Coming U.S. regulations on engine exhaust and cheap natural gas are encouraging some commercial marine operators to power their vessels with liquefied natural gas instead of diesel.
Ferries, tugboats, cruise ships and cargo vessels are mostly powered by diesel and marine oil, which have higher sulfur and nitrogen oxide emissions than the diesel used in trucks and cars. The regulations will require ships operating within 200 miles of the U.S. coast to reduce sulfur emissions beginning in 2015.
Additional regulations that take effect in 2016 would require exhaust treatment to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions in new vessels. Both sets of standards are expected to drive the adoption of cleaner burning, and less expensive, liquefied natural gas, which sells for about $1.70 a gallon, about half the cost of marine diesel.I may not like (or believe in) anthropogenic global warming and I certainly don't like the war on coal, etc., etc., but, as I've said many, many times: with huge government policy shifts, there will be winners and there will be losers. Natural gas and the Bakken is a winner right now.
How big is this?
The maritime industry is one of the largest commercial consumers of fuel in the U.S. Sales of diesel fuel for marine vessels reached 2.1 billion gallons in 2011, the latest year available from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. An additional 4.5 billion gallons of marine oil was sold in 2011. Marine oil is a thick oil typically burned by large oceangoing cargo ships.
By comparison, the U.S. railroad industry consumed 3.1 billion gallons of diesel in 2011, while the construction industry used 1.8 billion gallons. The U.S. trucking industry bought more than 36 billion gallons of fuel.
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