Upon fostering the development and advancement of the Maritime Industry, it is of a striking importance to ensure that coastal environments, waterways and oceans are not threatened by shipping and offshore operations.
Marine pollution has been recognized as one of many other serious threats to the world’s marine habitats thus many programs and projects have been introduced to address this issue. The involvement of the shipping, port and oil industries is essential to a successful implementation of such proposed programs and the utilization of technological solutions.
The most significant environmentally and economically optimized solutions set to be commissioned in 2012, are as follows:
HERCULES Project (High-efficiency Engine R&D on Combustion with Ultra-low Emissions for Ships), designed in 2002 as a 7-year strategic R&D Plan, aimed at developing new technologies for reducing emissions and increasing engine efficiency thus reducing CO2. MAN Diesel & Turbo and Wärtsilä Corporation have proposed a joint research project, the HERCULES-C Project, in order to proceed with the research and development of marine engine technology. The concept of the project planned to run from 2012 to 2015 addresses higher efficiency, reduced emissions and increased reliability for marine engines.
Akademik Lomonosov is the first Russian floating nuclear power station. The 144 meters long and 30 meters wide non-self-propelled vessel will be deployed at Vilyuchinsk, in the Kamchatka region in Russia’s Far East, after being commissioned in 2012.
MWCC’S Capping Stack is a new technology device for suspending the flow from a well blowout on the ocean floor. The new spill-containment device has been developed and constructed by a consortium of oil companies in response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. The well-capping stack has the capacity to daily collect 60,000 barrels of oil from a leaking well in 8,000 feet of water and it can stop a spill after a well blowout, in ten days. Apart from controlling the spills, the design of this development allows oil offloading from tankers in the Gulf. A new highly developed design of the capping stack that will enable extraction of 100,000 barrels of oil at a depth of 10,000 feet is currently being constructed and the commissioning ceremony will take place by mid-2012.
World Maritime News Staff, January 20, 2012