Marine Transportation System

Posts Tagged ‘change’

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The Mineta Speech, Pt.3

In Federal Government, Infrastructure, Leadership, MTS Policy, Ports, Water Resources on February 8, 2011 at 3:07 pm

Former Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta offered his audience at the North American Port and Intermodal Finance and Investment Summit recommendations “we can act on immediately” to address the inadequate “role of maritime issues in our national transportation policy.”    Here are Pt. 1 and Pt.2. Pt.3 follows…

It struck some people as a bit odd.  Here Norman Mineta was talking about changes that are needed to strengthen U.S. maritime policy but he waited until he was out of office  to raise them.  Perhaps these were ideas that coalesced in his mind only once relieved of the day-to-day tasks of office.  Maybe not.   Ultimately it didn’t matter.  At least he was raising them now.

“What is the path to victory?  I have ten recommendations we can act on immediately.  Some are major and some seem to be minor, but are critical to success.

“First, the Federal government must reorganize the Maritime Administration – MARAD.  I would rename it for what it should become – the Federal Maritime Administration, and I would combine virtually all of the Federal maritime responsibilities there.  It should reinvigorate the uniformed Federal Maritime Service and transfer the aids to navigation responsibilities from the Coast Guard to it.

“The portion of the Army Corps of Engineers whose responsibilities and capabilities for our domestic ports and waterways should be relocated to the Federal Maritime Administration.  The Army performing as domestic civil Federal engineers is not a role for the military and the country would save money and get a better product if these services were transferred to a single maritime agency.

“Secondly, the new agency must shift its focus to the condition of the nation’s ports and waterways and the role of this infrastructure in the totality of the U.S. transportation system.  The current agency has too many of its resources and its structure focused on the issue of ships and crews.

“Thirdly, the Merchant Marine Academy in Long Island should be renamed the National Maritime Academy.  It should be a Federal service academy where every graduate must perform his or her service in the Federal Maritime Service or as a commissioned officer in one of the other services as they do now including the Department of Homeland Security.  This Academy is one of the major assets of the Federal government and we need to give it our time and attention.

“Fourthly, the Federal government must develop a legislative reauthorization process that puts maritime issues on the same priority and level of importance that surface and aviation assets currently have.  If ports and waterways funding is always being relegated to parts of the surface transportation bill, or the defense bill, they will remain second-class subjects where the hope is to get your particular project an earmarked status.

“Fifth, the U.S. must revitalize its role in international maritime organizations and its maritime relations with other countries.  Whether its treaties or issues involving security and trade, the U.S. needs to give more time and attention to these areas.

“Earlier I said to achieve this refocus on maritime importance, state and local governments, port authorities, and other government entities reliant upon maritime trade must work with industry stakeholders to educate American citizens and their decision makers regarding U.S. reliance on a strong national maritime system.

“Therefore, I believe the next set of actions should begin with port and waterway interests and industry stakeholders – including financial players who want to enter this sector – creating a national association whose charter is to accomplish the following action items:

“Educate the Congress and the presidential candidates on the role of the national maritime system and get hard commitments to take action.  Educate American decision makers and others on the role maritime assets play in how freight and goods are delivered to them.  Then enroll them in the effort to get maritime’s fair share of infrastructure resources.

“My final recommended action is that you accomplish all of the above by overcoming the inevitable opposition – not only from without but from within.  Within the maritime industry there are many agreements of mutual mediocrity.  People are familiar with this system and will not want to see it changed.  The ground is shifting under their feet and they imperil needed financial investment and the innovation and the efficiencies it brings.

“Also, there are issues that need to be addressed within the industry – labor agreements, the role that technology will play in the labor force, and how security issues will be addressed.  These are important issues that need to be vigorously debated and resolved – but they are not reasons to oppose raising the importance of maritime issues on the national agenda.  Take a side in these issues, fight for them, but do not let it dominate the larger objective.

“Finally, for those of you who are looking for quick investments in ports and maritime infrastructure, I’m not sure I’ve given you a lot of useful information.  And for you I’m afraid there is more bad news.  There are no quick rates of return to be made here.  Private investment into ports and infrastructure will have to be a true and long-term partnership.

“The up side as we say is that this is an industry that has the potential for tremendous growth and to have a real impact on our national transportation system.”

So there you have it.  A message that is important not so much for the specific recommendations made–although there are some good ones there–but for the fact that he was putting the spotlight on a problem that few public officials and industry people bother to talk about or even acknowledge.  See the next post for some additional  thoughts.   Pbea

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I’m Dreaming of a New Congress

In Federal Government, Intermodal, Marine Highway, MTS Policy, Surface Transportation Policy, Water Resources on January 4, 2011 at 12:25 am

The new two-year Congress commences on January 5th and it promises to be different in ways beyond the changed list of sworn-in men and women.

In fact I think that we could see the start of some structural changes in Washington and maybe…just maybe…something good could come out of it.  Am I betting on it?  No. Washington is too fond of the fetal position.

However this time issues of a more fundamental nature are getting attention.  Those issues have been around for a long time, long before ARRA, TARP and the big dollar spending and tax cuts necessitated by the severe drop in the economy.  And it appears that some spines were stiffened in the last election and not just on the Republican side.  There appears to be more universal acknowledgment than ever before as to:

  • Growing entitlement programs that dominate non-defense spending and with predicted revenue shortfalls.
  • A large defense budget we can’t afford to leave off the table when cutting spending.
  • A tax system in need of a significant overhaul and simplification.
  • An infrastructure policy of disinvestment that makes our transportation less efficient and dooms us to second place status in the world economy.
  • Our economic and national security in the hands of oil producing countries most of which, at best, do not share our democratic values.

There is a potential for consensus that could slowly build around putting in order the nation’s fiscal house and addressing other policy deficits.  It is possible.  (Then again I thought it was reasonable to expect the Giants to take on the New Jersey label when they made the move to the Meadowlands.)

Still, hope persists because those are serious problems that undermine our long term competitiveness.

Closer to home…there are comparatively smaller issues that are fundamental in their own way and deserve attention in the new Congress.  Wading into the policy weeds, here are some things I would like to see Congress address over the next two years:

  • A vigorous marine highway program built on the converging imperatives to reduce petroleum consumption and emissions in the transportation sector.
    • Leverage private investment dollars in new vessel construction and incentives for users of blue and brown water service.
    • Encourage State initiatives to adopt marine highways as elements in the interstate transportation system.
    • Waive the Harbor Maintenance Tax for intermodal cargo moving in the domestic trade.
  • Improving understanding of marine transportation and the contribution it makes and, even more, can make.
    • Examine what is needed to update a US maritime policy to enable the private sector to break the cycle of decline and the public sector to incorporate US flag shipping in surface transportation improvements.
    • Improve funding and human resources for the Maritime Administration, which remains a lesser modal agency in the USDOT family.
    • Renew the effort to coordinate and elevate maritime related issues among the many agencies including more buy-in by USDOT, the one department that has the most to gain.
  • Fixing Federal water resources policy, especially as regards navigation.
    • Ensure port channel maintenance funding on a par with Harbor Maintenance Tax collections.
    • Fix the too-long flawed, too-long Federal (WRDA) process of planning, funding and constructing navigation projects.
    • Distinguish between frivolous earmarking and the prosecution of fully vetted navigation projects that provide economic security in most regions of the country.

The difference between the list above and the list below is that the latter is more politically doable…if Congress and the Administration would pay it attention.   Pbea   (this entry is a revised version 1.4.11)

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WRDA: Commonsense Earmarking

In Federal Government, Infrastructure, Leadership, Politics, Water Resources on December 20, 2010 at 8:01 pm

A restaurant is moving into our nearby Del Ray Alexandria neighborhood (and not nearly soon enough, I might add).  It is unabashedly called Pork Barrel BBQ.

The name–chosen by a  couple of former Senate staffers now opening their first restaurant–has plenty of context in the Washington area where “pork barrel” is a mud that gets slung by persons of all partisan and ideological stripes  deservedly or not.  The observation goes…”One man’s pork barrel is another man’s needed project” (or favorite eatery, as the case may be).

But let’s reject the term for such time as it takes to rationally debate the issue of earmarking.

The previous post on this blog discusses how a broad brush is being used in the “earmark” debate in Congress where schizophrenia has been in great evidence as party members opine on the subject of how earmarking should be treated by House and Senate rules starting next year.

You can tell that rhetoric and ideology are getting their way when House GOP leadership is telling the rank and file to cut their griping and just deal with it.  It being a prohibition on all earmarking (writ broad).

The thinking person should have problems with that.  Putting aside an obvious constitutional argument, let’s consider how not all project types are alike.  And to keep this short, let’s stipulate that while some earmarks are  little more than grand ideas others have been subjected to considerable analysis.  Put water resource projects in the latter category.

Federal water projects go back to 1824 when Congress told the US Army Corps of Engineers to make rivers safe for navigation.  Today the Corps’ civil works mission includes navigation (the Federal system of coastal and inland channels), protection against floods and shore erosion, and other project types.  Today projects are put through  an extensive and expensive series of wringers: environmental, engineering and economic analysis, EISs, White House sign-offs, reports to Congress, contracts between local project sponsors and the Federal government (covering sharing of costs, provision of lands, etc.), congressional authorization of projects that satisfy the various tests (see WRDA), and  subsequent funding decisions by Congress.  Oh, and there’s the public input opportunities along the way as well as more recent provisions for “peer” review of Corps feasibility studies.

As Amy Larson of the National Waterways Conference put it in her letter to Republican leaders, “water resources projects are scrutinized, arguably, to a greater extent than any other capital investment program in the government…”

In his letter of November 29, 2010, Kurt Nagle of the American Association of Port Authorities told the leaders “it is vital to find a solution that provides a process that enables investments in needed improvements in transportation infrastructure to move forward in a non-earmark environment, especially new-start construction projects.”

Yes, you are bound to find “pork” by someone’s definition even among scrutinized water resources projects but that can be managed through oversight by appropriators.  But if the leadership is not taking the time to understand differences among project types, the high hurdles that navigation projects must overcome to qualify for authorization and funding, or the simple fact that most of the nation’s navigation system consists of FEDERAL channels that Congress is obliged to maintain and improve in the national interest, then they appear to be engaging in little more than indiscriminate mud slinging.   Pbea

 

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Congress Should Ban/Allow Earmarking

In Federal Government, Politics, Water Resources on December 17, 2010 at 1:28 am

Step right up to the Washington Sideshow! See the lobbyist do strange things.

Go ahead.  Don’t be afraid.  Ask me about earmarking.  Then watch my head spin, my eyes bulge, and listen as I speak in exasperations, convolutions and contradictions.

Outside the Beltway earmarking might be a specialty of tattoo artists.  Inside the Beltway, and in the public sector among countless State and local officials–and even in the private sector–earmarking is about addressing solving problems and getting business done.  It is what you ask of your Senator or Member for your town or company or non-profit.

Earmarking, rarely adequately-explained in the media, is usually defined as bacon-brought-home.  The water supply project.  The library addition.  The in-the-bag contract with the Army.  The jet fighter the Air Force doesn’t want but your constituents want to build.  The genome research grant.  The road extension.

The claim is that earmarking costs money that otherwise would not be spent and, in any event, should not be spent in this time of record deficits.  Others respond that it represents “only” less than 1 percent of the cost of a major funding bill.

Defenders of earmarking reach for the Constitutional argument: Congress and Congress alone was given responsibility for making funding decisions.

Besides, goes the insulting tag line, why should Congress defer to “faceless,” “unelected” “bureaucrats” to decide what projects to fund or grants to award?

As a practice congressional earmarking grew significantly over the past 10 or so years.  Today thousands of earmarks populate annual appropriations.  Over 6,000  projects were in the last enacted surface transportation bill, SAFETEA-LU.  (The name that includes the then committee chairman’s wife’s name is itself an earmark.)

Recent congresses have adopted ever tighter rules to improve transparency and to formalize making earmark requests.  However in this post-election period we see earmark critics empowered to the point of sending once-proud practitioners to the public confessional from which they emerge chastened and converted to the cause.

The Washington Sideshow can be entertaining.  Righteous conservatives decry earmarking and then do an about-face as if it the real implications of an earmark ban on their ability to help their districts suddenly dawn on them.  (Doh!  I need that road project!)

Okay, enough about Congress.  What about your head spinning?

Okay. Here goes. Earmarking has gotten out of hand.  It’s the self righteous indignation about earmarking that has gotten out of hand. It used to be about bringing home the pork; today the farmyard is emptied of its livestock.  But there is an unreasonable demand for purity by tea party adherents and Republican leadership. Yes, but there definitely are bad earmarks and that’s got to stop.  But there is nothing bad about helping your district get funds for needed sewer lines. Something needs to be done.  Yes, something needs to be done.

Okay, okay.  So your head can spin.  What does this have to do with the MTS?

You will have to read the next post.  Here’s a clue…WRDA.    Pbea

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Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good Luck, Mr. Chairman.

In Infrastructure, Leadership, MTS Policy, Politics, Surface Transportation Policy on November 17, 2010 at 12:08 pm

Capitol Hill institution is a phrase that some incoming freshmen Members may not appreciate or find at all useful.  After all, some of them are arriving with the intent to de-institutionalize the place.

Democrat Jim Oberstar was de-institutionalized on Election Day.  He lost his re-election bid as did some other senior congressmen, including two other committee chairs.  Gene Taylor (D-MS) of the Seapower Subcommittee was one.

The chairman of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee is both an institution and a creature of one, where he spent 36 years representing his Minnesota district.  He started on Capitol Hill in the early 1960s as a staffer for an earlier iteration of that committee.  His remarks the other day to reporters (as reported by Sarah Abruzzese of E&E) reflect a perspective born in another time that looks out of place in the litmus-test politics of today.

“I think you will see coming in a lack of institutional understanding and also it appears a lack of willingness to follow seasoned leaders,” Oberstar said.

That’s speculation on his part but not without cause.  A real question giving those of us here pause is how well the 112th Congress will function and, therefore, govern.  Many of us end the 111th Congress with doubtful expectations for the next one.  (Paul Page of the Journal of Commerce wonders about the prospects for governing also.)

Not to suggest it is the center of the policy universe but in the transportation sector there is much at stake.  Here are three instances.  Long pending aviation program and policy legislation has been immobilized and needs to reach the President’s desk.  Likewise, the significant surface transportation “reauthorization” legislation—to include reforms that hopefully will make up for the excesses and diversions of SAFETEA-LU—is overdue and guaranteed to take at least another year to address, if we are so lucky.  Whether this next “TEA” bill will contain the multi-modal sensibility, including marine elements, that many of us look for, is one of the consequential unknowns.  And speaking about bills that are rarely on time, how will the Army Corps of Engineers’ civil works program–the basis for navigation infrastructure and commerce since the nation’s founding days–be made to function well in the next decades if Congress does not take up water resource (WRDA) legislsation?

There are bigger fish to fry in this town, of course – the government’s off-balance fiscal policy, the economy, and our international presence. But let’s consider the prospects on a smaller and more easily understood scale of those, nonetheless significant, challenges that face the transportation and public works panels of the House and Senate.  There is much to do in part because not much has been done over the years to address the nation’s infrastructure deficit or to focus on neglected sectors like the U.S. maritime.   As for the incoming class, Jim Oberstar’s conjecture is reasonable.

Among the members-elect, “there is little appetite for or appreciation of the broader policy questions that the nation faces with transportation,” he said — emphasizing that this was his opinion from reading about election outcomes across the country.

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[Oberstar] expressed admiration for Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), who served as the committee’s ranking member and is now almost certain to take over as chairman. “Mr. Mica and I developed over these four years a very close working relationship,” Oberstar said. “He and I were both quick to say we have disagreements on policy issues, but we found a way to mitigate those differences.”Oberstar listed multiple bills that the two parties were able to come to an agreement on and shepherd out of the committee, including a Water Resources and Development Act that successfully overcame a presidential veto, an Amtrak bill that the president signed, an aviation authorization bill (twice), and a Coast Guard authorization bill.

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“I would have brought to the new Congress that history of cooperation and seeing and trusting, that’s even more important, trusting my partner in this process,” Oberstar said. “Going forward, you’ll have to rebuild all those personal relationships and committee structural relationships. And that will take time and will take something out of the process.”

How true.  While still holding out hope for what is to come, we will miss Jim Oberstar, the institution and that diminishing breed.   Good luck, Chairman Mica.   Pbea

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Shipping The T. Boone Way

In Efficiency, Energy/Environ, Green Transportation, Marine Highway on November 2, 2010 at 10:43 am

T. Boone Pickens and I have something in common.  You probably do, too.

The uber-capitalist wants to end our nation’s dependence on foreign fuel sources.  Especially those nation sources that love to take our money and use it to cut US off at the knees.

No doubt T. Boone has an uber-financial interest in domestically produced energy through wind turbines and natural gas.  But let’s give the guy great credit for hitting the road and taking what is an urgent policy campaign to folks around the nation.

Although he doesn’t mention it in his plan, I think T. Boone would give a thumbs-up to LNG fueled ships.   Here are a few notes to add to an earlier post at this address.

With IMO limits on emissions facing the sector, and a tougher emission control area (ECA) regime adopted for the US and Canada starting 2012, natural gas powered ships should be in the mix.

Heavy fuel oil is not an option for future shipping within ECAs. Alternatives have to be introduced. A DNV study concludes that LNG is the obvious alternative to satisfy future ECA requirements, particularly for the short sea shipping.  (DNV item and link to a presentation are here.)

MARINTEK  - the Norwegian Marine Technology Research Institute – does research, development and technical consulting in the maritime sector.  A 2009 presentation on the Norwegian experience with LNG fueled ships is interesting reading.

In China (of course)…

The company succeeded in fueling a tugboat weighing over 300 tons with LNG for Wuhan Ferry Company. The ship now runs on a fuel formula of 30% diesel and 70% natural gas, representing significant energy and cost savings.  The Chairman of the board & CEO of the company, Qinan Ji, said. “This achievement is a big step in the history of China’s new energy industry and will contribute to environmental protection and reduce energy consumption. The marketing of LNG-powered ships will be implemented on a full scale in the forthcoming years.“ (Marine Link, August 8, 2010)

And from the pens of college students…

DNV CEO Henrik O. Madsen, said: “I was very impressed to see what the students presented here today. At times I have found it difficult to understand why the shipping industry has not switched to LNG – given the great commercial and environmental advantages. Today, with their presentation the students have provided ship owners with a blueprint, showing us all that it is 100% realistic to overcome the challenges with regard to LNG as fuel.”  (Ship Management)

I would rather not add LNG powered ships to the long list of things on which America ranks twenty-something—or last—in the world.  And as a matter of law we can’t buy Chinese vessels to work the American coastline.  So, what say, gang, let’s build them here!

LNG is a natural for coastwise shipping, less so for trans-oceanic vessels.  American start-ups including Coastal Connect, American Feeder Lines, and Intermodal Marine Lines see a role for natural gas in powering the modern vessels planned for marine highway service.  They intend to provide prospective customers with cleaner and highly efficient transportation options.

A few months ago the natural gas industry focused their monthly Washington roundtable luncheon on LNG and the maritime sector.  It was well-attended with a few of us maritime folks also in the room to hear John Hatley of Wartsila North America.  Now there are obvious regulatory and distribution issues to be addressed.  But sitting there, surrounded by a US industry group that knows little of shipping and a lot about natural gas, I realized that comparatively smaller US maritime shipping sector could have a major lobbying partner to advance innovative US-flag shipping if we only were willing to engage.  What do you say, Mr. Pickens?  What do you say, Washington?   Pbea

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What Are We Doing?

In Efficiency, Infrastructure, Intermodal, Surface Transportation Policy on October 7, 2010 at 10:09 pm

Canada announced a waiver of its 25 percent import tariff on general cargo vessel, tankers, and ferries longer than 129 meters.  The decision will save shipowners $25 million per year over the next decade.

“This duty relief will accelerate the renewal of the Canadian marine fleet across the country and will help replace aging vessels with cleaner, safer and more efficient ships,” said the Chuck Strahl, Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.  “All the while, it will build on unprecedented investments our Government has made in Canada’s infrastructure and gateways by contributing to the upgrading of marine transportation links across the country.”  (Marine Log, October 4, emphasis added)

The announced tariff initiative should bring into the Great Lakes newer and more efficient competition for the existing commercial fleet flying the US flag.  Perhaps it will stimulate new shipping activity on the Lakes, which would be good.  Ships will move goods more efficiently to the benefit of energy savings and air quality.

If you have the feeling that our friends to the north are thinking and acting strategically, with an eye to the large American market, it is because they are…as they should.

Will Washington watch and learn?  Or will the dusty ol’ status quo continue to be good enough  for US?  In using this most recent example of Canadian initiative I refer to nothing so specific as Jones Act requirements but, broadly, to the insufficient attention and action to address the glaring need here, especially on the marine transportation system.

Much is known as to the general direction of the Obama Administration’s thinking on transportation policy—passenger rail, public transit, livable communities, sustainability, etc.—if not about detailed proposals.   But when it comes to goods movement little has been said.

Officials at USDOT acknowledge having been slow to focus on the subject of freight.  Early on there was the view that the heavy volume of international cargo ramping onto US highways and rails was the sort of thing not meriting Federal attention–”making imported flip-flops even cheaper” was the oft quoted line–as if that were the sum total of goods movement pressures in the country.   The thinking since last year boiled down to the notion that the freight sector will take care of itself, as Transportation Under Secretary for Policy Roy Kienitz acknowledged last week.  The private sector nature of goods movement could lead one to that view, I suppose.

However, Roy Kienitz went on to indicate that more thought is going into the subject now.  He said that a presentation by Canada’s ministry of transportation on their gateway strategy made a strong impression on him.  The strategy is a public/private initiative.  He noted it is intended to attract more North American import/export trade through their British Columbia and Atlantic ports and thus make Canadian operations significant players deep into the American Midwest market.

In the Canadian initiative he can appreciate how government can play an important role working with the freight sector.  Hopefully USDOT also understands that the American transportation sector can lose business if we just sit and watch while others press ahead.

In fairness, a good percentage of USDOT-issued TIGER grants went to rail, marine highway and other freight related projects earlier this year.  We take that as a positive sign.  But the longer it takes official Washington to actually do something structural about America’s aging infrastructure, the capacity to handle growing freight volumes, and a listless maritime sector the more ground we lose.

The examples of strategic planning and investing abound around the world including just north of here.

What are we doing down here?    Pbea

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Searching for Common Sense in the Gulf

In Environment, Federal Government on August 3, 2010 at 8:34 am

Around the time that the Clinton Administration tried to tackle the abundance of red tape in Washington, with VP Al Gore in charge of the regulatory reform effort, a great small book was published.   It is Philip K. Howard’s “The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America.”

Philip Howard’s book came to mind when I listened to this Marketplace story on the radio.  The piece by Stephen Beard is about Dutch expertise, a Dutch approach to addressing an oil spill, and how that compares to what took place in Gulf waters.

No, I’m not leaping aboard the SS Anti-Jones Act whose crew thought they found a rhetorical goldmine in the Gulf.  (Nor am I a JA apologist.)  For an intelligent discussion on what role US cabotage law did or did not play in the Gulf response look here.

The Marketplace piece is not just about oil skimming equipment and berm building.  It is about taking charge.  It is about being prepared.  It’s about bringing all the smart people and into the room and all available resources to the task.  And maybe it is even about giving a little less attention to the default positions (litigation potential and fine points of regulation) when a prompt response to a crisis is required.  If that didn’t happen it’s a shame.   Pbea

 

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The Grass is Greener — Pt. 3

In Efficiency, Energy/Environ, Green Transportation on July 28, 2010 at 8:26 am

Here in the U.S. some vessels may qualify as green or, in the instance of refitted tugs and ferries by the Port Authority of NY & NJ to mitigate against dredge emissions for a major deepening project, are greener than they once were.  Then there’s the Foss Marine hybrid tug that was built with help from the Port of Long Beach.  And there are the efforts in the Port of Los Angeles which along with POLB has a multifaceted vessel emissions reduction program including regulation, financial inducements, technology demonstrations, and infrastructure investments.  What the U.S. government is doing to support technology improvements as part of an energy/environment policy is not readily apparent.  Lest we be satisfied that all is well in America let’s peer across the pond to Norway and see….ships powered by LNG and fuel cells.

LNG-powered ship nominated for ‘Ship of the Year’

A liquefied natural gas (LNG)-powered ship has been nominated for the “Ship of the Year 2010″ award by Skipsrevyen, a Norwegian maritime publication.

The KV Bergen, and its sister vessels KV Barentshav and KV Sortland, “are by far the world’s most energy efficient and environmentally friendly coast guard vessels,” said a statement from Norwegian shipbuilder Kleven Maritime.

According to the company, the vessels use LNG as a primary source of fuel.  In addition, the vessels are equipped with large capacity marine diesel oil (MDO) engines to ensure high speed (maximum 20 knots) and towing performance when required.

“This, along with an optimized hull with very low resistance through the water again optimises fuel consumption during the vessels main operations – patrolling at low speed in rough waters,” the statement added.

“The reduction in NOX emission when using LNG is measured at around 90% compared to MDO, likewise the reduction in CO2 emission is measured at 25%.”

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From Eidesvik Offshore of Norway…

“Launched in 2003, the FellowSHIP project began with a feasibility study and completed basic design and development of fuel cell technologies for vessels by 2005. In 2006, the JIP began development of an auxiliary electric power pack (320kW) fueled by LNG, which was successfully installed in September aboard the OSV Viking Lady…   The third and final phase of the project, intends to be testing, qualifying and demonstrating a main fuel cell electric system…

“The success of the project so far has raised expectations that fuel cell technology is close to a commercial application and has resulted in a regulatory review to establish frameworks for moving the technology forward.

“The FellowSHIP project was developed in response to rising concerns about the environmental impact of harmful emissions to air, including NOx, SOx, and CO2. ….

“With new tougher, emissions regulations now being considered by the IMO and EU, demand for commercial alternatives to traditional onboard power systems has risen. Fuel cell technology is not expected to manage the issue alone, but the technology represents a vital piece of the puzzle in certain shipping segments, such as short sea, local port traffic, commuter ferries and cruise ships and offshore, among others…”

The FellowSHIP project is a Joint Industry Project with Norweigian and German support.

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Good Things to Hear — Pt. 2

In Efficiency, Infrastructure, Intermodal, Surface Transportation Policy on May 1, 2010 at 11:34 pm

This except from the opening of  “A National Intermodal Shift” by W. Cassidy and J. Boyd of the Journal of Commerce, April 5, 2010:

The Obama administration is forming a national freight transportation policy that can be boiled down to one concept: Get more trucks off the roads.

Key officials are increasingly making it clear they want to move a larger percentage of the nation’s intercity freight by rail or water, to take pressure off congested and crumbling highways and to help improve the environment.

“We want to keep goods movement on water as long as possible, and then on rail as long as possible and truck it for the last miles,” Deputy Transportation Secretary John Porcari said at a March 24 Senate committee hearing. [emphasis added]

In a single sentence, Porcari described what appears to be the most sweeping change in a generation in the federal government’s approach to shipping and transportation, promising an ambitious and concerted effort to redirect the way freight flows through the country’s long-standing supply networks.

The JOC cover story is intriguing to the reform minded (and unwelcome to the road-minded).  It builds on recent statements made by DOT officials in interviews and Hill hearings.  The view that is emerging from the Secretary’s office is a policy perspective that adheres less to modal stovepipes (and whether there is a pot of money devoted to a stovepipe) and more to intermodal efficiency.  It first asks if a project would provide public benefit and secondarily whether the infrastructure is in public or private hands.  Under Secretary for Policy Roy Kienitz testified at a March 17 House hearing.  He opened by outlining the principles that are guiding the Administration’s developing transportation policy.

Secretary [Ray] LaHood has decided to focus on five key strategic goals as priorities in our national transportation policy – safety, economic competitiveness, state of good repair, livability, and environmental sustainability.  Our policy on freight transportation grows out of our focus on these five key strategic goals. We want a freight policy that will allow us to target our investments on projects that are most effective in allowing us to achieve these goals.

Later in the statement Roy Kienitz said this:

Whether freight infrastructure is publicly-owned or privately-owned, it produces a mix of public and private benefits. Shippers and other customers of the freight transportation system derive private benefits from freight transportation, and the Nation as a whole derives public benefits from our freight transportation infrastructure, whether that infrastructure is publicly or privately owned. Freight that moves on more energy-efficient modes – whether the right-of-way is publicly or privately owned – enhances our energy independence and reduces adverse climate change effects. Freight that moves on a lower-cost right-of-way – whether publicly or privately owned – enhances our economic competitiveness by preserving capital for hiring and additional capital investments. The most sensible freight transportation policy will be one that directs transportation infrastructure investment to where it will have the greatest impact on our desired outcomes, regardless of whether those modes are publicly or privately owned, or whether they have their own source of trust fund revenues.

Given the opportunity to initiate a  multimodal grant program DOT is applying principles like  transportation efficiency and public benefit.  It explains over $300 million in TIGER grants going to expanding double stack rail corridor capacity and to port improvements.

These are not your typical Federally supported projects.  Then again, what we are starting to hear out of 1200 New Jersey Avenue is not your typical transportation policy.   Pbea

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