Why is heavy fuel oil bad?

Heavy Fuel Oil is highly concentrated in sulfur (35,000 parts per million). This means global shipping accounts for 8% of global emissions of sulfur dioxide emissions (SO2), which is highly acidic when mixed with water making shipping a major contributor toward acid rain and other respiratory diseases.

Why do ships use bunker fuel?

Maritime vessels use bunker fuel to power their motors, but depending on your vessel, it might not be regular white diesel. Some watercraft indeed use diesel and other, larger vessels marine gas oil (which is considered a low sulfur fuel oil or LSFO) as their source of bunker fuel.

What do large ships use for fuel?

Large commercial vessels, such as cargo ships, generally operate on HFO while smaller ships, such as tugs and fishing vessels, tend to operate on distillate fuels, such as marine diesel oil (MDO), marine gas oil (MGO), or even ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel (ULSD).

What is the difference between light fuel oil and heavy fuel oil?

Light heating oil is mainly consumed by households and commerce, but also by industry. A small proportion is used for electricity, district heating and gas generation. Heavy fuel oil* is primarily used in the chemicals industry, but also, for example, to a smaller degree in the iron, steel and electricity industry.

What type of fuel is heavy oil?

Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) is a category of fuel oils of a tar-like consistency. Also known as bunker fuel, or residual fuel oil, HFO is the result or remnant from the distillation and cracking process of petroleum.

How much heavy fuel oil is produced from a barrel of oil?

Petroleum refineries in the United States produce about 19 to 20 gallons of motor gasoline and 11 to 12 gallons of ultra-low sulfur distillate fuel oil (most of which is sold as diesel fuel and in several states as heating oil) from one 42-gallon barrel of crude oil.

How dirty is bunker fuel?

Large ocean-going ships tend to use bunker fuel, the world’s dirtiest diesel fuel – a toxic, tar-like sludge that usually contains 3,500 times more sulphur than the diesel used for cars. In fact, particulates emitted from ships were estimated to cause 60,000 deaths each year worldwide, according to a study in 2007.

Do ships pollute more than cars?

Shipping containers produce more greenhouse gas emissions than some small countries. According to The Essential Daily Briefing: “It has been estimated that just one of these container ships, the length of around six football pitches, can produce the same amount of pollution as 50 million cars.

Why is IMO 2020?

The new regulations, known as IMO 2020, mandates a maximum sulphur content of 0.5% in marine fuels globally. The driver of this change is the need to reduce the air pollution created in the shipping industry by reducing the Sulphur content of the fuels that ships use.

What fuel do oil tankers use?

HFO or heavy fuel oil is the most widely used type of fuels for commercial vessels. The fuel oil releases energy to rotate the ship propeller or the alternator by burning fuel inside the combustion chamber of the engine or to generate steam inside the boiler.

What fuel do freighters use?

Due to its low cost, most large cargo vessels are powered by bunker fuel also known as Heavy Fuel Oil which contains higher sulphur levels than diesel.

How much fuel could be saved by building a bulb bow?

Bulbous bow can help to reduce a ship’s resistance and thus to save the fuel consumption up to 15%, however, it is also regarded as a threat to a struck ship in collision accidents because it may generally penetrate the side shell of the vessel, which may cause the leakage of hazardous goods.

What are the 3 types of fuel?

There are three types of fossil fuels which can all be used for energy provision; coal, oil and natural gas.

Is gas oil red diesel?

Red diesel (also known as gas oil, tractor diesel, cherry red, generator diesel and agricultural diesel) is a low-tax and therefore low -cost fuel that is widely used to operate registered off-road vehicles and machinery.