Environmental activists have raised strong concern over the impact on the environment of scrubber technology – the preferred method of compliance with the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) sulphur emissions restriction which takes effect in 2020. The general consensus is that the other alternatives – powering vessels by switching to sulphurcompliant fuels or liquid natural gas – are too costly and scrubbing companies have therefore seen growing interest in their technology. But rising evidence points to water-wash technology, whereby harmful particles are scrubbed free from the exhausts of vessels and stored in solid form for waste disposal at a later stage, being harmful to the environment. Word from scrubbing companies is that seawater, once used to clean exhaust systems, is treated before it is passed back into the ocean. But critics of water-wash technology claim there is sufficient reason to believe that scrubbers are merely replacing one form of pollution with another as recycled water is reputedly not free of harmful particles. Master mariner and head of transport at Norton Rose Fulbright, Malcolm Hartwell, said the “underlying principle is to clean up”, and that using scrubbers meant sulphur remained in one form or another. “You’re just moving the pollution from air to water.” He added that in time refineries would most likely anyway remove sulphur, in which case “you’ll end up sitting with all these ships with expensive scrubbing technology on board”. As far back as 2014, energy automation and management blogger Lorène Grandidier wrote that “the main advantage of scrubbers is the continual use of cheaper bunker fuel rather than low sulphur fuel, thereby reducing the switching costs to an entirely new fuel system.” She added that even so, most vessels were unsuitable for scrubbers and therefore had to be retrofitted at a cost of around $3.5m per ship. Earlier this year the president of the Refinery Automation Institute, Ara Barsamian, added that it was mostly smaller vessels that were lucky enough to pay around $3m or less for retrofitted scrubbing tech. With larger vessels it could take up to 10 months to see return on investment if lines decided to use scrubbers to comply, he said. Maersk has announced that it won’t be fitting scrubbers. The line took a strong stance in favour of IMO2020, with AP MøllerMaersk chief commercial officer Vincent Clerc saying the company was fully behind environmental preservation efforts. He made the remarks as Maersk announced the introduction of bunker adjustment factor (BAF) surcharges a year ahead of IMO2020 to absorb the cost of having to switch to alternative fuels. The announcement paved the way for competing lines like CMA CGM to follow suit by also instituting BAF charges. Adding to the growing chorus against water-wash technology, the CEO of Germany’s Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union, Leif Miller, said “the ecological risks of scrubbers for the marine environment are ignored while at the same time the economic benefits are overestimated.” In the meantime local industry is none the wiser as to what the ultimate effect of IMO2020 is going to be, with stakeholders generally agreeing that compliance costs will be passed down. Peter Besnard, CEO of the SA Association of Ship Operators and Agents (Saasoa), told FTW if mounting opposition pointed to environmental question marks hanging over scrubbing, “industry would have to construe as much”. He added that “this (IMO2020) has been thrust on shipping lines because of the perception that they have an abundance of money”. Besnard called on government to get involved on behalf of industry and said in whatever way lines complied with the sulphur cap, “it’s going to be costly”.
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You're just moving the pollution from air to water. – Malcolm Hartwell
