by Craig Eason | TradeWinds technology editor Stockholm
Scrubber Water Action Group accused of jumping on the bandwagon without doing proper research
Mike Kaczmarek, Carnival Corp’s vice president corporate shipbuilding and chairman of the Clean Shipping Alliance. Photo: Carnival Corp
Growing and coordinated attempts to restrict shipping’s ability to use sulphur scrubbers have been lambasted by industry figures.
At a recent meeting of environmental regulators at the International Maritime Organization, attempts were made to ban the discharge of wash water from exhaust gas cleaning systems in sensitive sea areas.
Up to 20 member states at the IMO have created the informal Scrubber Water Action Group (SWAG) to discuss common practices and policies to restrict scrubber discharges.
The fears are that the wash water from a scrubber contains the same pollutants that would be emitted into the air when heavy fuel oil is burned.
These include heavy metals and other toxic substances.
While SWAG has no official membership, it has a purpose and scope seen by TradeWinds.
This includes discussing best practice on bans and enforcement, as well as encouraging more states to take action.
The group is hosted by Denmark and Sweden, with the Danish Ministry of Environment chairing the group.
The secretariat for the group is Green Global Future, an environmental policy group run by Kaare Press-Kristensen.
Press-Kristensen told TradeWinds that both sides have produced research papers supporting their position on the scrubber discharge quality argument.
But he believes it is best for shipping to err on the side of caution, especially when the majority of shipping has already turned to using lowsulphur fuels.
The debate over scrubber wash water quality has been rumbling on for a decade as countries, largely in Europe, impose wash water discharge bans.
Most of the 7,000 scrubbers installed are open-loop systems, the type that discharge into the sea, so are effectively banned from being used by a growing patchwork of regulations.
The rules are based on poor science, argues Mike Kaczmarek, chairman of the Clean Shipping Alliance, an organisation made up of 20 shipowners with scrubbers fitted in their fleets.
He said shipping was more divided about using scrubbers 20 years ago, but now had largely accepted the technology where it made sense.
Kaczmarek also said that shipping, as a technical industry, had looked at the systems from a technical and practical point of view.
He added: “We have done the testing in accordance with the IMO standards and we have not found the problems.
“We are finding that this is a benign discharge and not squaring at all with other sources, but the other sources are not doing the testing. They do not have the well-grounded science.
“Many IMO member states, with their own restrictions, largely in Europe, have not done the testing.
“It is really a bandwagon.”
The IMO already has a set of standards, formed by the Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection (Gesamp), which has been reformed to strengthen them.
Gesamp brings experts on specific topics together to aid the United Nations agencies in policy work.
Kaczmarek welcomes the continued work to strengthen the test standards.
A further potential rule wrinkle for scrubber users is a proposal from some green lobby groups to ban the use of scrubbers in sensitive areas, such as the Arctic, over fears particulate matter will be emitted with the exhaust.
Kaczmarek believes this is a false claim and argues that shipowners have already begun to use wet electrostatic precipitators (Weps) to address such fears.
Weps are a filtering mechanism using an electric charge to attract any exhaust particles, which stick to it and can then be washed clean.
Originally published at: https://www.tradewindsnews.com/technology/industry-pushes-back-on-attempts-by-european-member-states-to-coordinate-scrubber-bans/2-1-1945298