It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, July 21, 2023
RWE, Mitsui, and Port of Tilbury Plan Green Hydrogen Efforts for UK Port
Port of Tilbury looks to develop hydrogen for its decarbonization (file photo)
The Port of Tilbury in the UK, which is a leading industrial hub for London and southeast England, looks to start one of the first hydrogen operations for the country. The port recently signed an agreement with leading energy company RWE and Japanese trading and investment company Mitsui to launch hydrogen operations at the port.
According to the executives, the projects are both in support of the port’s goal to decarbonize and the broader UK efforts. They hope their project will help to accelerate efforts across the country. They highlight that hydrogen has a crucial role to play in helping the UK achieve its 2050 Net Zero ambitions and is an essential component for decarbonizing different industrial sectors, including a strong potential for the maritime industry.
“Hydrogen will play an essential role in the pathway to net zero, particularly in hard to decarbonise industry,” said Steve Boughton, RWE Director Hydrogen Development. “This collaboration with Mitsui and the Port of Tilbury is for an innovative project combing production and industrial customer use with potential fuel switching of port equipment.”
Through the agreement, the three organizations plan to conduct two parallel work streams. Both are focused on unlocking potential carbon savings for port infrastructure and to fuel the green future of the Thames Freeport at Tilbury.
One work stream focuses on developing a small-scale “proof of concept” demonstrator project. As part of this project, the plan calls for producing green hydrogen for decarbonizing items of port equipment. The fuel will be used to switch Tilbury’s equipment from fossil fuels to hydrogen.
At the same time, they are also starting an initial study into a 10-megawatt green hydrogen plant. The facility will be developed on Port of Tilbury land previously housing a coal-fired power station, transforming an area historically associated with fossil fuel power generation to green hydrogen production.
At the heart of the Thames Freeport, the project will also look at options to scale up development. They plan to explore over a ten-year period growing to upwards of 100 megawatts of annual production. The hydrogen would be used for port infrastructure and operations in addition to providing green hydrogen to the surrounding industry.
“This is an important opportunity to support the Port of Tilbury’s commitment to achieving Net Zero for our customers,” said Peter Ward, Commercial Director at the Port of Tilbury and Thames Freeport. “Our business has set out our ambition to be carbon neutral by 2032 and Net Zero by 2042 by investing in the infrastructure in the ports. As part of Thames Freeport, our MoU with RWE and Mitsui to develop a new hydrogen plant at the Port of Tilbury will help accelerate the UK’s path to a decarbonized economy and support our vision for low carbon logistics.”
How Marine Heat Waves Affect the Ocean - And What Can Be Done
As we enter El Niño, periods of surging temperatures at sea are predicted to grow more frequent and intense.
Marine heatwaves, can wipe out sensitive marine ecosystems like seagrass meadows, which are vital to stemming climate change (NOAA)
On 4 July 2023, the World Meteorological Organization declared the beginning of an El Niño phase, a climate pattern that drives up temperatures across land and sea.
Past weather events provide clues about what extreme temperatures could mean for the ocean. For instance, in December 2010, a wave of unusually warm water swept across the luxuriant and biodiverse seagrass meadows of Australia’s Shark Bay. In a matter of days, it destroyed a third of the habitat, unthreading the delicate seagrass quilt and, over the next three years, releasing between 2 and 9 billion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. “The losses there were phenomenal,” says Kathryn Smith, a researcher with the UK’s Marine Biological Association.
Scientists call the event a “marine heatwave”, meaning a period of exceptionally high water temperature that starts suddenly and continues for days to months, distinguishing it from long-term warming trends. Like heatwaves on land that threaten terrestrial ecosystems, heatwaves at sea harm marine life, posing “a clear and present threat to the systems we depend on,” says Sarah Cooley, director of climate science at the Ocean Conservancy.
These impacts are expected to grow. The UN’s climate science body, the IPCC, projects that by 2100 marine heatwaves will be up to 50-fold more frequent, and 10-fold more intense compared to pre-industrial times. Scientists are now developing ways to forecast these events. Their research can feed into measures that mitigate the threats for vulnerable habitats, species, and the coastal communities that depend on them.
What are the impacts of heatwaves?
The ocean absorbs 90% of the excess heat caused by greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. On top of this, climate change is amping up weather conditions that inject even more heat into the planet’s largest ecosystem.
One of these is high-pressure systems. While low-pressure systems bring cool, cloudy air that draws heat out of the ocean, attracting colder, nutrient-rich waters to the surface, high-pressure systems disrupt these. They bring warmer, windless, cloudless conditions in which the sun can heat the water unimpeded. Fewer nutrients rise to the water’s surface to support the base of the marine food chain, such as krill and phytoplankton.
In 2014, these factors combined to create a gigantic sauna in the North Pacific. Hundreds of kilometres wide and 6C warmer than average, it was known as “the Blob.” The sudden displacement of nutrients spelled disaster for fish, seabirds, and cetaceans who had to migrate elsewhere to find food, or simply starved.
By the time the Blob had dissipated, an estimated one million seabirds had died, along with countless crustaceans, fish and seals. A record number of whales became entangled in fishing gear when searching for food closer to shore.
Warm water surges can also make conditions unbearable in sensitive hubs of biodiversity like seagrass meadows, coral reefs, and kelp beds. Compared to general ocean warming, heatwaves lead to faster bleaching, more coral death, and the decimation of kelp forests. Higher water temperatures also trigger suffocating algal blooms that drive large scale die-offs of marine life.
For instance, kelp forests along a 100km stretch of western Australia were erased by the same heatwave that destroyed the Shark Bay seagrass fields in 2010. “That was 12 years ago, and the kelp hasn’t returned,” says Smith, whose primary research focus is marine heatwaves.
What causes these events?
Scientists are still unpicking the meteorological triggers behind these phenomena, but they are linked to anthropogenic climate change. One hypothesis is that as the Arctic warms – three times faster than the planetary average – its temperature difference with the tropics is reduced. Svenja Ryan, a physical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, explains that this reduction might weaken the jet stream that usually pushes a band of rain and wind around the centre of the planet. The air current then becomes more vulnerable to intrusion by high pressure systems, which block usual atmospheric processes and form hovering hot air islands over land and sea.
The changes in the strength and direction of ocean currents could also trigger marine heatwaves, as some of the currents are transporting warm water to regions that they didn’t before.
Sea surface temperature anomalies recorded on 19 June 2023. The cluster of red and orange at top right shows the record-breaking marine heatwave that hit the north-east Atlantic in late June. (Image: NOAA Marine Heatwave Watch)
What are the costs of hotter seas?
Comparisons against historical datasets show that the number of marine heatwave days has increased by 54% since 1925, and eight of the hottest 10 on record have occurred in the last 13 years. “They are happening, they are really intense in certain regions, and they can really impact local communities and also economies,” Ryan says.
This socioeconomic toll is increasingly visible. Smith of the UK’s Marine Biological Association says: “There are lots of coastal communities who are losing their entire income in one hit from marine heatwaves.”
After the Blob, the Gulf of Alaska’s cod fishery, worth $100 million annually, collapsed. A 2016 heatwave off Chile’s coast triggered a toxic algal bloom that destroyed 20% of the country’s salmon farming production for the year, and cost the industry $800 million. Meanwhile, a survey shows that if general ocean warming continues and coral bleaching worsens in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the country will suffer $1 billion in lost tourism.
Increasingly popular carbon credit schemes that depend on intact seagrass meadows and kelp forests may also be undermined by marine heatwaves, Smith explains. Her research shows that 34 ocean heatwaves over the last 25 years have in fact cost several billion dollars annually in lost fisheries, tourism, and carbon storage. Harder to measure is the lost cultural value caused by heatwaves, and their contribution to extreme weather events like hurricanes.
How to adapt to heatwaves?
To stop excessive heat warming our oceans at root, we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions. But Cooley says it will take a while for the effects of decarbonisation to show. “We have so much heating that’s sort of ‘locked in’, and [in the meantime] the heatwaves will be getting worse and more extreme,” she explains. “But we know that we can decrease the other things under our control.”
Strengthening ecosystem resilience gives environments and their inhabitants the best chance of surviving warmer seas, Cooley says. Therefore, measures like reducing pollution and protecting more habitats like kelp beds and seagrass meadows can help mitigate the risks of marine heatwaves. “Having a large bank of a healthy ecosystem is still an insurance policy for us,” she adds.
Meanwhile, there’s a growing effort to forecast marine heatwaves, as we do those on land. The nascent science still requires more research looking into how these phenomena influence ocean currents, chemistry and food availability, and even how deep into the sea heatwaves reach. This knowledge is essential if we are to match the predictive precision we have on land.
But research suggests that under certain meteorological conditions, we could forecast some marine heatwaves up to a year in advance, says Michael Jacox, an oceanographer at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and lead author on the study that developed this estimate.
“I think the real crux of [forecasting] is in the translation to impacts, and then decision-making,” Jacox adds. More detailed information on when and where marine heatwaves will roll in creates room to adapt. Conservationists could pinpoint habitats in their path, and perhaps even introduce measures to shield them against the worst of the warming. Fishers could switch to less-threatened species, or move aquaculture pens out of harm’s way. Where livelihoods are threatened, forecasts could trigger financial support for communities most affected. Ideally, proactive national policies that recognise the reality of marine heatwaves would guide and support the interventions.
Today, Shark Bay’s seagrass meadows still bear the scars of the 2010 heatwave. Many ecosystems will face a similar threat from an increasingly febrile ocean, especially if events like El Niño heap more heat pressure onto it. Smith of the UK’s Marine Biological Association says: “We can’t save it all, so what do we try and protect? It’s about learning what the change is, and where the focus needs to be.”
Emma Bryce is a freelance journalist who covers stories focused on the environment, conservation and climate change. You can tweet her at @EmmaSAanne and read more at www.emmabryce.com.
This article appears courtesy of China Dialogue Ocean and may be found in its original form here.
The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.
Corals Are Beginning to Bleach as Oceans Hit Record Temperatures
A transplanted coral in the Port of Miami that was healthy in early 2023 (left) had bleached in the warm water by July 11, 2023 (right). NOAA/University of Miami`
The water off South Florida is over 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 Celsius) in mid-July, and scientists are already seeing signs of coral bleaching off Central and South America. Particularly concerning is how early in the summer we are seeing these high ocean temperatures. If the extreme heat persists, it could have dire consequences for coral reefs.
Just like humans, corals can handle some degree of stress, but the longer it lasts, the more harm it can do. Corals can’t move to cooler areas when water temperatures rise to dangerous levels. They are stuck in it. For those that are particularly sensitive to temperature stress, that can be devastating.
I lead the Coral Program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Lab in Miami, Florida. Healthy coral reef ecosystems are important for humans in numerous ways. Unfortunately, marine heat waves are becoming more common and more extreme, with potentially devastating consequences for reefs around the world that are already in a fragile state.
Why coral reefs matter to everyone
Coral reefs are hot spots of biodiversity. They are often referred to as the rainforests of the sea because they are home to the highest concentrations of species in the ocean.
Healthy reefs are vibrant ecosystems that support fish and fisheries, which in turn support economies and food for millions of people. Additionally, they provide billions of dollars in economic activity every year through tourism, particularly in places like the Florida Keys, where people go to scuba dive, snorkel, fish and experience the natural beauty of coral reefs.
If that isn’t enough, reefs also protect shorelines, beaches and billions of dollars in coastal infrastructure by buffering wave energy, particularly during storms and hurricanes.
What goes into a coral reef?
But corals are quite sensitive to warming water. They host a microscopic symbiotic algae called zooxanthella that photosynthesizes just like plants, providing food to the coral. When the surrounding waters get too warm for too long, the zooxanthellae leave the coral, and the coral can turn pale or white – a process known as bleaching.
If corals stay bleached, they can become energetically compromised and ultimately die.
When corals die or their growth slows, these beautiful, complex reef habitats start disappearing and can eventually erode to sand. A recent paper by John Morris, a scientist in my lab in Florida, shows that around 70% of reefs are now net erosional in the Florida Keys, meaning they are losing more habitat than they build.
About 40% of the global ocean was experiencing a marine heat wave in July 2023. NOAA’s experimental forecasts for August and October show sea surface temperatures well above average in many regions. An increase of 1 degree Celsius = 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. NOAA PSL
Unfortunately, these critical coral reef habitats are in decline around the world because of extreme bleaching events, disease and numerous other human-caused stressors. In the Florida Keys, coral cover has decline by about 90% over the past several decades.
Coral bleaching in 2023
In the Port of Miami, where we have found particularly resilient coral communities, a doctoral candidate in my lab, Allyson DeMerlis, documented the first coral bleaching of her experimentally outplanted corals on July 11, 2023.
Other scientists we work with have reported coral bleaching off of Colombia, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Mexico in the eastern Pacific, as well as along the Caribbean coasts of Panama, Mexico and Belize.
We have yet to see widespread coral death associated with this particular marine heat wave, so it is possible the corals could recover if sea surface temperatures cool down soon. However, global sea surface temperatures are at record highs, and large parts of the Atlantic and eastern Pacific are under bleaching alerts. At this point, the evidence points to the potential for a very negative outcome.
Sea surface temperatures have been off the charts. The thick black line is 2023. The orange line is 2022. The 1982-2011 average is the middle dashed line. ClimateReanalyzer.org/NOAA OISST v2.1
El Niño is contributing to the problem this year, but the longer-term trends of rising ocean heat are driven by global warming fueled by human activities.
To put that into context, a paper by NOAA scientist Derek Manzello showed that in the Florida Keys, the number of days per year in which water temperatures were higher than 90 F (32 C) had increased by more than 2,500% in the two decades following the mid-1990s relative to the prior 20 years. That is a remarkable increase in the number of days that corals are experiencing particularly stressful warm water.
What can we do to protect corals?
First, we cannot give up on corals.
Alice Webb, a coral reef scientist working with our group, recently published a study based on years of our research in the Florida Keys. She modeled reef habitat persistence under climate, restoration and adaptation scenarios and found that protecting reefs is going to take everything – active restoration of reefs, helping corals acclimate or adapt to changing temperatures, and, importantly, human curbing of greenhouse gas emissions.
Sea surface temperatures off South Florida were abnormally high in mid-July 2023. Coral Reef Watch/NOAA
Major restoration efforts are underway in the Florida Keys as part of the NOAA-led Mission Iconic Reefs. We are also assessing how different coral individuals perform under stress, hoping to identify those that are particularly stress-tolerant by combing through the massive amounts of data from restoration projects and coral nurseries.
We are also evaluating stress-hardening techniques. For example, in tide pools, corals are exposed to large swings in temperature over short periods, making them more resilient to subsequent thermal stress events. We are exploring whether it’s possible to replicate that natural process in the lab, before corals are planted onto reefs, to better prepare them for stressful summers in the wild.
Coral bleaching on a large scale has really been documented only since the early 1980s. When I talk to people who have been fishing and diving in the Florida Keys since before I was born, they have amazing stories of how vibrant the reefs used to be. They know firsthand how bad things have become because they have lived it.
There isn’t currently a single silver-bullet solution, but ignoring the harm being done is not an option. There is simply too much at stake.
Ian Enochs is a Research Ecologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
This article appears courtesy of The Conversation and may be found in its original form here.
The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.
Environmentalists Say FuelEU Maritime’s Transition is Too Slow
T&E recommends further enhancements to the EU's emissions regulations (iStock)
Environmentalists continue to be critical of the maritime industry as well as regulators in their efforts to get shipping to align with the broader climate goals of the Paris Agreement on global warming. The influential group Transport & Environment (T&E) released a new study looking at the potential impact of the FuelEU Maritime legislation finalized earlier this year and how it will address shipping and specifically container shipping’s use of fossil fuels. Reporting that it will be a slow transition, T&E is recommending that the European Commission make further improvements to the “Fit for 55” package for the shipping sector.
The group calls the FuelEU Maritime component “arguably the most important shipping-related legislation,” in the EU’s new package and said the program which reached a political agreement in the spring of 2023 is a welcome step in tackling shipping’s emissions. They said the regulation is “a positive step,” citing the introduction of mandates to transition to lower carbon fuels and the small, initial sub-target which they said will “kick-start the use of sustainable e-fuels.”
T&E’s new study aimed to analyze the impact of FuelEU Maritime combined with the European Union’s Emission Trading System (EU ETS) by modeling how shipping companies are most likely to act in the face of different regulatory constraints and pricing. The model, they reported, allowed them to predict potential demand from container operators in the EU for a range of marine fuels. The study projects what mix of technologies and fuels will be in demand from the containership segment across a period of 30 years from 2025, as well as the primary costs involved.
“Given the limited ambition of the GHG intensity reduction targets, FuelEU Maritime green-lights a slow-motion transition away from fossil fuels in shipping, with oil-based fuels and fossil gas still likely to make up the majority of fuel demand until 2045,” the group reports. “We find that under the existing regulation, the industry would see a slow transition away from polluting fossil fuels, such as LNG, which ships could continue using into the 2050s, towards more sustainable e-fuels.”
Under their base case pricing scenario, T&E’s study suggests that the current legislation will fall short of encouraging significant extra demand for non-biologic renewable fuels. They expect that demand for fossil LNG will continue to grow until at least 2035 when e-ammonia could begin to rapidly grow. They also looked at the impact of lowered biofuel prices or delays in the feasibility of ammonia engines.
Pricing they find could impact demand for other shipping fuels, including bio-methanol, e-methanol, e-diesel, and e-methane. They, however, speculate that in the “base case,” demand and efficiency assumptions, could lead to unsustainable volume demands for biofuel. They find it could reach an equivalent to 114 percent of current consumption by all EU transport. T&E believes that a sustainable transition is possible under an alternative scenario with lower demand growth and improved energy efficiency. However, they report that e-fuels’ share of shipping fuel demand would still need to reach 18 percent in 2035 and 85 percent in 2040 respectively to decarbonize the shipping sector.
“The shift to cleaner fuels is likely to be driven almost entirely by the progressive reduction in GHG intensity targets,” contends T&E. Based on that belief along with the conclusions that the current regulation permits “unacceptably heavy use of fossil LNG and also does too little to guarantee demand for renewable fuels,” T&E is recommending further “improvements” to the Fit for 55 package for shipping.
They continue to call for the greenhouse gas intensity targets to be aligned with the Paris Agreement. To achieve their targets, they want higher and additional targets for renewable fuel along with expanding the FuelEU package to cover more ships, including below 5,000 gross tons as well as offshore vessels and other non-cargo ships. They also want mandates for more sustainable fuels, such as ammonia, methanol, and hydrogen, to replace the existing LNG bunkering infrastructure.
T&E concludes its recommendations by calling for the implementation of mandatory energy efficiency requirements on European shipping. They also want strong penalties for non-compliance to discourage the shipping industry from simply paying for compliance instead of making significant changes to reduce emissions.
T&E Highlights Continuing Rise in European Shipping’s CO2 Emissions
T&E cites containerships along with LNG carriers and cruise ships as contributing to the rise in CO2 emissions in Europe (file photo)
Harmful emissions for ships operating in Europe grew to a three-year high as the industry edges closer to pre-pandemic levels reports the NGO Transport & Environment (T&E). Performing an analysis and review of the data released under the European Commission’s Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification requirement, T&E contends the shipping industry is continuing to move closer to the point of no return in the efforts to stop global warming.
The outspoken environmental group used the 2022 data released at the beginning of July from the EC’s monitoring of vessels. They sought to adjust the historic data to reflect the change in geographic scope when the UK exited the EU and reporting in 2021. Emissions they showed have risen in the past two years from a low in 2020 during the pandemic.
Total emissions were up about three percent in 2022 versus the prior year and are up nearly nine percent from the low point in 2020. Despite the increases in the past two years, emissions measures in metric tons of CO2 are down from both 2018 and 2019 levels. Despite being up last year, levels are still down over four percent from the 2019 peak.
“Carbon emissions are at a three-year high as shipping companies continue to go all guns blazing. Europe’s shipping giants are up there with coal plants and airlines as the continent’s biggest polluters,” said Jacob Armstrong, shipping manager at T&E. “Without stricter regulations, shipping companies will continue to spurn investments in efficiency and green fuels.”
Breaking down the nearly 130 million tonnes of CO2 emissions recorded in 2022, T&E reports containerships accounted for the largest portion or nearly 30 percent of total emissions in Europe. Bulk carriers and tankers were a distant second and third, each around 15 percent of emissions.
The largest increases came from liquified natural gas shipments. LNG gas carriers’ emissions were up 58 percent according to T&E’s analysis. They cited Europe’s efforts at ramping up sanctions on Russian oil, and the push for more seaborne imports to meet gas needs. Similarly, cruise ship emissions were almost double in 2022 over the prior year as the industry continued to overcome previous disruptions to international travel due to the pandemic.
As expected, the largest shipping companies are also the ones T&E cites are the largest emitters. MSC, they contend is currently Europe’s 11th biggest polluter and the largest in the shipping industry with 10 million tonnes of emissions in 2022. MSC was followed in T&E’s analysis by CMA CGM, Maersk, COSCO, and Hapag-Lloyd in the list of shipping emitters.
The group does not address the potential impact going forward from either the EU’s ETS scheme due to start in 2024 or the IMO’s revised targets to cut emissions. They do highlight a small increase in port carbon emissions, saying that this could be easily fixed by greater shore-side electrification. European ports are moving quickly to expand shore power availability in response to coming mandates.
While the environmentalists highlight the growth over the past two years, industry analyst Xeneta issued its analysis showing that CO2 emissions overall were down in the container segment in the first quarter of 2023. They reported the declines were found on 10 of the 13 top ocean freight lanes. Emily Stausbøll, Xeneta Shipping Analyst, said that much of the improvements are down to carriers reducing speeds, which delivers fuel efficiency gains while also allowing them to cater to considerably lower demand in a subdued macroeconomic climate.
Xeneta expects that the container carriers will continue to slow down the speeds of deployed ships which will also help to balance against the addition of newbuilds that were ordered over the past few years. They expect that the segment will continue to seek a balance between speed, size, and filling factor going forward which will contribute to declines in overall emissions.
Hyundai Receives Order for World’s First Large LCO2 Carriers
Capital Maritime of Greece ordered the first two LCO2 carriers from HD Hyundai (Hyundai)
South Korea’s HD Hyundai through its Korea Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering believes it has cracked the market for large, general-purpose liquified CO2 carriers. The company reported today that it has received the first order for the largest LCO2 carriers ordered to date. The company which has been working to develop the technology predicts it is the beginning of continuing orders for large and extra-large vessels in this new category.
Hyundai showed off its designs for the sector last year. The company received some of the first Approval in Principle from classification societies as it sought to develop the new market and create its leadership. It looks to build on its experience in other forms of gas carriers.
Greece’s Capital Maritime Group is the first large shipowner to move forward with LCO2 carriers. The company is saying by becoming a first mover it hopes to lead the market for carbon dioxide carriers. Currently, they report a fleet of 33 crude oil and chemical tankers with a total of 5.1 million dwt.
The order is for two 22,000 cbm gas carriers valued at $141 million according to a stock exchange filing. The vessels will each be approximately 525 feet in length. Hyundai is highlighting that while they are specifically designed for the emerging LCO2 market, the vessels will also be capable of transporting various liquified cargoes. This will include liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and ammonia (NH3) to give the vessels additional versatility.
The ships will be built at the company’s Hyundai Mipo shipyard in Ulsan, South Korea. The first delivery is set for the second half of 2025.
Analysts have forecast that this will be a rapidly emerging sector of the shipping industry tied to the efforts to capture and store carbon emissions. Estimates have said the market could reach 7.6 billion tons annually by 2050.
Currently, the only other LCO2 carriers under construction are two specialized vessels being built as part of the Northern Lights project. Fabrication began late in 2022 with the first keel laid in April 2023 at the Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Co. (DSIC) yard in Dalian, China. The ships will have a cargo capacity of 7,500 cbm, a length of approximately 427 feet, and will be operated by “K” LINE on behalf of Northern Lights. The ships are specifically designed to transport liquefied CO2 in purpose-built cargo tanks from industrial emitters in Norway and Europe to the onshore receiving facilities in Øygarden, Norway.
Japan is also working on a demonstration project building a small LCO2 carrier. Work has begun at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries yard. The vessel has a capacity of 1,450 cbm of LCO2 and will be used as a demonstration ship to develop experience in the sector.
Shipbuilders especially in South Korea and Japan have been working to design future ships for this category. This comes as the first licenses have also been awarded for the storage operations that seek to inject CO2 below the seabed or into depleted offshore oil wells. Denmark became the first country to successfully demonstrate the injection and storage system as it moves to launch the first commercial operation in the North Sea. Northern Lights in Norway is scheduled to start its commercial operations in 2024.
Uniworld Announces Participation in Inland Shipping Net Zero Project
Uniworld Boutique River Cruises has released its second Impact Report, detailing progress against its sustainability goals set forth in tandem with parent company The Travel Corporation’s (TTC) sustainability strategy, How We Tread Right. Last year, Uniworld was the first river cruise line to publish an impact report to transparently report on progress made, as the brand tackles its goals in support of the people, planet and wildlife in destinations visited across the globe.
“We’re extremely proud to publish our second annual impact report, detailing the progress that we’ve made over the last year towards our sustainability goals, as well as updated and more ambitious net zero targets announced last year,” says Julie Higgins, Sustainability Officer at Uniworld. “While we work towards eleven individual goals within our overarching strategy, our main intention will always remain the same, which is to make this planet a better place than we found it.”
Uniworld’s second impact report details progress made during 2022. Highlights include a reduction in food waste by 34% across 6 ships using cutting-edge food waste technology Leanpath, 61.1% of suppliers providing local products, offering multiple immersive MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® experiences that advance the United Nations Global Goals across 25% of itineraries, and an update to their emissions reduction goal. Uniworld’s original goal of carbon neutrality by 2030 was replaced in 2022 with the more ambitious goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050, backed by near-term, long-term, and net zero targets validated by the Science Based Targets initiative, and an industry-first Carbon Fund that will support its decarbonization journey.
To progress its emission reduction goals, Uniworld has announced its collaboration with Path2Zero, a 5-year research project led by Delft University of Technology, which is aimed at leading the transition of the European inland shipping industry towards net zero. The project will employ “living lab” workshops to create digital models of the shipping system and test the efficacy of technologies developed to achieve net zero shipping. Uniworld’s captains and engineers will be contributing to various living labs, lending their knowledge and assistance in testing potential solutions. In addition to Uniworld’s technical expertise, its TreadRight Foundation is a supporter of the project.
To read the full Impact Report and learn more about the progress Uniworld has made against its How We Tread Right sustainability strategy, visit impact.ttc.com/progress.
The primary function of the Sub-Atlantic Mohican ROV system will be to support ocean research, while it will also be used for pilot technician training. For ocean research operations, the ROV will be required to carry a payload skid for navigation, equipment and sensors, as well as be capable of manipulation and intervention.
The Mohican is equipped for inspection tasks, non-destructive testing, (NDT), light intervention, pipeline/cable/seabed survey, diver assist/safety, harbour and port security, scientific survey and data collection, renewable energy projects, civil engineering, long tunnel excursion and for inland waterways.
The ROV was manufactured at FET’s UK facility at Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire, and delivered to MI this year.
Kevin Taylor, FET vice president - subsea vehicles, said: “FET has a strong reputation as a single source for manufacturing and delivering high-quality, robust vehicles and associated auxiliary products which are suited to underwater industry applications. As well as defence, this includes oil and gas, renewables, telecommunications, mining, aquaculture and academia.
This contract demonstrates the value our vehicles can also offer to scientific research projects.
“We are very proud that Memorial University recognises our capabilities and reliability. I am looking forward to seeing our system provide the required operational resilience and performance standards expected in such an important sector.”
Joe Singleton, interim Head for the School of Ocean Technology at the Marine Institute of Memorial University, said: “The acquisition of the FET Mohican ROV system vastly increases our capability to complete scientific observation and sampling research work up to depths of 2000 m. The ability to add additional sensors, cameras, and equipment to the payload makes it versatile for all anticipated expeditions. For our students completing the ROV Technician program, this comprehensive system provides a great experiential learning platform for maintenance, repair, integration, and operations.”
The Mohican ROV has a 2,000m depth rating and with TMS Garage system, is suited to inspection, survey repair, oceanographic research and subsea maintenance tasks. Ancillary tools and sensors can also be added to the vehicle for survey and light intervention work. The Mohican is equipped to a high specification with a four function manipulator arm for complex underwater procedures.
The ROV supplied also has precision measurement and navigation systems, HD & SD cameras, LED lighting and sonar for low visibility operations. Emergency location systems fitted include VHF beacon, combined with flasher.
The system was supplied complete with a 20’ control container, Launch and Recovery System and comprehensive spares package. FET’s Sub-Atlantic range of ROVs are class leading and provide users with immense reliability and capability.
Sea surface temperature anomalies recorded on 19 June 2023. The cluster of red and orange at top right shows the record-breaking marine heatwave that hit the north-east Atlantic in late June. (Image: NOAA Marine Heatwave Watch)
About 40% of the global ocean was experiencing a marine heat wave in July 2023. NOAA’s experimental forecasts for August and October show sea surface temperatures well above average in many regions. An increase of 1 degree Celsius = 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. NOAA PSL
Sea surface temperatures off South Florida were abnormally high in mid-July 2023. Coral Reef Watch/NOAA
