Maritime sustainability research

A Decarbonising UK Freight Transport research theme

Decarbonising UK Freight Transport is a network of forty academic and industry partners funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The network is exploring the questions that need to be answered in order to enable the decarbonisation of energy/propulsion across the road, rail, sea and air freight modes.

The 'aligning drivers for decarbonisation investment and policy' research theme objective is to gain an understanding of:

The project
The overall project examined a multidisciplinary approach focusing on decarbonising freight transport. Like energy and automotive before it, UK freight transport is now on the cusp of a socio-technical transition away from fossil fuel dependency. This transition will require major investment to fleet and infrastructure, cause disruption to assets and business models, and will trigger significant reconfiguration. Whilst the scaling up of fossil phase-out is most likely to occur from the 2030s onwards, the next ten years of investments are critical to enabling the transition, and to mitigating transition risks to the 'hard to abate' freight sectors, and by association UK trade.

Researchers
Dr Stavros Karamperidis , Maritime Transport Research Group, Plymouth Business School, University of Plymouth
Professor Dominic Hudson, Maritime Engineering group, University of Southampton
Professor Osman Turan, Naval Architecture, Ocean and Marine Engineering group University of Strathclyde

A Circular Economy Network+ in Transportation Systems (CENTS) funded project

Maritime transport is extremely important for global trade, as 95% of the goods in terms of volume are carried by ships in the UK (DfT, 2021). Ships are the cheapest and the most energy-efficient way to transport goods. Thus, shipping volume is expected to triple by 2050 (OECD, 2019), which makes the decarbonisation and circularity of the maritime industry critical to “enable regenerative resource cycles and build resilience across the UK’s transport systems and sustainable manufacturing capabilities”.

The maritime industry is part of the UK’s identity, and the shipbuilding industry supports 42,600 jobs and £2.8 billion to the economy (NSO, 2022). In the latest UK shipbuilding strategy document, UK government acknowledged the importance of UK shipbuilding. Thus, a set of new measures, including a £4 billion of investment to support the yards and suppliers, was announced (ibid).

This project examined the potential impact of circular economy concept application in the maritime transport sector. The current position of the maritime industry and the advantages of circular economy applications, as well as the opportunities for stakeholders were demonstrated, through the enabling strategies of life extension.

Our work demonstrated the potential economic and environmental (raw material and emission) savings for maritime sector. Moreover, through the life extension approaches (structural design changes for newbuilds: maintaining the hull and modifying the equipment throughout the life, condition monitoring of existing and new ships, and retrofitting of existing fleet for the alternative fuels), short-, medium- and long-term transition strategies were proposed for the industry.

Researchers
Dr Stavros Karamperidis , University of Plymouth with colleagues from the Naval Architecture, Ocean & Marine Engineering group, University of Strathclyde.

Dr Stavros Karamperidis University of Plymouth, head of the Maritime Transport Research Group , Plymouth Business School, Dr Richard Pemberton and Sarah Fear from the Faculty of Science and Engineering from the University of Plymouth, provided a response to 22 key questions asked from the Department for Transport with regards to the achievement of net zero maritime transportation in UK domestic shipping. The information provided was based on deep knowledge that the team had and helped the policy makers to understand the complex subject of UK maritime transport domestic decarbonisation.

The Department for Transport launched the UK Shore consultation in order to take maritime sector “back to the future” with green investment. Based on the deep knowledge for maritime decarbonisation the team provided consultation to the UK Government on 21 key questions regarding how to achieve UK domestic maritime decarbonisation and net zero emissions. We provided detailed responses based on real facts/data that the team had with regards maritime decarbonisation. The multidisciplinary team comprised Dr Stavros Karamperidis, head of the Maritime Transport Research Group, University of Plymouth, Professor Dominic Hudson, (Maritime Engineering group), University of Southampton and Professor Osman Turan, Dr Dogancan Uzun, Dr Sefer Gunbeyaz, Mr Dogancan Okumus from the Naval Architecture, Ocean & Marine Engineering group, University of Strathclyde.

Professor Osman Turan, Head of Maritime Human Factors Center, Department of Naval Architecture, Ocean & Marine Engineering, University of Strathclyde, and Dr Stavros Karamperidis, Head Maritime Transport Research Group, Plymouth Business School, University of Plymouth conducted a study which was submitted to the IMO MEPC (Marine Environment Protection Committee) 80 session with regards some significant operational details of self-unloading bulk carriers performing transloading and transhipment operations, and why the calculation of the attained CII (Carbon Intensity Indicator) for these self-unloading bulk carriers needs to take all these differences into account.

The document provides evidence that transloading and transhipment operations reduce carbon emissions compared to standard bulk carrier operations and suggests how to account for these highly variable, but significant, energy demands that occur on those self-unloading bulk carrier types when calculating their attained CII and ratings. The document proposes a correction factor for self-unloading bulk carriers that mainly perform Ship-to-Ship (STS) transfer and transhipment of cargo due to shallow water and the lack of port facilities preventing large ships from berthing.