Future cruise ships and the environmental challenges

Pentti Kujala,
Professor, Vice Dean,
Aalto University, School of Engineering,
Finland

Finland has a long history, which dates back to the 1960s, in the development and construction of new cruise ship concepts. Most major innovations in the field have been developed in Finland. Before the corona pandemic, cruise traffic grew steadily by more than 10% per year and this is expected to continue after the pandemic.

Cruise ships account for less than 1% of the world’s merchant fleet. The total emissions to air caused by maritime transport are about 3.0% of all air emissions, so cruise ships account for 0.03% of the total emissions. During the construction phase, less than 5% of emissions are generated, and significant development work has been done in this sector to streamline ship design and construction processes and to develop lighter and more recyclable materials, such as the development of high-strength special steels.

In the case of cruise ships, improving energy efficiency and renewable fuels in particular are related to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other harmful emissions. The energy consumption of cruise ships has been optimized for years and it can be estimated that ships developed in Finland have been able to improve energy efficiency by up to 50% over the last 20 years. In addition to fuels, other important developments to reduce emissions include improving the ship’s hydrodynamics, which involves e.g. optimized hull shape and alternative propulsion systems, new technologies related to air conditioning and refrigeration equipment, improved heat recovery systems, modern waste treatment methods with sorting stations and investment in the circular economy. Improvements in waste management require close development cooperation with cities and ports. The new cruise ships are designed so that there are no emissions to the water when, for example, all biowaste is treated on board and stored on board

The Finnish maritime cluster has been a pioneer in many developments related to the ship’s energy efficiency and new fuels. The world’s first LNG-powered passenger car ferry (Viking Grace, 2013) and a cruise ship (Costa Smeralda, 2019) have been developed and built in Finland. The cruise ships, which will be completed in the next few years, will also be the first in the world to apply new hydrogen-based fuel cell technology. In recent years, the large cruise shipowners have invested significantly in the so-called closed-loop sulfur scrubbers for the installation on its fleet. The development of digital monitoring systems is estimated to contribute to the monitoring and decrease of emissions.

Taking into account the cruise ship’s more than 30-year life cycle and the new strict IMO and EU requirements in coming years, technologies, materials and operating methods are being developed today more rapidly in cooperation with the entire maritime cluster and the scientific community. The leading shipyards in Finland aim to be carbon neutrality before 2030. The future will require development and investments in ships with zero emissions through revolutionary machinery and propulsion concepts. This can be achieved for example through new fuels like ammonia and hydrogen to be used on the ship machinery, increased number of electrical batteries onboard, utilizing solar and wind energies.  The complicated systems onboard have to be integrated to gain optimum efficiency and safety. The company organisations have to be developed further for the new era of communications and automation demands.

Digital transformation will change the entire business and used practices. The ship and passenger performance can today be monitored by a number of ways and a lot of data gathering methods are available. The challenge is that typically there is even too much scarce monitored data without a clear picture what should be measured and why and how to properly analyse data and use it in the design, production and operation principles of future ship concepts. New analytics, AI and machine vision-based tools are rapidly emerging, but there is no clear picture what approach to be used for various applications in the marine field and this will require joint efforts by the whole maritime cluster to develop the proper and in practice useful tools. Sustainable development goals are important on all activities today.

The new, urgent topic is how to design and operate the ships taken into account the new health requirements. After the Covid-19, the cruise ship fleet is planned to be back in business in full power at early 2022 and the ship owners have developed new processes onboard the vessels to guarantee the safety of passengers. All future scenarios forecast that the growth of cruise ship market will continue to grow. The new environmental demands and health requirements can have major effects on the future ship concepts requiring again that Finnish maritime cluster has to show the way forward for the whole international arena of the maritime community.

Email: pentti.kujala@aalto.fi

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