About 90% of everything we consume is carried by sea. Most ships are fuelled by oil and emissions from the global fleet account for some 3.3% of total global GHG emissions - if it were a country it would be the sixth largest emitter in the world.

As we move into a future where fossil prices are, at best, going to be, volatile and where emissions from ships are being increasingly controlled, then the cost of shipping is set to rise. It follows that our lifestyles will be negatively impacted by either rising prices or limited availability of the goods we depend upon in our interconnected global economy

 

B9 Ships are designed to address a particular and sizeable niche within the global shipping fleet - the small ship - a merchant vessel at less than 10 000 deadweight tonnes. Ships of this size account for about 4% of the total transport work undertaken across the world carrying essential commodities and energy feedstock without which our lifestyles would be severely compromised.

But small ships are responsible for between up to 25% of the emissions produced by the whole fleet.

Small ships are heavily impacted by increasing fuel prices.

 The global financial crisis has subdued freight rates and, therefore, revenues for the shipping industry and these are now at historic lows. At the same time, oil prices remain high with this projected to continue. New regulatory pressures, including MARPOL regulations on SOx and NOx, 'Energy Efficiency Design Index' and 'Ship Energy Efficiency Management Plan' heap extra pressure on the sector and it is generally considered inevitable that an IMO or EU Market Based Measure will add a carbon component to ship operating costs.

Consequently across the shipping industry there is a sharp focus on energy/carbon efficiency and new business models.

 

Small ships are the vital element in an optimised interconnected global fleet. They act as feeder vessels for large ships to provide access to smaller local ports and avoid the use of more polluting, more congesting overland transport alternatives. Small ships operate on short sea routes carrying essential commodity and energy cargoes and small ships connect vulnerable island archipelagos with mainland resources.

 

The small ship end of the global fleet is under greatest pressure; operating an increasingly elderly and inefficient fleet often below break-even.

The market for below 5000dwt vessels is growing, expanding to meet demand stimulated by increased global trade.  An estimated (by brokers, Clarksons) 1400 newbuilds in this category will be required in 2020.

 

B9 Shipping working alongside the UCL low carbon shipping systems analysis team is quantifying the long term financial advantages of deploying predictably priced renewable fuels - wind and bio-gas - on small merchant vessels.

 

B9 Ships are simply deploying an evolutionary propulsion system. They are not limited in what cargoes they can carry any more than a similarly sized vessel using fossil fuel is. However, it makes sense for renewably powered ships to focus on carrying renewable fuels.

 

To move renewable fuels in oil powered ships diminishes the overall sustainability performance and compromises maximum incentive opportunities.

The IEA predicts UK alone will import 45mtpa biomass feedstock to support the UK biomass heat and energy generation sector. Doing so in conventional ships denigrates the environmental performance of potentially carbon neutral heat and power generation. Renewable shipping solves the problem. 

Supply chain - renewable energy 2. bio-fuel tankers
B9 Ships can also realistically carry chemicals, fuels and other liquids.
 

People
B9 Shipping is in discussions with a US cruise line to build a passenger vessel.

 

Small islands
B9 pledged its technology to developing nations at COP15. Small islands are excluded from world trade as conventional ships are expensive, too large and an environmental risk to eco-systems. Appropriate small scale B9 Ships are a developmental stimulus for small island states. And, to close the environmental loop, can be used to import, affordably, renewable energy supplies to power the national grid and so offer stability and resilience to nations most at risk from climate change.

In an uncertain world predictability is king.

 

B9 Ships are robust and future proof assets designed for resilience in a volatile future.

 

Outputs from the B9 Validation Test programme have been analysed by UCL’s techno-economic team. B9 Ships’ capital costs will be slightly higher than similarly sized oil powered ship to account for the extra engineering involved in integrating the hybrid propulsion systems and the embedded materials in the masts.

 

Using conservative estimates of future fuel price fluctuations and modelling the economic case for B9 Ships in two different future scenarios, one with no climate price and another using very conservative assumptions of costs to shipping of climate change levies we estimate payback on a B9 Ship, compared to an oil fuelled similar sized vessel, to be within 3-5 years.

 

Operational costs are predictable over the long term.  The two fuel supply costs can be fixed for the lifetime of the vessel.

 

WIND - Contribution to journey times/fuel saving from the wind is calculated on any given route from historic data provided by the Met Office.

 

BIO-GAS - Long term, fixed price liquid bio-methane supply contracts will be agreed with B9 Organic [link] and advantages passed on to customers.

Capitalising on these advantages the B9 Shipping consortium is developing innovative leasing products to enable hard pressed ship owners to ready access to B9 Ships.

 

The demand for the transport of dry bulk and general cargo commodities is growing fast creating high growth in the newbuild ship markets. Taking estimates of scrappage and fleet turnover from a variety of sources including Clarkson’s dry bulk output February 2013, forecasts of the proposed B9 Ship type and size were made for a total of nearly 1400 ships required by 2020. If we assume a modest 5% share of these newbuildings were B9 Ships we would expect to see more than 100 B9 Ships in action. Each build might have created 10 jobs and this many B9 Ships would already be saving 1% of the global fleets CO2 emissions.