While the maritime industry carries over 90% of the world’s trade each year and remains the most cost-effective way to move large quantities of goods long distances, the industry is responsible for a significant portion of the world’s pollution. The main types of oil used by ships contain high levels of the element sulphur. When a ship’s engines burn sulphur, emissions containing particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, and sulphur oxides (SOx) are emitted into the atmosphere. The thousands of ships that travel across the world’s oceans burn billions of barrels of fuel oil each year, releasing thousands of tons of pollution, primarily in the form of SOx, into the atmosphere. It is currently estimated that the shipping industry alone accounts for between 2 and 3 percent of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions, a major contributing factor in the global climate change crisis.
The emissions of SOx created by ships’ engines are commonly known to be harmful to the environment. In addition to creating acid rain, which damages crops and forests far inland from the ships that are creating these harmful emissions, SOx contributes to the destruction of aquatic animals and the acidification of oceans, causing considerable damage to the marine environment. SOx emitted by ships is also known to be harmful to human health. Lives are being cut short because the air we breathe and the water we drink is toxic.
“It is estimated that 400,000 premature deaths each year are caused by emissions from ships. These emissions further account for 14 million cases of asthma per year.”
-Nature
The EPA’s goal is to ensure that the entire shipping industry lives up to the spirit of the new sulphur regulations and is working to prevent companies from cheating these regulations by simply dumping their pollution into the world’s oceans rather than the atmosphere.
“The reason the health impact of these fuels is not a front-page scandal is simply that those impacted tend to be people living along developing country coastlines and ports in Asia, rather than people in western capitals.”
- Anonymous Shipping Consultant
On January 1, 2020 the International Maritime Organization (IMO) implemented new regulations capping the sulphur levels in marine fuels. The new global cap sets the limit on sulphur at 0.50%. This has impacted nearly every commercial vessel currently operating. While the 0.50% limit has been in place in Emission Control Areas (ECAs) in Europe and the Americas for many years, the new regulations apply worldwide.
Under the new regulations, commercial vessels are required to use fuel that contains a sulphur content of no more than 0.50%. This is a dramatic decrease from the previous sulphur limit of 3.50% that had been in place since 2012. Prior to the new restrictions taking effect, the yearly average sulphur content of high-sulphur fuel oils under the previous regulations was 2.45%. By comparison, the low-sulphur fuel oil that many responsible ship owners are switching to have an average sulphur content of 0.11%, well below the 0.5% cap set by the new regulations.
These “emission cheat” systems will allow ships to continue to burn the dirtiest fuels with the most harmful by-products, all in the name company profits.
The IMO’s new sulphur cap is specifically designed and intended todramatically lower the amount of pollution, and specifically SOx, emitted by the international shipping industry. However, instead of using cleaner fuel, a number of companies are installing systems that effectively cheat the new regulations by pumping the harmful pollutants created by high-sulphur fuel oil directly into the ocean. These “emissions cheat” systems are known as exhaust gas scrubbers and allow ships operated by these companies to continue to burn the dirtiest fuels with the most harmful by-products, all in the name of company profits.
The exhaust gas scrubbers operate by mixing the harmful emissions with seawater. The resulting wastewater from the process, now containing the harmful by-products of these fuels, is either dumped back into the ocean or left in ports where it requires even further treatment. The most common of these systems also retain a bypass exhaust vent enabling the ship to turn off and bypass the scrubber unit at any time. Without a robust system in place to verify and monitor scrubber usage, it remains an open question as to how often exhaust scrubbers are actually used outside of coastal waters and emissions control zones. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, even when these scrubbers are operational the wastewater generated by a scrubber system can contain contaminants in the form of combustion products, fuel and lubricants, and any chemical additives present in the fuel. These pollutants and chemicals include hydrogen sulfide, vanadium, asphaltenes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, nickel and other harmful chemicals and heavy metals. Many scrubber systems then simply dump the wastewater, pollutants and all, back into the ocean. The IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute recently studied the scrubber systems being installed on ships and concluded: “The main effect compared to a situation without exhaust gas cleaning is that the main emissions will be released to water instead of to air, which will reduce the emission to land areas. The total emission will mainly be the same as for the case without exhaust gas cleaning and heavy fuel oil (HFO) as engine fuel.”
The very nature of exhaust scrubber systems runs counter to the intention of the new global sulphur regulations, which is to reduce the amount of sulphur pollution caused by commercial ships traveling around the world. Rather than reduce pollution levels, scrubber systems simply dump sulphur and a variety of other pollutants directly into the world’s oceans and will cause further damage to the sensitive marine environment.
Responsible owners of commercial vessels use reliable alternatives to live up to the spirit of the new sulphur regulations including:(1) switching from high-sulphur fuel oil to a marine gas oil or a further distilled oil, (2) using fuels that comply with the sulphur limits put in place by the regulation, known as “very-low-sulphur fuel oil, or (3) retrofitting vessels to use alternative forms of fuel like liquid natural gas or methanol. Using these alternatives accomplishes not only the IMO’s goal in reducing the level of damaging sulphur pollution caused by the shipping industry, but also uses better refined and cleaner fuels which contain fewer pollutants and chemicals, resulting in a cleaner and healthier environment.
Become a member and join the Environmental Protection Alliance’s current fight to eliminate the use of exhaust scrubbers and encourage ship owners to be responsible global citizens. Together we can work to clean the world’s oceans and reduce the harmful air pollution and greenhouse gasses that pose an existential threat to the planet.
Most coral reefs today are between 5,000 and 10,000 years old, but with recent climate changes and disastrous pollution events triggering mass coral bleaching, a great percentage of these critical
The fight to reduce emissions caused by the marine industry, especially by shipowners using virulent scrubbers, continues. And we’re not the only ones bringing awareness to these polluters.
Plankton are essential to all marine ecosystems. The downfall of plankton would be catastrophic to the entire structure of the food web. The destructive open-loop scrubbers are on a rapid track to making that downfall happen.
It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself.
The blue economy must be sustainable. It must not come at the expense of the ocean and marine ecosystem. But, sadly, it has been widely documented that the global marine environment and its resources are being over-exploited at an ever - increasing rate and scale. Growth in this sector- blue growth - must be balanced and sustainable.
With every drop of water you drink, every breath you take, you're connected to the sea. No matter where on Earth you live. Most of the oxygen in the atmosphere is generated by the sea.
