The Mississippi River and other inland rivers of the United States are home to several thousand towboats. Current and future environmental restrictions on emissions are creating the need for a new ‘greener’ design for these vessels. Wärtsilä and Ship Architects, Inc., USA, have together developed a new concept of towboat design that employs dual fuel engines for propulsion.
Stringent Environmental Regulations
The riverboat industry is facing challenges as the result of progressively severe restrictions being imposed on engine emissions. Further reductions will be needed in the future when the Emissions Control Area (ECA) regulations take effect in August 2012. There is a sense of urgency to the development of more environmentally friendly vessels.
Wärtsilä’s dual-fuel technology enables the towboats of US rivers to be powered by engines that comply with current and future environmental legislation, while creating operational cost savings for the operators.
Eliminating the Need for Low-Sulphur Fuel
The key driver to this need for change is the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) lowering of sulphur content levels in the fuel used. In fact, the EPA’s limits are tighter than the global standards, and call for a maximum sulphur content of just one percent already this year. The bottleneck to the adoption of these new standards is the limited refining capacity for low-sulphur fuel. Not only is this creating a shortage of supply, but the demand is also leading to substantially higher fuel prices, which in turn is impacting the operational revenues of the operators. Fortunately, the USA is rich in natural gas resources. This means that natural gas is abundant, secure, available, and affordable at relatively low prices.
