Ports
Ships operate between ports. Ports are used for loading and unloading cargo as well as for loading fuel, fresh water, other supplies and for discharging waste. Ports impose physical limitations on the dimensions of the ships that may call in them (ship draft, length and width), and charge fees for their services. Sometimes ports are used for trans-shipment of cargo among ships, especially when the cargo is containerised. Major container lines often operate large vessels between hub ports and use smaller vessels to feed containers to/from spoke ports. In many countries, ports authorities that are in overall charge of regulating ports are different from those authorities that are in charge of regulating shipping.
Port operations involve a great many players, both at management level and at operational level. The management of ports also varies from one country to the other. The port as a physical entity is managed by a port authority in which the public authorities may or may not be a stakeholder. In addition, depending on the size of the port, any number of enterprises may be located within its perimeter. Figure 35 below offers an overview of the various market players within a port, indicating who provides services to whom. The diagram confirms that shipping companies rely on services provided by third parties (e.g. pilots, towage services, ship repairers, provisioning, waste reception facilities, and bunkering companies) that are somehow but not fully associated with a port.
Figure 35: Schematic of major players in port-related activities (MariEMS 2017).
The large number of parties involved in port activities, each of which pursues its own objectives, gives rise to a considerable degree of diversity, both within the port and between ports. Hence, a generalised comparison between ports may not be fully possible. Moreover, the situation is further complicated by the fact that different ports often work under different economic, legal, social and tax regimes just because they are regarded as part of national entities in each country. Thus ports are to a large extent different from international shipping that is mostly regulated by IMO rather than by national-specific regulations that applies to ports.
The issues of governance, control and ownership are critical to any discussion of environmental management in ports. Most harbours are characterized by privately owned dock facilities and in these instances, control of property and operations lie with each private property owner.
On the environmental side, one of the main issues that ports are facing is local air quality. This is caused due to air pollutants; rather the CO2 emission that is the main topic of this training course. As most of activities relating to reduction of air pollutants have impacts on CO2 emissions, in this module, the emphasis will be on all air emissions rather than simply CO2.
In port areas, air emissions and energy consumptions are primarily due to ships. However, there are other equipment and facilities that use energy or contribute to air emissions to port areas. These are for example:
- Cargo loading and unloading devices.
- Trucks and other land-based transportation units such as locomotives.
- Buildings and energy needed for these building.
- Harbour crafts that provide additional services to port and shipping companies.
Emissions in port areas are mainly those due to diesel engines and boilers. These air emissions include:
- Nitrogen Oxides (NOx): The main sources of NOx are diesel engines both for ships and other land-based trucks.
- Particulate Matters (PM): Again, diesel engines are the main source of such emissions.
- Sulphur Oxides (SOx): These are due to burning of sulphur content of fuel.
- Some carbon monoxide and unburned hydrocarbons could also be emitted from ship engines if they are not properly tuned.
The amount and level of such emissions will depend on not only technologies used but also operational aspects of ships, the time they stay in port and other energy using machinery and facilities in port itself.
Emission reductions in the port area are typically focused on PM, SOx and NOx due to air quality health impacts. Controlling NOx, PM and SOx is the central focus for most national and regional regulatory agencies and therefore the same applies for ports as does to the shipping industry. GHGs emissions have recently been seriously addressed by regulatory agencies such as IMO, although in the port area, health effects and thus pollutants typically take the priority over GHG emissions.
Shipping emissions in ports are substantial, accounting for 18 million tonnes of CO2 emissions (this is equivalent to burning of about 6 million tonnes of fuel oil), 0.4 million tonnes of NOx, 0.2 million tonnes of SOx and 0.03 million tonnes of PM10 (PM with size of less than 10 microns) in 2011. Around 85% of emissions come from containerships and tankers. Containerships have short port stays, but high emissions during these stays.
Most of CO2 emissions in ports from shipping are in Asia and Europe (58%), but this share is low compared to their share of port calls (70%). European ports have much less emissions of SOx (5%) and PM (7%) than their share of port calls (22%), which can be explained by the EU regulation to use low sulphur fuels at berth. Future forecasts indicate that most of shipping emissions in ports are estimated to grow fourfold up to 2050. This would bring CO2-emissions from ships in ports to approximately 70 million tonnes in 2050 and NOx -emissions up to 1.3 million tonnes. Asia and Africa will see the sharpest increases in emissions, due to strong port traffic growth and limited mitigation measures.
The above indicates that various initiatives are needed to combat air pollution in ports. These will be discussed in this module with specific reference on CO2 emissions. Various ports have developed infrastructure, regulation and incentives that mitigate shipping emissions in ports. These instruments would need wider application in order for ship emissions in ports to be significantly reduced. It is important to note that the most contaminants ships in ports are the cruise ships (MariEMS 2017).