Page 16 - Port of Baltimore Magazine Oct/Sept 2013
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The Port of Baltimore
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September/October 2013
Environmental Stewardship at the Port of Baltimore
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Green
Port
BY NANCY MENEFEE JACKSON
Royal Caribbean,
WWL Stack the Deck to
Reduce Emissions
R
oyal Caribbean’s
Grandeur of the Seas
is part of a
grand experiment — adapting scrubber technology,
which has been used in smoke stacks on land, to
reduce the emissions from a ship’s stack.
When the popular 2,200-passenger ship cruises from the Port
of Baltimore up and down the Chesapeake Bay, she is within 200
miles of land. Ships are required, under International Maritime
Organization standards, to reduce emissions when they are in an
Emissions Control Area (ECA); in the United States and Canada,
the ECA encompasses all waters within 200 miles of the coast.
The regulations are aimed at reducing sulfur-oxide emissions
from ships.
To date, ships meet the emissions standards by burning a
cleaner fuel — but the cleaner fuel is more expensive. Scrubbers
might provide a less expensive and more efficient way to reduce
emissions.
“This technology has real potential,” said Rich Pruitt,
the Associate Vice President of Safety and Environmental
Stewardship for Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd. “We think this is
superior to shore power.”
Pruitt said that two ships sailing under the company’s Royal
Caribbean International brand,
Independence of the Seas
and
Liberty of the Seas
, have each had a scrubber installed on one of
their six engines.
“It’s a relatively immature technology,” Pruitt said. “On a
ship, you have a very, very tight space in which to use it. It’s
something that’s relatively new.”
The scrubbers work in a manner similar to a power plant
smokestack. Water is sprayed from lots of nozzles, not unlike
a shower. The water falls inside the stack, and as it falls,
it captures pollutants. The water is collected, and then the
pollutants are filtered out, after which the cleaned water is
discharged overboard. Salt water can be used in the open ocean.
The scrubbers can be installed while a ship is in service, but
that requires careful planning. “The
Grandeur of the Seas
has
four engines, so taking any one out of service is obviously a
concern,” Pruitt said. “It’s not off-the-shelf technology — it’s a
tremendous job.” He added that the designs of the
Liberty
and
Independence
ships’ scrubbers are being reworked, based on
real-world experience.
Installation of
Grandeur’s
scrubber is planned to start
sometime next year.
“We’re making sure we’re doing what we can to preserve
and protect the natural beauty of the places we take people to,”
Pruitt said. “If we’re a party to degrading the beautiful reefs,
the tropical islands or the Chesapeake Bay with its blue crabs,
then all we’re doing is hurting ourselves — we’d be like a farmer
poisoning our fields.”
Pruitt pointed out that Royal Caribbean has spent large
amounts of money building and retrofitting its ships with
advanced wastewater treatments. It’s all part of the company’s
commitment to the environment.
“I live in Florida,” he said. “I swim and I fish — the last thing I
want to do is damage the environment I live in.”
The technology is also being trialed on cargo ships. A similar
system, covering the main engine and five auxiliary engines,
was already installed onboard the Wallenius Wilhelmsen
Logistics (WWL) M/V
Tarago
earlier this year. The Port’s largest
roll-on/roll-off (ro/ro) carrier, WWL sees the potential for the
scrubber both within the ECAs and beyond.
Unlike the cruise lines, WWL operates in an ECA for only
KATHY BERGREN SMITH
