Page 24 - Port of Hamburg Magazine - 01.19

■ FUTURE PORT
VISIONS OF FUTURE SHIPPING: SHIP CONVOY CONCEPT
24 | Port of Hamburg Magazine | March 2019
rigorously check whether everybody is playing by the rules. Anybody assuming that they may continue to use heavy oil because they won’t be discovered would have a competitive advantage worth millions. That must not happen.
Alternative fuels, gas propulsion for example, are increasingly under discussion. What are the dif- ficulties there?
There are no difficulties with gas propulsion. This is an established, manageable, good and proven tech- nology that companies are happy to use. However, there is still no global, universal network of filling sta- tions or bunker vessels for LNG – Liquefied Natural Gas. Nevertheless, we regard LNG as a very impor- tant fuel, emitting neither fine dust particles nor NOx, and cutting CO2 emissions by around one-third.
Do other alternatives exist? In the automobile sector the focus just now is on electric propulsion.
That’s scarcely an alternative for global shipping ac- ross the world’s oceans. For shorter routes, ferries for instance, E-propulsion systems are gaining ground. Some people are working on the subject of hydrogen. If this could be produced from power sources derived from such CO2-free power as wind energy, then in the long term that could mean no-emission shipping.
Germany endorsed the Hong Kong Convention for safe and environment-friendly ship recycling ...
Yes, at long last! That’s an important political signal. We hope that ship-recycling nations like India, Bang- ladesh and Pakistan will sign up so that this can be- come the law actually in force. Irrespective of that, over 30 of the ship recycling yards located in India are already observing the Hong Kong Convention as standard. As this comes into force, yards not obser- ving this agreement will no longer be in the market.
Containerships are constantly becoming larger. Only just recently, the ‘MSC Zoe’ lost around 270 containers in the North Sea. Are these ships still safe?
A dramatic and most satisfactory downturn in ship- ping accidents has occurred in recent decades. IMO experts are analyzing the ‘MSC Zoe’ incident and will then be considering whether any changes are required in regulations or technology. It was very good that there was an emergency control centre to ensure joint, coordinated accident management.
What is the first thing to be done on the subject of digitalization?
The foremost aim must be to achieve digitaliza- tion of the complete maritime transport chain. It will be of little use for a ship to be optimized digitally, if she is then unable to interchange data with the port. Global technological standards ensu- ring that systems are mutually compatible are not simply lacking in shipping, but also in the ports. ■
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