Determination of Emission Factors from Commercial Marine Vessels

EXTENDED ABSTRACT Commercial marine vessels range in size from small fishing boats (20-30 meters in length) to extremely large tanker ships (>300 meters in length). These ships almost without exception use diesel engines for propulsion and auxiliary power generation. The larger ships, comprising bulk carriers, tankers and container carriers, utilize slow-speed diesel (SSD) engines that produce power in the 10 MW to 100 MW range. These engines typically consume heavy fuel oils (HFO), which are high in sulfur content (1%-4.5% by weight). Smaller vessels use medium-speed diesel (MSD) engines for propulsion, and generally all vessels will use MSD engines for auxiliary power, but may use more refined fuels such as marine diesel oil (MDO) or marine gas oil (MGO). These engines are extremely efficient, converting nearly all of the carbon in the fuel to CO2, but also emitting NOx, SO2, PM, and small quantities of CO and VOCs such as formaldehyde (CH2O) and ethene (C2H4). In general, emissions from these ships are unregulated and uncontrolled.