IMarEST Presentations on Emissions Reduction and Ballast Water Management at IMO MEPC 62 on 13/07/2011
At the 62nd meeting of IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (11-15 July 2011) IMarEST made two formal presentations during the midday presentation slot on 13 July 2011. These were well attended and well received by delegates.
Dr. David Wright, FIMarEST, and co-chair of IMarEST’s Ballast Water Expert Group, addressed “Logistics of Compliance Assessment and Enforcement of the Ballast Water Management Convention,” which discussed problems of compliance monitoring and testing of Ballast Water Management Systems (BWMS) that will follow the impending entry into force of the Ballast Water Convention. He also covered the size of the qualifying world fleet and the logistics involved with timely BWMS installation according to the published IMO timetable for compliance.
The presentation included:
- A summary of problems facing scientists carrying out shipboard performance testing of BWMS. These include challenge water characteristics, sample volume, biological endpoint determinations.
- Methods of verifying compliance with ballast water discharge regulations. These include mandatory reporting, indirect indicators of BWMS usage and examination of discharged ballast water.
- An assessment of shipboard compliance testing. Detailed testing is very time-consuming and expensive, and may not be appropriate for compliance testing where port turnaround times may be too short to be feasible. A tiered approach, including less exhaustive measures, will probably be required. The cost-effectiveness of alternatives for verifying compliance with ballast water regulations will be examined.
- An analysis of the size of the world fleet qualifying for BWMS and the installation timetable within the context of associated engineering problems and availability of resources for installation.
Mr. David St. Amand, Chairman of SNAME’s T&R Panel EC-11 Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Economics, addressed “Marginal Abatement Costs and Cost-Effectiveness of Energy-Efficiency Measures,” which covered:
- The development of a standardized methodology for examining measures to improve energy efficiency on ships.
- The methodology and model developed to estimate the potential for CO2 emissions reduction of technical and operational energy efficiency improving measures and their cost-effectiveness.
- Uncertainties in cost data and the advertised CO2 emission reduction potential of technical and operational measures and how these are explicitly addressed.
- Key assumptions about: discount rates; future fuel prices; the learning rate of new technologies; lost service and opportunity costs; and barriers to implementation.
- Key findings related to the cost-effectiveness of measures and the potential for reduction in CO2 emissions from both new and existing ships.
- The presentation favours neither a particular market-based approach, nor specific energy-efficiency standards. Also discussed were how the methodologies, the standardized model and the analyses are structured to support the development and implementation of any regulatory and/or corporate policies that may be adopted, as well as how the model and the results may be used by ship designers, builders, owners and operators as a tool in their decision-making on whether to employ one or more technologies or operational measures. The methodology and inputs are structured such that each can be varied should new information be incorporated or to posit and test different views on any of the assumptions.
IMarEST also submitted three formal documents on these topics to MEPC 62, which were accepted by IMO as MEPC 62/5/2 and MEPC 62/INF/7 (energy efficiency) and MEPC 62/INF 31 (ballast water), respectively, and are available by visiting the IMO page on the IMarEST website
Click here to visit to the IMarEST's IMO page
The report on MEPC 62 by the IMarEST delegation to MEPC is available on the members-only area of the IMarEST website.