhang denies kinship plays a key part in her management.
"Out of the wotlk gold, whole family, only one brother has entered the company's management. I chose him for his ability," she said. "My husband used to be a doctor, but I discovered his talent and convinced him to do business. They have proved to do an excellent job."
"The recycling of paper is the way to solve the raw materials shortage that is the bottleneck of China's paper-making industry, and a requirement for building a resource-efficient society," said Li.
Until then, wow gold, Zhang Yin is likely to retain her crown as the "queen of waste paper".1

Waste to Wealth

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