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Low Carbon Ships and Shipping

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Energy, Transport, & the Environment
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Abstract

This chapter discusses the scope for increasing the energy efficiency and decreasing the carbon (and other GHG) emissions of ships and shipping. An overview of the fundamentals of the shipping industry is presented (why does shipping exist, how does demand develop, where do ships go, how is shipping structured, what are its impacts) to provide context for further detail on the energy efficiency, regulatory options and technology options that could be employed to help transition shipping to a low carbon future. Two specific examples of trends which could be important to this transition (an increase in ship size and a decrease in speed) are then analysed in greater detail to reveal their potential and also some of the practical implementation issues that will need to be considered.

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Acknowledgments

This chapter is based on work undertaken for the ongoing project “Low Carbon Shipping—a Systems Approach”, the authors would like to thank RCUK Energy, Rolls Royce and Lloyd’s Register who have funded the research, as well as the academic, industry, NGO and government members of the consortium that support the research with in-kind effort and data. The chapter uses many ideas that have been developed with colleagues at the UCL Energy Institute, including Mark Barrett, Sophie Parker, Eoin O’Keeffe and Nishatabbas Rehmatulla.

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Correspondence to T. W. P. Smith .

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© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Smith, T.W.P. (2012). Low Carbon Ships and Shipping. In: Inderwildi, O., King, S. (eds) Energy, Transport, & the Environment. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-2717-8_30

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-2717-8_30

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  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-2716-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-2717-8

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