EDITORIAL

Blue seas, green growth

Competitiveness comes in many shapes and sizes. Certainly in the marine industry, “going green” has been a very shrewd move to make as customers are becoming more and more environmentally conscious. Sustainability issues impact all fields of marine industry and the requirements set for marine technology are becoming increasingly strict.

Recent report ’Smart maritime technology solutions’ by Finnish Maritime Industries and Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment argues that further research is needed within the industry on issues such as new energy sources, power-generation flexibility, recovery of energy from on-board systems, energy storage and emissions and their reduction and energy economics.

In addition, performance, maintenance and emissions management need to be improved by operational profiles and areas such as reliability prognosis, identification of parasitic losses and fault diagnostics, retrofits and turbo-compounding should be boosted, as well.

In the brightest of crystal balls, the future of maritime is free from fossil fuels. One of the latest news on this front came over summer as Peace Boat, Japan-based international non-profit organisation, signed a letter of intent with the Arctech Helsinki Shipyard to construct Ecoship, the world’s greenest cruise ship. Arctech is set to build “the most innovative and ecologically friendly cruise vessel ever”, a flagship for the fight against climate change.

The 2 000-passenger and 750-cabin, 60 000 GT vessel is scheduled for delivery in spring 2020. Ecoship, with its nature-inspired architectural design by Spanish company Oliver Design, will be the platform for Peace Boat’s round-the-world cruise carrying 6 000 people per year, hosting exhibitions on green technology in up to 100 ports per year and serving as a “floating sustainability laboratory” contributing to research on ocean, climate and green marine technology.

Similarly, green winds blow also in Turku and Rauma shipyards. Turku, for instance, is an industry leader in the making of LNG powered cruise vessels.

Rauma shipyard has successfully rebooted its operations and is now operating as a new entity, Rauma Marine Constructions (RMC). The keel of the very first vessel – a ferry for Danish Molslinjen – was lowered into its place in August 2017. The Danes will get their ferry in the spring.

In addition, one of the key players in Rauma, Roll-Royce Marine is currently making major investments in its azimuth thruster production facility. The 57-million-euro investment – due for completion by 2020 – includes e.g. a major rebuild of existing facilities and installation of a crane capable of lifting 200 tonnes.