Auriga Leader in port courtesy of LA Times
One of the lesser publicized, but extremely large, CO2 producers and air polluters are the hundreds of thousands of enormous cargo ships and oil tankers that traverse the Earth’s oceans everyday. These harmful emissions come from the burning of extremely dirty low grade used to power the ships engines. Often times, these engines are run constantly for months at a time and even when in port to power electrical functions. As part of a demonstration project by the Port of Long Beach, Toyota and Tokyo-based shipping company NYK Line, the massive carrier ship Auriga Leader will idle it’s engines a little less thanks to the 328 panel 40MW solar array on it’s deck designed to supply 10% of the ships electrical needs while she is docked. 40MW would power about 100 average sized homes. If that doesn’t sound like a lot, that’s because it’s not when you look at the overall power consumption and pollution production from one of these goliaths.
The Dirtiest Of The Dirty
The total annual CO2 emissions from the world’s shipping fleet are twice that of all American vehicles emissions combined. If the fleet were its own country, it would be ranked as the 6th largest CO2 producer in the world. In addition to these accolades, the world shipping fleet can also take credit for huge amounts of soot pollution (which contributes to Arctic ice melt), ocean acidification, and 60,000 annual deaths attributed to ship emissions. All of this is a result of what essentially amounts to zero emission regulation of the industry.
Cheaper Solutions That Are More Effective
Though NYK line seems to be favoring sexier, less effective, and more expensive methods to address ship emission problems, there are actually verified, less expensive, and more easily implemented solutions already in existence. Shipping accounts for 90% of all goods transported globally and is actually the most fuel-efficient/least CO2 producing method by far to transport goods; but only if ship captains mind their speed.
One of the industry’s own organizations, the International Marine Organization (IMO), has calculated that a speed reduction of just 10 percent by 2010 would result in a 23.3 percent reduction in emissions. Furthermore, one shipping company found that reducing the speed of their ships by 20 percent cut their fuel costs by more than half. Slowing speed is something that can be implemented instantly and is free, yet the concept seems foreign to the majority of the fleet.
In addition to taking the obvious step of reducing speed, there are also other effective and relatively low cost solutions to conserving fuel and drastically reducing emissions. Shutting the engine off at port if it’s not needed, more streamlined hull design, and even huge kite sails are all ways that the fleet can effectively increase fuel efficiency while reducing CO2. Granted, these methods are not as sexy as a deck tiled in solar PV panels, but they’re more effective at achieving the intended goal and that should be the point in the first place.
The Good: Parts of the shipping industry seem to be finally recognizing the huge role they play in CO2 production and are making efforts to better mitigate their emissions.
The Bad: Like many others newly seeking sustainability, NKL lines is going for the ’slap on some solar’ approach to reduce emissions while ignoring the much less expensive, and effective, methods of achieving the same goal. Solar panels are not made to be exposed to the harsh conditions of the sea.
The Bottom-Line: Unfortunately, the Auriga Leader is more flash than function. The relatively small solar array on the deck provides a drop in the bucket when it comes to the ship’s overall electrical needs and functions only when docked. If the shipping fleet were serious about cutting fuel consumption and emission production they would slow down and solve a quarter of the problem overnight.
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