Certainty needed – why IMO must avoid phasing in of the new sulphur limit unless as a last resort for 2020

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Full Ahead concept - Vintage ships engine room telegraph on full speed aheadFor marine engineers of a certain age, it used to be necessary to increase the electrical power available to the ship by manually synchronising the supply of an incoming generator with those already online using a series of lights. As the phases of the electrical supplies became properly aligned, the lights would flash ever more slowly, and at the right moment the engineer (with a little nervous anticipation) would close the breaker and put the generator ‘on the board’.

What has this to do with sulphur regulations, I hear you say? Well, phases and phasing in are words that may also be heard at MEPC 70 regarding introduction of the 0.5%S limit. Read more

An Inconvenient Truth

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bellona-big-crHeadquartered in Norway with offices in Belgium, Russia, Ukraine and USA. The Bellona Foundation is a not-for-profit NGO that aims to combat climate challenges by “identifying and implementing sustainable environmental solutions”

During a recent press conference at SMM 2016, Hamburg, Jan Kjetil Paulsen, Bellona’s Senior Adviser Shipping spoke about why IMO originally introduced the 0.5%S limit and why it must be implemented in 2020. Read more

Ponderous Regulators are a Threat

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Flexible and timely compliance options needed

“The European Commission’s proposal for sulphur reduction in marine fuels is intended to be both flexible and neutral as regards the way in which compliance with the new limits can be achieved, leaving the choice of the most appropriate technology to the operators. Nevertheless, compliance needs to be achieved on time and at the scale required while minimising any possible unwanted collateral effects”

So says a paragraph from a European Commission staff working paper published in September 2011.

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