Page 13: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (February 1999)

INVESTMENT IN DESIGN

NOx output level of 2-g/kW/h for ferries in regular service between the mainland and the island of

Gotland, in the southern Baltic.

While IMO edicts will elevate the industry as a whole to a new level of emissions performance over time, Sweden's action and the spread of local requirements and regulations elsewhere will make low emissions a competitive factor in the future, influencing design and investment.

For its new monohull fast ferry ordered in France, local operator

Rederi AB Gotland turned again to

Siemens' specialist engineering skills in selective catalytic reduc- tion (SCR) technology to ensure compliance with the tough

Swedish standard.

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Having cut NOx by 90 percent in other applications, the Siemens

SINOx exhaust gas cleaning sys- tem applied to the 35-knot, stern- ramped Gotland ferry is claimed to have successfully reduced NOx emissions "well below 2-g/kW/h."

Installed directly downstream of the four Ruston medium-speed engines and the three auxiliaries, the SCR units convert nitrogen oxides into harmless nitrogen and water vapor.

The specially developed, ceram- ic honeycomb-type catalyst should last 16,000 hours or more before replacement, and the system ful- fills a sound attenuation function as well as meeting the rigorous

Swedish anti-pollution require- ments.

To get diesel engine NOx emis- sions down to the maximum pre- scribed for the Gotland traffic required an additional outlay of an estimated $1 million in equipment and installation costs, represent- ing some 2.5 percent of the total project investment.

Rederi AB Gotland is now the biggest user of Siemens SINOx system in the marine field, as it had earlier retrofitted a total of 13 units on two RoRo passenger fer- ries deployed in the same trade, the Thjelvar and Visby.

Siemens' development of the

SINOx exhaust gas cleaning sys- tem drew on its experience of cat- alytic reduction of NOx in the sta- tionary diesel field. Its first sea- going application was the system fitted to one of the four main engines of TT-Line's conventional

Ro-Pax ferry Nils Dacke in 1995.

The ferry's power installation became a focal part of the original

German study project, known as

CLEAN, into ways of substantially reducing harmful exhaust emis- sions without penalizing fuel con- sumption.

While environmental issues increasingly influence the mar- itime sector, it seems likely that the fast ferry business will attract even more attention in this respect because of its emphasis on coastal or near-sea operations, and because of the comparably large amounts of energy used per trans- ported unit so as to achieve high speed.

The technology drivers and those shipping firms which have taken the technology aboard are well placed for the future.

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