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February 20, 2016

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Date set for cruise ship power plan

SHANGHAI is to build six electric generators at cruise ship terminals to provide power while liners are berthed to reduce pollution from the increasing number visiting the city, officials said yesterday.

The liners that mostly burn diesel while berthed have become a major source of pollution, Zhang Lin, deputy director of the city’s transport commission, told a press conference yesterday.

“Though without accurate evaluation, the pollutants from a cruise line are estimated to be equal to 3,000 to 5,000 vehicles,” he said.

According to the commission, ship emissions account for 8 to 10 percent of Shanghai’s PM2.5 pollutants, the tiny particles that are hazardous to human health.

The city is now the world’s eighth largest cruise liner port, hosting more than 400 voyages and 1.6 million passengers last year. Zhang said the “unexpected, too fast development” had created various problems, including its effect on the city’s air quality. Over 500 voyages will dock at local ports this year with more than 2.4 million passengers, Zhang said. The commission had cut some voyages to control the number, he added.

“It has become a growing pain for the city,” Zhang said. “Without proper measures, the fast increasing number of cruise liners will become more serious threats to the city’s air quality.”

The first high-voltage electric generator will undergo a trial run by September at the Shanghai Wusongkou International Cruise Terminal, one of the city’s two cruise liner ports.

The other at the North Bund area in Hongkou District is mainly for smaller cruise ships.

The city will subsidize the ports’ installation costs and a portion of the cost of the electricity used by the liners. It will cover maintenance costs.

The large number of container ships in the city has become another source of air pollution, Zhang said. Shanghai has been the world’s largest container port since 2010.

“Though the major container port is far away from downtown, the emissions can still be brought downtown by wind,” he said.

The city’s first electric generator for container ships has been installed at the Yangshan port and will be put into use around June, according to the commission.

Shanghai handles more than 50,000 all kinds of ships a year from China and the world.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, a US-based advocacy group, most ships at Chinese ports use cheap fuel which is high in sulfur, while ships, port vehicles and equipment are generally powered by diesel.

The amount of sulfur in the emissions of ocean-going vessels can be thousands of times that of vehicle emissions, said Feng Shuhui, a council member.

She said the diesel used by ships can also involve heavy metals such as cadmium, vanadium and lead.

China’s Ministry of Transport is set to launch a pilot program to curb pollution from ships in the Yangtze River Delta, with vessels berthing at the major docks, including Shanghai, told to use fuel oil with lower sulfur content.

The first phase of the emission-reduction scheme will begin on April 1.

Shanghai’s electric generators are expected to be fully operational by the end of 2017.




 

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