Abstract
Merchant vessels are equipped with antifouling systems to prevent
accumulation of marine organisms on the hull—a phenomenon known as
fouling. In many cases, however, fouling accumulates and in-water hull
cleaning is required. Hull cleanings are part of a hull management
scheme, and although they are an established practice, their associated
environmental and economic trade-offs and conflicts have remained
largely unexplored. The purpose of this article is to quantitatively
assess both economic and environmental impacts of hull management
schemes on the operation of tanker vessels. After identifying induced
and avoided costs and environmental impacts from the hull management
system, we used both temporally and spatially distributed models to
capture the degradation of the antifouling system as well as the global
sailing profile of the vessels. Last, we analyzed how each of the
modeled impacts varied with the frequency of hull cleanings within the
hull management scheme. Our analysis revealed a convex relationship
between the frequency of hull cleanings and fuel savings. The higher the
frequency of hull cleanings, the less fuel savings can be achieved per
cleaning. In terms of costs, from some point on the costs of the service
are likely to offset the savings—especially if fuel prices are low. In
regards to climate change, avoided emissions due to fuel savings are
likely to outweigh the limited impacts from the service itself. Last,
while ecosystem impacts from marine, terrestrial, and freshwater
eco-toxicity are likely to increase from hull cleanings, they are
subject to high uncertainties.
Original language | English |
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Journal | Journal of Industrial Ecology |
Volume | 22 |
Issue number | 4 |
Pages (from-to) | 916-929 |
ISSN | 1088-1980 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2018 |
Keywords
- Antifouling systems
- Fuel efficiency
- Industrial ecology
- Life cycle management
- Product-service systems
- Shipping