By Craig Eason, Editorial Director, Fathom.World
The IMO has agreed to proposals to make the Baltic and North Seas a NECA. (That’s a nitrogen oxide emission control area) while shipping still works out how it wants to meet the 2020 global SOx cap.
The new NECA means that any vessel built after 1 January 2021 and and sailing in any of those areas needs to be tier III complaint under Annex VI of the marine pollution convention. This is not a new standard. Vessels built after January 1 last year (2016) and entering the designated emission control areas in North America already have to meet tier III.
Tier II is what all vessels built after January 1 2011 have to meet if they do not fall into the tier III category (and any ship built between 2000 and 2011 will be tier I).
Tier III is a lot more stringent than tier II, about 80% less, and the reason is that nitrogen oxides are proven to be bad for human health. A vessel bound for North America built today, and one bound for the Baltic built after 2020 needs an abatement technology or to be built with liquid natural gas to be tier III compliant
The problem is that lobby groups believe that the rules, being patchwork or regional, will encourage owners to use older vessels that are potentially more polluting in other ways in these NECAS. But as these areas are also sulphur emission control areas, they will need to use fuel that has a sulphur content of less than 0.1%. Let’s not forget that the global sulphur cap falls to 0.5% in 2020.
It also needs to be aware of what’s happening on the roads. Even tougher road emission rules are pushing the possibility of environmental competition, and even more environmental rules in the future.
LNG is probably a more attractive option, but will it help meet the zero-emission strategy that Sweden has? Swedish business is certainly pushing this. Volvo and Scania are trying to lead by example, with both following in Tesla’s footsteps (incidentally suggestions that Volvo are about to stop making diesel cars are exaggerations of the news that the company could stop evolving diesel engines, but that still leaves petrol engines. The company is however developed hybrid propulsion which could become a cost effective choice for motorists as fuel gets hit by emissions taxes.
Scania and Siemens have been working on electric trucks. The Swedish truck maker has even developed autonomous trucks that can take to roads in convoys. Emission rules for road transport are a lot more severe than those for shipping, and some people I have spoken to think it is only time before further proposals come to the IMO to tighten NOx and SOx rules further. While shipping likes to talk about the digital transformation of the industry, there still remains some regulatory hurdles that need to be overcome such as these NOx and SOx in 2010 and 2021 rules that remain very pressing, all while we keep an eye on the developing CO2 roadmap.
And also, while shipping talks about emissions and transformation it knows it has to compete, particularly short sea shipping, with the likes of Scania which have developed autonomous electricity powered trucks that it says will soon be rolling off the production line. The debate about losing cargo to road and rail is taking another twist.
Fathom.World
The f-word blog aims to offer a personal opinion, from the Fathom Editorial team, of events and trends in the developing transformation of the shipping industry.
