World’s first LNG-powered cruise ship debuts

The industry’s dream of reducing shipping emission is almost a reality, as AIDAnova, the world’s first cruise ship powered with Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), sailed out of the Meyer Werft’s building dock in Papenburg, Germany.

The newly completed 180,000-ton vessel, which is 337 meters long and can accommodate 6,600 passangers (cast and crew) berths at Meyer Werft’s outfitting pier where its mast and funnel cladding will be fitted.

In addition, further testing with LNG will be performed on the ship’s engines and acceptance procedures by the shipowners will also take place.

From December 2018, AIDAnova will begin its maiden season with cruises around the Canary Islands. Before those cruises get underway, the new ship will come to Hamburg. On December 2, 2018, the 6,600-passenger vessel will visit the Hanseatic City on the Elbe, after which she will head for Gran Canaria.

Thanks to its four dual-fuel engines, AIDAnova, which can be operated both in port and at sea with the currently most environmentally friendly and lowest-emission fossil fuel.

For this reason, AIDAnova tops Nature And Biodiversity Conservation Union’s (NABU) 2018 cruise ship ranking as the ship does not use heavy fuel oil.

The remaining 76 ships, which were checked, even eight out of nine new vessels coming into the market this year, will continue to use HFO, according to the association.

Meanwhile, Carbon dioxide emissions from 22 top ocean container carriers, representing 85 percent of global containerized shipping, has continued to fall in 2017, according to BSR’s Clean Cargo Working Group.

Clean Cargo declared that more innovation and collaboration across the value chain is needed to achieve ambitious global climate goals.

The group’s annual aggregate average Trade Lane CO2 Emissions Factors are compiled from the carbon dioxide emissions data reported by over 3,200 ships from 22 ocean container carriers.

Since 2009, when the group first publicly reported the aggregate averages, emissions per container move have dropped by 37.1 percent.

This year’s report shows that average CO2 emissions per container per kilometer for global ocean transportation routes fell 1 percent from 2016 to 2017.

“The progress on climate and air quality we are seeing in container shipping—one of the highest emitting industries—is absolutely critical for achieving global environmental goals,” Nate Springer, Manager at BSR, said.

“We need more innovation in low-emission technology, as well as continued collaboration, to meet the ambitious goal of halving CO2 emissions from shipping by 2050, recently announced by the International Maritime Organization,” Springer continued.

Clean Cargo’s reporting system functions in a way that carriers are submitting operational data from the entire fleet to BSR on an annual basis for trade lane emission factors aggregation.