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Manufacturing Industry

Clean-Diesel emerging for marine sector; Faces competition, cost issues

Diesel Fuel News, Feb 4, 2002 by Jack Peckham

(First in a series)

Washington, D.C. -- Remarkable advances in marine diesel vessel and port equipment emissions-control technology could spell big reductions in air pollution around the world's port cities, at costs far lower than non-diesel alternatives.

But the big problem is: Who's going to pay for it, by when and will the "other guy" (the neighboring port, the "cheap & dirty" transporter) steal your business by not paying? Who's going to bear the cost of R&D to apply "clean" technology to marine applications?

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Another prospect: Will scarce "green" funds be diverted to politically-correct "alternative" fuels, expensive flops, or enormously costly power systems that won't get the job done, but will let certain self-interested "green" zealots and politicos claim pyrrhic victories, at taxpayer expense?

Those were among the "hot" issues here at the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD)-sponsored international conference on marine emissions and energy.

"Energy efficiency and emissions problems are not new," as U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said here, citing the decades of struggle in the automotive, truck and rail industries to slash emissions, improve energy efficiency and yet figure out how to stay competitive. "Now the spotlight is on marine" for what he termed as a "worldwide effort to reduce toxic air emissions."

Probably nowhere is that battle sharper than at the Port of Los Angeles, third-largest behind Singapore and Rotterdam, and soon to become the largest container port in the world, following an expansion project.

"Our policy is no net increase in diesel air toxics and no further degradation from traffic, yet we'll triple our cargo through 2020," as the Port's s environmental specialist, T.L Garrett, explained here. Unless technologies achieving dramatic reductions in nitrogen oxides (NOx) are installed promptly, the Port would double its NOx emissions over the next two decades -- an unacceptable increase, he said.

Meantime, the port is getting little help from the International Maritime Organization's weak and not-yet-ratified "MARPOL-6" ship emissions limits, and doesn't know what it will get from yet-to-be announced U.S. EPA marine emissions/fuels limits for the big "category 3" ocean ships, due to become final next January.

Also working against emissions reduction is the trend toward ever-bigger ships spending ever-more time in port for unloading, all the while pumping out more emissions while "hotelling" in port. What's more, the Port has "run out of [local] boats" to repower with new, low-NOx engines, having tapped California's $50 million/year "Moyer" diesel emissions reduction fund for all it could get.

Making L.A.'s port especially problem-plagued is a diesel-hostile local air regulator -- South Coast Air Quality Management District -- pushing costly alternative fuels and ever-stricter emissions limits. But even SCAQMD's hands are tied when tackling big ocean ships, now responsible for 40% of all the sulfur oxides (SOx) emissions in metro L.A. Ships will also account for a growing share of the nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions in the smoggy basin by 2020.

Recent voluntary ship-speed-reductions are helping the Port of L.A. cut emissions somewhat, but it won't L be near enough for air pollution compliance deadlines expected in the L.A. basin by 2010 and 2015.

An earlier attempt to impose a hefty tax on "dirty" bunker fuel was a complete failure, as ships simply refueled -- a bitter lesson that cost Los Angeles over 100 jobs.

* New Clean-Fuel Options

Now the Port is looking at ultra-low sub fur diesel (ULSD) and water-diesel emulsions (PuriNOx), both rather pricey due to "sole-source" vendors, he said. Worse for operators is biodiesel, "incredibly expensive" as it's well over double the price of regular diesel fuel, he said. The same is true for other alt-fuels including propane, which is "double the life-cycle cost of diesel yard tractors."

Electrifying gantry-dock equipment can cut emissions, but this equipment can't move around the port like diesel-powered equipment, thus limiting practicality and greatly increasing net cost.

Among the options for slashing diesel truck emissions at the port, "the best is neardock rail, which can take containers out of the port to rail yards about 20 miles away, so we could eliminate those drayage trips" from hundreds of typically old, high-emissions, shorthaul diesel trucks.

"Not one customer is in violation of any law or regulation, so we need incentives to go beyond" minimum requirements, Garrett pointed out. "We need big-time incentives and a level playing field -- national if not international solutions."

To head off the pollution, SCAQMD is looking at "more aggressive" marine/port emissions measures such as wider use of diesel particle filters for PM control, plus selective catalytic reduction (SCR), water injection and dieselwater emulsions for NOx control, as the agency's Henry Hogo explained here.

Manufacturing Industry

Clean-Diesel emerging for marine sector; Faces competition, cost issues

Diesel Fuel News, Feb 4, 2002 by Jack Peckham

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