So much for going green! Fuel for SNP’s ‘eco-ferries’ has to be transported 8000 miles
By Paul Homewood
h/t Doug Brodie
You just could not make this up!
The SNP’s delayed ferries have been hit by a new farce after it emerged that their special ‘green’ fuel must be imported 8,000 miles from Qatar then driven thousands more miles each year by road.
The vessels were designed with ‘dual-fuel’ engines which can run on liquefied natural gas (LNG), designed to cut emissions, as well as conventional diesel.
However, eight years after work began on the ferries Glen Sannox and Glen Rosa, the Scottish Government says there is no clear date for when LNG tanks, known as a bunkering facility, will ever be built here.
As a result, LNG must be imported in diesel-powered ships from Qatar to a terminal in England and then driven 450 miles to Scotland.
It is feared that will lead to emissions far in excess of savings generated by the supposedly environmentally friendly engines.
The complex dual-fuel design has been cited as one of the main reasons behind the shambolic delivery of the vessels for the route from Ardrossan, Ayrshire, to Arran.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
It’s an ‘eco-ferry’ so all is forgiven 🙄
They should have some eco-dykes, too.
“Everywhere is freaks and Hares
Dykes and fairies”
Wait . . . ferries? Sorry. Never mind.
Golly, how is the LNG transported here? By road? Keep clear just in case
LNG=Low Nous Government
If companies were run the same way as governments, especially in Scotland, they wouldn’t last a week.
So true!
Sorry but the difference between a Private sector Company and a Government is that the Government can lose how ever much it likes, the tax payer always has an open wallet.
Wood pellets all over again.
It’s dismal that Scotland’s previously world-leading ship building industry has sunk to the level of a joke with the SNP ferry boat projects
Indeed; in half the time, the Isle of Man’s new Manxman ferry has been ordered, built, delivered and is now operational…
‘New, Isle of Man Ferry, Scotland still waits’ [July 2023]:
https://www.theloftsman.com/post/new-isle-of-man-ferry-scotland-still-waits
Developing countries are littered with ruins of abandoned grandiose project. Why shouldn’t Scotland have one? California is building a high speed train line from Bakersfield to Modesto, to be known as Newsom’s Train.
Or “Train to Nowhere.”
Aren’t we building one of those too? 225mph trains from Handsacre, a village of 5000 souls with 2 pubs, to Old Oak Common, somewhere near, but not quite actually in London, close to Wormwood Scrubs prison.
It is feared that will lead to emissions far in excess of savings generated by the supposedly environmentally friendly engines.
Really?? No shit Sherlock that a ship sailing all the way from the Gulf and then a truck all the way from the terminal is going to put out a whole load of emissions. While many of know that it doesn’t matter about emissions, it does to the poor darlings who came up with this nonsense so it is fair play to humiliate them for their failure.
Scottish government: abandon nuclear, increase emissions; build wind farms, increase emissions; build solar farms, increase emissions; build ferries, increase emissions. You couldn’t make up the idiocy (unless you were a politician).
On the other hand, how far does the diesel for my old jalopy have to travel to reach Sainsbury’s? Or to the ‘dual fuel’ ships that could run on that instead.
The article is a bit of an odd criticism IMHO. Presumably they didn’t intend to frack for gas in Scotland, Heaven forfend! So, the real objection seems to be that they don’t have a terminal to deliver the LNG from wherever directly to Scotland and have to tanker it the last 450 miles from Isle of Grain?
The LNG has to come from somewhere – it’s not delivered by pixies, and I can’t see a dedicated ship terminal just for the ferries making sense. Unless they planned to liquefy the gas at the ferry port from the mains? Maybe they should get behind the plans to re-open the LNG ship terminal at Teesside.
“Scottish Tory transport spokesman Graham Simpson said: ‘LNG for these ferries will have to be shipped to the UK and then brought up by road.
‘LNG also emits methane, which is a greenhouse gas, so none of this is environmentally friendly.”
LNG IS methane, you berk! Which presumably one tries not to allow to escape. And I thought Scotland was still part of the UK. But it’s definitely better than bunker fuel, he said, having once been on a cruise where I had to pick oily soot out of my cocktail. Now that really was carbon emissions.
Time was when the ferries would have been fuelled by Scottish oil (Forties system piped direct to the refinery), refined at Grangemouth and either piped or moved by small coaster to terminals that would supply ship bunkers via barge, road tanker or even across the dock. The refinery will soon close, and is run increasingly on imported oil anyway.
Ships don’t run on diesel.
Actually many of them do (and lots of smaller ships used to anyway), especially since the IMO 2020 regulations banned the use of bunker fuel with more than a tiny sulphur content in many parts of the world. Bunker fuels have become a complex nightmare for shipowners, with many different grades and alternative fuels being offered – and engines and fuel systems have had to be adapted to use them.
I wager these are not diesel-powered, and the Mail writer is ignorant.
@Gamecock mainly – for what it’s worth even the dual fuel ferries don’t use ‘conventional diesel’ as it claims in the article. The other fuel is marine gas oil, which may be similar to diesel but isn’t what I buy at the supermarket.
Whether MGO is cheaper than LNG road tankered from the other end of the country I wouldn’t know, but I’ll bet it’s a lot more available.
State of the art manoeuvring and fuelling systems to allow for speedier voyaging alongside offering maximum maritime ecosystem conservational returns. Statistically, in terms of speed, the equipped dual diesel engines enable vessel functioning at maximum speeds of about 19 knots, whilst reducing noxious emissions by 70%. Q-Max vessels measure around 345 metres lengthwise with a breadth of 55 metres and a draft of about 12 metres.
Q-Max are the dedicated fleet for Qatar LNG.
https://www.marineinsight.com/types-of-ships/q-max-ships-the-largest-lng-ships-in-the-world/
Stuart Brown
Gas oil and diesel are potentially interchangeable as fuels – the main difference is the dyeing to indicate duty status. Marine grades traditionally permitted higher sulphur levels than road fuels or heating oils, but the IMO 2020 regulations have narrowed that difference. These days oil marine fuels are sold on a wide range of specifications particularly for density and viscosity, and by implication flash point. Desulphurising the heaviest fractions is extremely energy intensive, and entails cracking them into smaller molecules in order to get at the sulphur. There are significant cost gradations to go with the specs, and those match the varying emissions demands. The result is lower viscosity, less dense fuels than in the days of 4%S HMFO, where the heaviest fractions were used as a sulphur dump for the marine market.
Engines designed to use HMFO are just slow speed diesels that pre-heat the fuel to make it injectable. Modern designs of engine have extra features to cope with a wide range of fuels: e.g. the Wartsila range:
https://cdn.wartsila.com/docs/default-source/product-files/engines/df-engine/brochure-o-e-df-engines-2015.pdf
Most LNG carriers run on ‘boil off’ – the gasified LNG from the cargo.
Typically, LNG carriers built in the first decade of this century had a boil off rate of 0.7% of the cargo per day; later ships would be expected to improve on that. That would largely by [even] better insulation of the cargo tanks, the LNG being carried as a liquid [not under pressure] at about -164 C. That temperature needs carefully selected metals for the tank and its supports. And, of course, considerable care is needed when transferring liquid at that temperature.
Auto
There is some sleight-of-hand going on here. As Auto correctly says LNG carriers whether from Qatar or Egypt or wherever are driven by boil off (for economy not for the environment). This LNG is coming to maintain our gas supplies for domestic heating etc. and that’s not going to change (just yet). The ferries must require a fraction of total LNG imports but how to get them to Scotland from IOG? A cryogenic pipeline IOG or even insulated road tankers are a fantasy. Even with LNG storage at the user it can’t work without huge energy loss. But it seems to me that there could be a role for one of the old LNG “Peak Shaving” plants such as were built at IOG and Glenmavis when gas from the grid was liquefied in small plantsand cryogenically stored for times of peak demand. Back in the days when I worked on them they were not all that expensive but things have changed since then, but if these ferries are to run on LNG I can’t see an alternative. But there is an alternative if the “L” of LNG is ignored and replaced by “C”.
Ships relying on boil-off for fuelling became deeply unpopular during the energy crisis. Those with re-liquefaction facilities for boil-off commanded the best rates. LNG cargo was extremely valuable – not to be lost to boil-off or bunker fuel. Other ships that had converted to LNG fuel (freighters, container ships) also found they were unpopular to charter because of the fuel cost.
Of course, LNG and gas prices have abated somewhat, but multifuel is for many the economic choice. Much depends on the typical voyages undertaken: delivering LNG from the US to Europe will maximise environmental friendliness at either end of the journey, and cost out in the open ocean.
It doesn’t …….
Can you give any references to this “reliqefaction of boil – off”? This a cryogenic process needing a lot of energy and complex technology. I know these are large vessels and boil-off is going to occur whatever happens – I just find it hard to believe that it can be more economical to carry and burn distlliate fuel.
They run on pixie dust according to the SNP
Handsacre is on the Trent and Mersey Canal and often visited by my wife and myself, carried there by our narrow Boat at 4mph. It has an excellent local called The Old Peculiar which has a ‘pie night’ on Wednesdays. Can we now expect an influx of Londoners on day trips to sample the delights of this pleasant little town?
When a green fuel results in more emissions of CO2, that is a good thing because more CO2 makes green things grow better and they use water more efficiently, and more importantly, it shows how stupid the green energy transition actually is.
The crossing is only 16.7 miles but they’re making hard work of it.
There is something very wrong here. However I look at it I can’t see how a relatively small ship can be designed to run on LNG – just too many problems. Are we sure that its not just mis-reporting and they actually mean LPG? That would be rentirely feasible (but idiotic).
Boil-off regas is economic for even LNG fuelled ships, let alone LNG carriers.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544218301828
The economics of running on LNG depend on prices for fuels that meet the IMO constraints for the vessel’s area of operation, perhaps enhanced by extra brownie points e.g. for small cruise ships in environmentally sensitive areas, like these Joanna Lumley specials:
https://press.hurtigruten.com/pressreleases/hurtigruten-announces-major-green-upgrades-up-to-9-ships-to-be-retrofitted-with-lng-and-battery-power-2793914
A ship running on VLSFO paying $600/tonne sees $50/MWh for its fuel. Even at peak energy crisis the price was under double that. TTF gas as a proxy for LNG cost peaked at over €300/MWh, so fuel oil was much cheaper. However, TTF is now just €30/MWh, so LNG is cheaper at present.
Cheaper higher sulphur fuel (up to 3.5%S) is still permitted provided vessels have stack scrubbers that meet emissions standards. Genuinely meeting the standard is costly, but claiming to while plying less policed parts of the ocean is an option for some, although satellite monitoring is getting quite effective. Upgrading the ship’s engines for the new fuels is also costly. It’s pushed up the cost of shipping – and of course now is being blamed for climate change, with the Gates plan to inject sulphur aerosols to reverse the effect. Surely simpler just to abandon IMO 2020 on the open ocean.
Doesn’t the liquification process emit high amounts of CO2, the excuse Joe Biden has used to withdraw export licences for LPG in the US to placate his eco supporters?
The whole Net Zero nonsense is a game of shifting the incidence of CO2 emissions to somewhere else so it disappears from a particular locality.
Like charging a BEV with electricity generated from coal, gas or bizarrely biomass, so the CO2 comes out of the power station not the car. Then we can pretend emissions have been reduced and we are hurtling towards Net Zero.
Alternatives to road tankers from Grain include the ferries diverting to a port that offers LNG bunkering such as Rotterdam, or paying for a bunkering tanker to bring LNG to Scotland. This has already happened to fuel an offshore vessel
https://www.manifoldtimes.com/news/titan-marks-debut-in-uk-with-lng-bunkering-operation-in-scotland/
CalMac actually awarded a contract for bunkering facilities ag Ardrossan some e time ago, but it’s probably made about the same progress as the ferries. The tankage is tiny at 150m3, so it is unlikely to justify delivery by bunkering tanker. Indeed, the image here shows a conceptual road tanker.
https://www.ardrossanherald.com/news/18367117.harbour-hosts-first-liquefied-gas-site/
Mowi LNG terminal is in Skye
It’s marked as serving the salmon industry.
I haven’t see what ships dock thete.
Grangemouth was planned on stopping oil refining..and changing to become an LNG depot
I haven’t heard of progress. except that the SNP are not on good terms with Ineos the owners of Grangemouth .
Sounds like a more sensible design: 2×1000 cu m tanks makes it worthwhile to send a bunkering tanker.
https://www.offshore-energy.biz/inoxcva-commissions-uks-first-mini-lng-facility/
Picture: