A closer look at the invisible: Unprecedented levels of ultrafine particles and the hydrological cycle

<p>Continental as well as maritime ultrafine particles as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) are likely initially produced by gas to particle conversion starting with nucleation mode aerosol and slowly (within several hours)  growing into CCN sizes. Although these birth and growing processes were well investigated since about 50 years, the source locations, where the anthropogenic fraction of these particles are preferably formed still remain uncertain as well as the strength of individual natural or anthropogenic sources.</p> <p>We present an analysis based on two decades of airborne studies of number and size distribution measurements across Europe, Australia, Mexico and China on nucleation and Aitken mode particles serving as CCN or their precursors. Selected flight patterns allow source apportionment for typical major sources and even a quantitative estimate of their emission rates. </p> <p>Contrary to current global climate model RCP assumptions with decreasing aerosol from 2005 towards the end of the century trends of ultrafine particles and CCN are no longer correlated to sulphur emissions within the last two decades. Nowadays nitrogen and ammonia chemistry is becoming increasingly important for global anthropogenic nanoparticle particle formation and number concentrations. Due to their impact on the hydrological cycle, changes like a slowdown of raindrop production, an increased latent heat flux into the lower free troposphere, an invigoration of torrential rains and a larger water vapour column density might be the consequences. Such recently observed weather patterns are well in agreement with current observations of regional UFP/CCN concentrations and their timely evolution.</p>

2021 World of Shipping Portugal: An International Research Conference on Maritime Affairs Editorial

Currently, the shipping industry is at a crossroads. Although it has overcome numerous technological barriers and finance and economic crises over the years, the industry is facing its most prominent challenge, which rests on finding the most feasible solutions to deal with industry decarbonisation until 2050. Within this scope, the current Editorial addresses the issue of sulphur emissions that the industry faced with the entrance of the sulphur regulation on 1 January 2020 and draws attention to the road that the industry players need to cover to decarbonise the shipping industry. Innovative measures like the Poseidon Principles or the Sea Cargo Charter are in place, and industry players are coming together to find feasible solutions. Within this regulatory environment, the shipping industry also had to deal with the COVID-19 Pandemic. However, some market segments, such as the container and dry bulk ones, have managed to survive, which is not the case with the tanker market. Altogether, these events draw the industry to deal with the market, technology, and regulatory challenges and risks whose outcome is yet to be seen. The Editorial concludes by presenting briefly the papers published in this Special Issue, which were selected among the ones presented at the 2021 World of Shipping Portugal, an international research conference on maritime affairs, 28–29 January 2021, that took place online from Portugal to the World due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Economic evaluation of alternative technologies to mitigate Sulphur emissions in maritime container transport from both the vessel owner and shipper perspective

International maritime shipping is confronted from 2006 onwards with regulation until 2030 by different policy actors (i.e. International Maritime Organization, hereafter IMO), the EU) in order to improve the ecological performance of maritime shipping, and will face more so in the future. Many of these regulations concern the reduction of air pollution of vessels both globally and in particular in so-called Emission Control Areas (ECA’s).In this research, the economic impact of alternative technologies in order to reduce the Sulphur emissions in existing ECA zones is analyzed both from the perspective of the vessel owner, as well as for the evaluation of generalized chain cost, hence from the shipper point of view.The container carriers can choose different methods to comply with the new regulations, such as switching fuel types (Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), Marine Diesel Oil (MDO)) or opting for innovative technologies like installing scrubber systems.The goal of this research is twofold: first, to discover alternative available technologies to mitigate Sulphur emissions according to the literature; second, to evaluate economically the selected technologies both from vessel owners and shippers perspectives.In order to study this, an update of an existing model is used. The added value of the extended model is threefold: calculating the generalized chain cost of transporting a container from the origin (US and Asia) to a destination in the EU, incorporating in the model the different ECA zones in the world and integrating more detailed fuel cost calculations and capital cost for different engine types or technologies used.The methodology used in this research is an extension of an existing model which is updated for the purpose of this research. This update includes a new functionality to allow calculating the vessel owner cost for different fuel types and propulsion systems (Heavy Fuel Oil or HFO, MDO and LNG). Next to that, more maritime distance data is collected containing the distance sailed in ECA zones. This means that for each port-to-port combination, in the total maritime distance database in the model, this additional information is added. Based on this information, the fuel cost can be calculated when a vessel is sailing in ECA zones using either MDO, LNG or HFO (including a scrubber).The research is particularly interesting for logistics operators, legislation regulators and academia. The extended model allows calculating the best economic solutions for selected routes. For logistics operators and in particular for shippers, the results allow making the most rewarding investments from an economic point of view and affirm the importance of different technologies on the generalized chain cost. The results indicate that the price of the different fuels (and the spread between them) displays an important factor in the overall outcome.

Performance and Emission Characteristic of Algae Bio-Diesel as an Alternative Fuel

The Industrial revolution started in 1760, since then the hunt for conventional resources started. The demand always increased and the rate at which it increased now we see our resources at the edge of extinction. The other alarming aspect of conventional energy was pollution. The need of sustainable and least harmful alternate sources of energy has gained attentionin the 21st century. Till date Bio-diesel is the onlyproven option because of its properties like non-Sulphur emissions and low toxicity. Bio-fuel can be obtained in many forms and by many methods. I chose Algae oil or algal bio-fuel for my experiment. In the present work engine test are conducted on diesel direct injection engine by using algae as biodiesel, with A-10 (10 percent algae oil blended with 90% diesel on volume basis), A-20 (20 percent algae oil blended with 90% diesel on volume basis), A-30 (30 percent algae oil blended with 90% diesel on volume basis) and their effect on the performance and characteristic emissions are studied.

Effects of strengthening the Baltic Sea ECA regulations

Emissions of most land based air pollutants in western Europe have decreased in the last decades. Over the same period emissions from shipping have also decreased, but with large differences depending on species and sea area. At sea, sulphur emissions in the SECAs (Sulphur Emission Control Areas) have decreased following the implementation of a 0.1 % limit on sulphur in marine fuels from 2015. In Europe the North Sea and the Baltic Sea are designated as SECAs by the International maritime Organisation (IMO). Model calculations assuming present (2016) and future (2030) emissions have been made with the regional scale EMEP model covering Europe and the sea areas surrounding Europe including the North Atlantic east of 30 degrees west. The main focus in this paper is on the effects of ship emissions from the Baltic Sea. To reduce the influence of meteorological variability, all model calculations are presented as averages for 3 meteorological years (2014, 2015, 2016). For the Baltic Sea, model calculations have also been made with higher sulphur emissions representative of year 2014 emissions. From Baltic Sea shipping the largest effects are calculated for NO2 in air, but effects are also seen for PM2.5 and depositions of oxidised nitrogen, mainly in coastal zones close to the main shipping lanes. As a result country averaged contributions from ships are small for large countries that extend far inland like Germany and Poland, and larger for smaller countries like Denmark and the Baltic states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, where ship emissions are among the largest contributors to concentrations and depositions of anthropogenic origin. Following the implementations of stricter SECA regulations, sulphur emissions from ships in the Baltic Sea shipping now have virtually no effects on PM2.5 concentrations and sulphur depositions in the Baltic Sea region. Following the expected reductions in European emissions, model calculated NO2 and PM2.5 concentrations, depositions of oxidised nitrogen, and partially also surface ozone levels, in the Baltic Sea region are expected to decrease in the next decade. Parts of these reductions are caused by reductions in the Baltic Sea ship emissions mainly as a result of the Baltic Sea being defined as a Nitrogen Emission Control Area from 2021.