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Open AccessArticle

Faster, Better, Cheaper: Solutions to the Atmospheric Shipping Emission Compliance and Attribution Conundrum

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Atmosphere 2023, 14(3), 500; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos14030500 - 04 Mar 2023

Viewed by 424

Abstract

Global concerns regarding air quality have over the past decade led to the introduction of regulations by the International Maritime Organisation curbing the emissions of sulphur and nitrogen oxides (SO_x, NO_x). These limits were implemented initially in so-called “emission [...] Read more.

Global concerns regarding air quality have over the past decade led to the introduction of regulations by the International Maritime Organisation curbing the emissions of sulphur and nitrogen oxides (SO_x, NO_x). These limits were implemented initially in so-called “emission control areas”, defined where the density of shipping activity combines with large coastal population centres such as northwest Europe or eastern USA. However, any legislation requires a scientifically robust and rigorous monitoring program to ensure compliance and prove attribution to an individual vessel. We argue the case for adherence to the mantra “faster, better, cheaper”, where widespread adoption of independent low-cost solutions of onboard, in-stack sensors, combined with existing, globally ubiquitous satellite-based “automatic identification system” (AIS) data telemetry, provides an excellent solution to the affordable compliance and attribution conundrum for shipping companies and enforcement agencies alike. We present data from three field-campaigns which have significantly advanced the concept of onboard real-time monitoring of atmospheric ship emissions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Atmospheric Shipping Emissions and Their Environmental Impacts)

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Open AccessArticle

UAV Inspection of Compliance of Fuel Sulfur Content of Sailing Ships in the Pearl River Delta, China

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Atmosphere 2022, 13(11), 1894; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13111894 - 12 Nov 2022

Viewed by 823

Abstract

Air pollutants emitted by ships are one of the major causes of global environmental and human health problems, especially for sulfur oxides (SO₂). In this study, a mini-sniffing sensor was mounted on the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to monitor the concentration [...] Read more.

Air pollutants emitted by ships are one of the major causes of global environmental and human health problems, especially for sulfur oxides (SO₂). In this study, a mini-sniffing sensor was mounted on the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to monitor the concentration relationship between CO₂ and SO₂ in the exhaust gas of sailing ships, then the sulfur content of the ship’s fuel oil was estimated to evaluate the compliance of the fuel sulfur content (FSC) with IMO regulations. In the experiment, the measurement results of the exhaust gas of sailing ships in the Pearl River Delta were presented, the data set from February to April 2022 was provided, and 445 ships were comprehensively analyzed from the perspectives of ship length and ship type. From the experimental results, considering the error of the sensor, the compliance rate of the FSC of sailing ships entering and leaving the Pearl River reached 93.7%. To some extent, the current situation for meeting the 0.5% (m/m) limit is basically optimistic. The results represent the effectiveness of DECA policy implementation. This paper demonstrates the effectiveness and reliability of the UAV monitoring method in monitoring emissions from ships, and in more effectively monitoring the impact of shipping on air quality. Furthermore, an accurate and non-contact monitoring method is proposed, which can allow law enforcement officers to judge in advance whether the ships sailing is suspected of illegally using high-sulfur fuels. It can improve the efficiency of law enforcement and reduce the cost of supervision. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Atmospheric Shipping Emissions and Their Environmental Impacts)

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Open AccessArticle

Estimation of Air Pollution from Ships in Port Area: A Case Study of Yeosu and Gwangyang Ports in Korea

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Hwayoung Kim

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Hai-Dang Bui

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Sung-sam Hong

Atmosphere 2022, 13(11), 1890; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13111890 - 11 Nov 2022

Viewed by 1022

Abstract

With the rapid development of global trade and maritime transportation, a comprehensive emission inventory is necessary to control air pollution from ships as well as to comply with international environmental standards. The purpose of this study is to calculate the volume of emissions [...] Read more.

With the rapid development of global trade and maritime transportation, a comprehensive emission inventory is necessary to control air pollution from ships as well as to comply with international environmental standards. The purpose of this study is to calculate the volume of emissions from ships in Yeosu and Gwangyang ports in Korea based on a bottom-up approach and supported by the data from the automatic identification system (AIS) and Korean port management information system (Port-MIS). Specifically, a real set of data on specifications of all ships operating at the port in 2019 was collected and an analysis of ship movement using AIS data was conducted by the authors in this study to divide the route into cruising and maneuvering phases as well as to estimate engine’s load factor. Finally, results show that the total amount of air emissions from ships at the port area was 558 thousand tons, which is 96% from CO₂ and 66% from hoteling mode. Additionally, container and tanker ships together emitted the highest volume of air pollution accounting for a share of 73%. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Atmospheric Shipping Emissions and Their Environmental Impacts)

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Open AccessArticle

Parameterization of a Rising Smoke Plume for a Large Moving Ship Based on CFD

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Atmosphere 2022, 13(9), 1507; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13091507 - 15 Sep 2022

Viewed by 782

Abstract

The plume rising height of a ship will directly affect the maximum ground concentration and distance from the source caused by flue gas emission. Ship movement has an important effect on plume rising, but it is often ignored in previous studies. We simulated [...] Read more.

The plume rising height of a ship will directly affect the maximum ground concentration and distance from the source caused by flue gas emission. Ship movement has an important effect on plume rising, but it is often ignored in previous studies. We simulated the weakening effect caused by ship movement by considering the influence of four main parameters (wind speed, ship speed, flue gas exit velocity, and flue gas exit temperature) on the smoke plume rising height, using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model (PHOENICS version 6.0 CHAM, London, UK). The main parameters affecting the difference in plume rising height between stationary and moving sources for the same parameter settings are the wind speed and the ship speed. Therefore, we established two simplified calculation methods that corrected the flue gas exit velocity (

V_{e x i t}^{'}

) and the flue gas exit temperature (

T^{'}

) for approximately simulating the smoke plume rising height of the moving ship using the formula of a stationary ship. Verification cases indicated that the corrected

V_{e x i t}^{'}

(the average of relative error is 5.48%) and the corrected

T^{'}

(the average of relative error is 60.07%) not only saved calculation time but also improved the simulation accuracy compared with the uncorrected stationary source scheme (the average of relative error is 135.38%). Of these correction methods, the scheme with corrected

V_{e x i t}^{'}

is more effective. The intention is to provide some references for the field experimentation of moving ship plume rising in different ports in the future and to further study the mechanism of moving ship plume rising. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Atmospheric Shipping Emissions and Their Environmental Impacts)

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Open AccessArticle

Impact of AIS Data Thinning on Ship Air Pollutant Emissions Inventories

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Atmosphere 2022, 13(7), 1135; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13071135 - 18 Jul 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 846

Abstract

This article examines the impact of automatic identification system (AIS) data thinning on ship emissions inventory results. AIS data thinning is theoretically proven to lead to a smaller result for a ship’s air pollutant emissions inventory. The AIS dynamic data of six sampled [...] Read more.

This article examines the impact of automatic identification system (AIS) data thinning on ship emissions inventory results. AIS data thinning is theoretically proven to lead to a smaller result for a ship’s air pollutant emissions inventory. The AIS dynamic data of six sampled ships for 1 day and for 1 year were thinned at 1 min, 3 min, 10 min, 30 min, and 1 h time intervals, and then CO₂, NO_X, CH, PM, SO₂, and other air pollutant emissions were estimated both with and without AIS data thinning in the different time intervals. The results show that AIS data thinning affects the air pollutant emissions inventory results of the ships, and the impact is greater as the thinning interval increases. When the thinning interval is less than 10 min, the impact is less than 10%, but the impact increases to about 10–15% at a 30 min interval and about 15–20% at a 60 min interval. The impacts of thinning on the emissions of ships with acutely fluctuating speeds are more significant because the constantly changing speed is the main reason why data thinning affects the ship emissions inventory. Therefore, these data suggest that the AIS data can be thinned at intervals of 5 or 10 min when establishing a coastal or national ship air pollutant emissions inventory, the AIS data should be thinned at intervals of less than 3 min when establishing the air pollutant emissions inventory of inland river ships, and data thinning is not recommended when establishing a port or smaller-scale ship air pollutant emissions inventory. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Atmospheric Shipping Emissions and Their Environmental Impacts)

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Open AccessArticle

Impact of Sea Breeze on the Transport of Ship Emissions: A Comprehensive Study in the Bohai Rim Region, China

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Atmosphere 2022, 13(7), 1094; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13071094 - 11 Jul 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 942

Abstract

Air pollutants from ship exhaust have a negative impact on air quality in coastal areas, which can be greatly exacerbated by sea breeze circulation. However, our understanding of this issue is still limited, especially in coastal areas with a complex topography and winding [...] Read more.

Air pollutants from ship exhaust have a negative impact on air quality in coastal areas, which can be greatly exacerbated by sea breeze circulation. However, our understanding of this issue is still limited, especially in coastal areas with a complex topography and winding coastlines, such as the Bohai Rim region in China. In order to fill this knowledge gap, the Weather Research and Forecast model coupled with the chemistry (WRF/Chem) modeling system was employed to investigate the influence of sea breeze circulation on the transport of PM_2.5 emitted by ships from April to September in 2014. The major findings are as follows: (1) The concentration of PM_2.5 due to ship emissions was 2.94 μg/m³ on days with a sea breeze and 2.4 times higher than on days without a sea breeze in coastal cities in the region. (2) The difference in the contribution of ship emissions during days with a sea breeze and days without a sea breeze decreases with increasing distance from the coastline but remains non-negligible up to 50 km inland. (3) The shape of the coastline, the topographic height of the land area, and the latitude have a significant impact on sea breeze circulation and thus on the transport of ship emissions. (4) The differences in the contribution of ship emissions under days with a sea breeze versus days without a sea breeze were more evident than those under onshore versus alongshore and offshore winds, indicating that sea breeze circulation can cause cyclic accumulation of pollutants and thus reinforce the impact of ship emissions on coastal air quality more than by onshore winds. It should be emphasized that during the switching from sea breeze to a non-sea breeze, the pollutants that have been transported to the land area by sea breeze have not yet been carried back to sea, resulting in the ship contribution value still not significantly reduced even if the wind is a non-sea breeze at that moment. In addition, other factors e.g., emissions, precipitation, and chemistry can also play an important role in the observed trends in this study. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Atmospheric Shipping Emissions and Their Environmental Impacts)

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Open AccessArticle

Comparison of the Impact of Ship Emissions in Northern Europe and Eastern China

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Daniel A. Schwarzkopf

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Atmosphere 2022, 13(6), 894; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13060894 - 31 May 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1357

Abstract

It is well known that ship emissions contribute significantly to atmospheric pollution. However, the impact on air quality can regionally vary, as influenced by parameters such as the composition of the regional shipping fleet, state of background atmospheric pollution, and meteorological aspects. This [...] Read more.

It is well known that ship emissions contribute significantly to atmospheric pollution. However, the impact on air quality can regionally vary, as influenced by parameters such as the composition of the regional shipping fleet, state of background atmospheric pollution, and meteorological aspects. This study compared two regions with high shipping densities in 2015. These include the North and Baltic Seas in Europe and the Yellow and East China Seas in China. Here, a key focal point is an evaluation of differences and similarities of the impacts of ship emissions under different environmental conditions, particularly between regions with medium (Europe) and high air pollution (China). To assess this, two similarly performed chemical transport model runs were carried out with highly resolved bottom-up ship emission inventories for northern Europe and China, calculated with the recently developed MoSES model, publicly available emissions data for nonshipping sources (EDGAR, MEIC). The performance of the model was evaluated against measurement data recorded at coastal stations. Annual averages at affected coastal regions for

{NO}_{2}

,

{SO}_{2}

,

O_{3}

and

{PM}_{2.5}

were modeled in Europe to be 3, below

0.3

,

2.5

, 1 and in China 3, 2, 2–8,

1.5

, respectively, all given in

μ g / m^{3}

. In highly affected regions, such as large harbors, the contributions of ship-related emissions modeled in Europe were 15%,

0.3

%,

- 12.5

%,

1.25

% and in China were 15%, 6%,

- 7.5

%, 2%, respectively. Absolute pollutant concentrations from ships were modeled slightly higher in China than in Europe, albeit the relative impact was smaller in China due to higher emissions from other sectors. The different climate zones of China and the higher level of atmospheric pollution were found to seasonally alter the chemical transformation processes of ship emissions. Especially in northern China, high PM concentrations during winter were found to regionally inhibit the transformation of ship exhausts to secondary PM, and reduce the impact of ship-related aerosols, compared to Europe. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Atmospheric Shipping Emissions and Their Environmental Impacts)

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Open AccessArticle

Optimization of Marine Two-Stroke Diesel Engine Based on Air Intake Composition and Temperature Control

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Atmosphere 2022, 13(2), 355; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13020355 - 19 Feb 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1219

Abstract

The influence of gas intake temperature, composition and the volume concentration of each gas component on diesel engine combustion, emission and the output power was studied by building a calculation model of the B&W 6S35ME-B9 marine two-stroke low-speed diesel engine, followed by a [...] Read more.

The influence of gas intake temperature, composition and the volume concentration of each gas component on diesel engine combustion, emission and the output power was studied by building a calculation model of the B&W 6S35ME-B9 marine two-stroke low-speed diesel engine, followed by a comprehensive optimization exploration. The results showed that under 295 K and 18.5% O₂ of intake gas, the engine’s NOx emission is only 4.5 g/kWh and reduced to 58% from the normal air gas intake condition. Moreover, their power output is very similar. In addition, the effect of CO₂ or H₂O added into the intake of the diesel engine on the performance of the diesel engine can be compensated by reducing the intake temperature. At the intake temperature of 295 K, the engine’s NOx emission with 20.58% O₂, 77.42% N₂ and 2% H₂O is 8.62 g/kWh, and 9.06 g/kWh under 20.79% O₂, 78.21% N₂ and 2% CO₂. It is lower than 11.77 g/kWh, which is under normal intake conditions (315 K, 21%O₂ and 79%N₂). The power output is also similar to the normal intake condition. Therefore, the comprehensive optimization of gas intake temperature, composition and concentration can effectively optimize the diesel engine’s performance in terms of combustion, emission and power output. The research results have an important reference value for the optimization of diesel engine performance. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Atmospheric Shipping Emissions and Their Environmental Impacts)

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