Metamorphosis - Cruise Ship Portal

Insight> Bunker fuels
There is no doubt that reducing
emissions is a crucial factor in
cruise operations today. While
emitting fewer pollutants into the
environment should be motivation in itself, for
operators the main driver in recent years has
been the rising cost of fuel.
However, according to Sauli Eloranta,
STX Europe’s vice-president of product
development and innovation, cruise and
ferries, the tough economic conditions
have helped the environmental cause.
“The high cost of fuel has always been a
concern for the cruise industry: the less
fuel consumed the better the results for
the cruise lines, and the more value they
can give their passengers,” he says.
“Cruise ship energy management today is
developing with greater emphasis on
operational cost efficiency.”
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Implementing technologies to reduce
emissions is expensive and, in a tough
economy, cruise lines understandably
want to keep expenditure to a minimum.
But streamlining operations can result in
the added bonus of keeping costs and
emissions at low levels. “Cruise lines are
responding to the downturn by improving
their cost efficiencies where they can and
this, in turn, is leading to less energy
being used,” says Eloranta.
Back to the drawing board
For shipbuilders such as STX Europe, the
most effective way that operators can
improve efficiency and reduce emissions
begins at the drawing board.
“When looking to reducing emissions,
many people focus on technical solutions,
but the most effective way is to start at
Sleek,
clean,
green
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the concept design phase, by finding out
how you can minimise the ship’s overall
energy demand,” Eloranta says. “When
you know this, you then work to meet that
demand with technology.” A ship’s body is
a major factor in fuel consumption. STX
has pioneered a wave-dampening aft
body, a hull form that dampens the wave
system and results, Eloranta claims, in
substantial energy savings. “In the last ten
years, we have improved the efficiency of
propulsion power by 10-15%,” he says.
Weld-seam grinding and covering the
bulk thruster tunnel openings also
achieves resistance savings. “Streamlining
the performance of the hull is a question
of dimension optimisation and correctly
working with measurements to look at the
waterline length, the length to beam ratio
and hull fullness,” explains Eloranta.
The challenging economic climate means
that the push to cut energy emissions
has become less of a priority for cruise
lines, but as Sauli Eloranta of STX
Europe tells Shirley Accini, fuel
effi ciency measures can lower costs,
helping cruise operators turn the
downturn to their benefi t.
STX’s Eoseas vessel concept.