No car of series brings all of these devices

Hard to imagine that the propulsion engine of a cargo vessel burning a thick heavy fuel oil can be as advanced as that of a formula 1 for which the performance is fundamental. And yet, since the 1930s, marine engines lead the dance of energy savings: turbochargers, piston heads hardened laser, electronic injection, electronic control of valves, turbines, and other generators that allow to optimize the performance were born on the seas. No car of series brings all of these devices. Too expensive, too technical, not cost-effective to win one or two litres to the cent. On a boat, the equation is any other: engines rotate continuously and develop unimaginable powers. Intended to equip a container of 3.620 equivalent containers 20 feet length (TEUS), the last engine of the Finnish Wärtsilä OEM develops 31.640 kW and consumes only 155 grams of fuel per kilowatt hour. This comparable to that of a German limousine engine efficient represents a daily consumption of more than... 128 tons! Auxiliary motors.

To save fuel, shipowners and their suppliers have worked, in addition to the actual engines, on the shape of the shells, the quality of the paintings (5 to 10 savings) and aerodynamics. The size of the ships also allows to considerably reduce consumption to the transported weight unit. According to the German manufacturer MAN - B & W, the costs of propulsion to the container of 20 feet are 40 lower on a giant container of 16,000 TEUS to what they are on a ship of 5,000 TEUS. These technical considerations, add choices of navigation relying on weather routing or the proper use of marine currents. Deal with the items, the requirements of schedule permitting, to win several tonnes per day, as rate reductions if they do not degrade quality of service. More symbolic measures are also applied in some ports such as the power of the edge from Earth to not idle auxiliaries during the stopover, but does that move the pollution.

Despite its good provisions in spirit dictated by a certain interest, shipping has more and more difficult to contain the wave of environmental criticism which is the subject. It represents 3 of global emissions of pollutants and, most importantly, they continue to increase. Normal when it provides 94 of the global trade in goods which themselves are progressing. Of runway to use, on board vessels, fuel refined rejecting less toxic elements in the atmosphere did not long: pollution resulting from the refining of heavy fuel oils would be higher than that induced their combustion engines. As engines emission standards are more stringent. Difficult, in a global activity such as maritime transport, to establish rights to pollute as envisaged in Brussels or a tax on CO2 as imagined by the international maritime organization. On what basis In which ports How to control the application of such rules It is, among other things, for these reasons that owners of France would prefer them the establishment of a fund Shipping environment powered by a tax on fuels. He helped to finance the reduction of emissions on the ground, where 97 of the problem are located. Equitable since it would apply to everyone, this tax would take into account, of fact, the virtuous behaviour of saving fuel. A few dollars on each of the 400 million tonnes buy each year shipowners would collect billions of dollars for the environment.