EXTENDED EMISSION INDEX FOR FISHING VESSELS: ASSESSMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL FRIENDLINESS OF A PURSE SEINER WITH AN ALTERNATIVE POWER SYSTEM

Abstract

Current regulations in the marine sector require an assessment of a ship’s effect on the environment and its reduction. Depending on the ship type and navigation areas, these regulations become ever stricter and different technical and operational measures are being investigated to increase ship energy efficiency. For merchant ships energy efficiency is regularly expressed as a ratio of CO 2 emission and transport work (denoted as a benefit for society (BS)), while some fleets, for instance the fishing one, remain under investigation. There are some studies considering the fuel use intensity index as a relevant quantity of fishing effort which can be further used to express the environmental friendliness of fishing vessels, but there is no unified solution. Environmental problems in marine fishery development are very important nowadays and in order to adopt the low-carbon and green development concept, it is necessary to evaluate the current status of the fishing fleet. This work deals with the formulation of the extended emission index (EEI) for fishing vessels which is formulated as a ratio of emissions generated by the ship’s power system and amount of catch which is considered as BS. Adding SO x and NO x emissions to usually calculated amounts of CO 2 emissions represents an extension of existing approaches in the formulation of energy efficiency indices for ships, while expression of the benefit for society is adapted to the fisheries sector. An illustration of the newly introduced index is done by taking into account a purse seiner operating in the Adriatic Sea. The work also discusses the applicability of EEI for fishing vessels powered by alternative fuels as well as relevant sensitivity studies.