Reduction of Ship Based CO2 Emissions from Container Transportation

Abstract

Today, with the globalization of the world, traders have almost removed the borders. Therefore, there has been a considerable increase in demand for people to reach each other. This also led to the increase in maritime transport which has approximately 80% of the volume of worlds’ freight load and also is the most economical mode of transportation. Despite being the most environmentally friendly transport system, the current CO2 emission rate due to sea transport is 2.5%. Also, 26% of CO2 emissions and energy consumption resulting from maritime transportation is caused by container ships which only generate 16% of world fleet. In this context, container transport has been examined in terms of CO2 emissions. Slower steaming requires less bunker consumption and fewer bunkering port calls thus lowering CO2 emissions compared to steaming at normal speeds. However, it takes more navigation time and vessels to meet the vessel-routing schedule but it can also reduce fuel cost. This study investigates CO2 emissions responsible for a container ship to determine bunker fuel saving and CO2 reduction strategies for container shipping lines. A case study was carried out using the real shipping data of a container ship with a capacity 1880 TEU between Ambarlı and Savannah ports. Additionally, two different scenarios have been proposed to reduce the emission of a real container ship in operation.