On Saturday, the world’s largest cruise ship, Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas, set sail from Miami on its maiden voyage. The practically 1,200-foot-long and 250,800 gross-ton behemoth can accommodate shut to eight,000 passengers throughout 20 decks.
The ship is the primary Royal Caribbean vessel to be powered by liquefied pure gasoline (LNG), which the corporate claims units a brand new customary for sustainability with the usage of energy-efficient expertise designed to reduce the ship’s carbon footprint and transfer nearer to the corporate’s purpose of introducing a net-zero ship by 2035.
That being mentioned, environmental teams say methane leakage from the ship’s engines is an unacceptable threat to the local weather due to its short-term dangerous results. (Pure gasoline is predominantly made up of methane.)
“It’s a step within the fallacious path,” mentioned Bryan Comer, director of the Marine Program on the Worldwide Council on Clear Transportation (ICCT), an environmental coverage assume tank, as quoted by Reuters.
At first look, LNG used as a gasoline seems to be a major enchancment over conventional heavy gasoline used on cruise ships. LNG has a roughly 30% decrease carbon footprint than bunker gasoline and emits nearly no sulfur oxides (SOx) and particulate matter (PM). In comparison with present heavy marine gasoline oils, LNG can, relying on the expertise used, emit as much as 95% fewer nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions based on Sea-LNG, an business group.
The issue with LNG as a marine gasoline is what is called methane slip. Methane slip is the escape of unused methane from an engine’s combustion chamber and different components of the ship the place it’s saved and transferred. The gasoline shouldn’t be utilized by the engine so the methane escapes in its pure type to the atmosphere.
As a greenhouse gasoline, methane is 80 occasions worse than CO2.
“We’d estimate that utilizing LNG as a marine gasoline emits over 120% extra life-cycle greenhouse gasoline emissions than marine gasoline oil,” Bryan Comer mentioned.
Cruise ships like Icon of the Seas use lower-pressure, dual-fuel engines that leak methane into the ambiance through the combustion course of, based on business consultants. Engines used on bulk carriers or container ships emit much less methane however they’re too tall to slot in a cruise ship.
Royal Caribbean will use totally different fuels because the market evolves, mentioned Nick Rose, the corporate’s vp of environmental, social, and governance. “LNG is one piece of our precise technique,” he mentioned.
“Individuals will say LNG shouldn’t be the long-term gasoline and we agree and consider it as transitional,” Rose mentioned. “Now we have constructed the ship to make it adaptable to future gasoline sources.”
The corporate is making ready to debut the Superstar Xcel subsequent yr, a 3,248-passenger ship that can be geared up with a tri-fuel engine designed to accommodate methanol, which a number of environmental teams contemplate to be one of the vital promising fuels to attain carbon-neutral crusing, stories the New York Occasions.
Because of Alaric Bond for contributing to this put up.
