This from Hellenic Shipping News: “Launched yesterday by the European Environmental Agency (EEA) and the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), the EMTER marks the “first comprehensive health-check of the sector”. The publication covers key environmental impact such as GHG emissions, air and underwater pollution, non-indigenous species as well as oil pollution.
The report acknowledges that Exhaust Gas Cleaning Systems (EGCS) is “one of the most mature after-treatment technologies” designed to remove SOx matter from the exhaust gases and that scrubbers are recognised by EU rules as an alternative to using low-sulphur marine fuels.
As such, the publication also highlighted two EU co-funded projects that promote the use of scrubbers in sulphur abatement: the “Back from Black” project that studies the deployment of affordable retrofitted scrubbers for SME shipowners and the “Closing the Loop” project that uses scrubbers to increase the environmental performance of short-sea shipping routes in northern Europe.
