The Green Ship of the Future, the Danish maritime initiative, has received the International Environmental Award from the Sustainable Shipping organisation for being the most environmentally friendly shipping initiative. Sustainable Shipping is a leading organisation dedicated to promoting sustainable use of the sea.
Among the judges was Dr. Simon Walmsley of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), who said: “If we are to ensure the survival of our world then we must change the way we behave, and no industry can neglect making such changes. The industries that rise to the challenge, and see that the climate threat offers them opportunities to modernise the way they run their businesses, will prosper.”
The A.P. Moller – Maersk Group (APMM), Odense Steel Shipyard (OS), MAN Diesel (MD) and Aalborg Industries (AI), established the Green Ship of the Future project in 2008 with the primary objective of demonstrating and developing new, green technologies to achieve significant reductions of emissions. Today, the project has 15 partners including shipping companies, their suppliers, and several Danish universities including the Technical University of Denmark.
The challenge and objective of Green Ship of the Future is to cut industrial CO2 emissions by 30% and oxides of nitrogen and sulphur by 90%. The initiative uses existing and new technologies.
Thomas S. Knudsen, Head of the MAN Diesel Low Speed Business Unit said: “Shipping is an environmentally friendly form of transport, but with Green Ship of the Future we are making an extra effort to protect the Earth’s climate and environment. We want to play our part in designing environmentally responsible products that minimise emissions. In that respect, the Green Ship of the Future project is a meeting of equal minds.”
MAN Diesel is involved in the following projects:
• Scrubber system Development, installation and full scale test of a scrubber system. The scrubber system removes SOx and solid particles from the haust gas. With this technology, it is possible to remove up to 90% of all SOx emissions (Partners: AI, DFDS, MD and APMM).
• Exhaust Gas Recirculation system (EGR) Development and test of an EGR system. The EGR system will be fitted in an engine room and integrated with the other, auxiliary systems. The project has a potential of 80% NOx reduction. The full-scale verification test is to be carried out on the container vessel Alexander Maersk by the end of 2009. A prototype of the EGR system has been set up on the 7-MW, HFO-burning research engine at MAN Diesel in Copenhagen (Partners: MD, APMM and ABB).
• Waste Heat Recovery systems Development of Waste Heat Recovery (WHR) systems. Utilisation of the exhaust gas waste heat to heat up steam for a turbo generator. This project also includes design studies for the installation of a new exhaust gas boiler, steam and power turbines on a suitable APMM vessel. The potential for a 20% reduction in CO2 with a new optimised Waste Heat Recovery system exists (Partners: OS, AI, APMM, MAN Turbo and MD).