A sustainable development
The Triple-E will produce 20 percent less CO2 per container moved compared to Emma Mærsk, and 50 percent less than the industry average on the Asia-Europe trade lane. At Maersk Line, sustainable development drives innovation and change on the water.
Cradle to cradle
Maersk Line’s Triple-E vessel will set a new standard for sustainable shipbuilding and recycling by introducing the most comprehensive material documentation system the shipping industry has ever seen.
To eliminate waste and ensure the safest and most efficient handling of the ship’s materials once it is removed from service, each Triple-E vessel will come with a ‘cradle-to-cradle passport’. This will be a living document, describing the material composition of every piece of the ship.
The term cradle-to-cradle refers to the optimal lifecycle of the materials in a product: specifically that they should either biodegrade and be absorbed back into nature or be recycled. Not wasted.
Maersk Line worked with the Environmental Protection Encouragement Agency (EPEA), a German organisation that specialises in the cradle-to-cradle concept, to develop the idea for its passport.
Maersk Line already has a Green Ship Recycling Unit, which has worked with a shipyard in China to safely recover and dispose of hazardous materials on more than 50 vessels in the last decade. With the cradle-to-cradle passport Maersk Line is dramatically expanding the scope of that effort from safe and effective recycling of hazardous materials to recycling and reuse of all materials.
Reducing CO2 emissions
Its size is remarkable, but the most impressive and important attributes of the Triple-E cannot actually be seen. The Triple-E class of container vessels will emit 20 percent less carbon dioxide per container moved compared to the most efficient container vessel operating today and 50 percent less than the industry average for vessels operating on the Asia - Europe trade.
Maersk Line has committed to reduce its CO2 emissions per container moved by 25 percent by 2020 (compared to 2007 CO2 emission levels.) So far, and not including the progress made with Triple-E, the company has reduced its CO2 emissions by 14 percent. The Triple-E will be a key component in reaching this first goal.
With room for 18,000 TEU (twenty-foot containers), the Triple-E has a capacity for 2,500 more containers than Emma Mærsk, meaning less carbon dioxide emitted per container moved. And despite its size, the Triple-E is no gas guzzler: the vessels use approximately 35 percent less fuel per container moved than the 13,100 TEU ships being delivered to other container shipping lines in the next few years for service on international shipping, especially the Asia - Europe trade.
An energy efficient combination
One major reason for its superior energy efficiency is what is happening in the Triple-E’s engine room. The Triple-E is designed for a top speed of 23 knots, compared to Emma Mærsk’s top speed of 25 knots. That tiny difference in maximum speed lowers the power output needed from the engine by 19 percent, which allows for slower revolutions in its engines and far greater fuel economy.
The Triple-E has two slow running engines (‘ultra-long stroke’) and two large propellers, a combination called ‘twin skeg’. The reason for using this combination is that Maersk Line studies found that using two of these slower running engines to turn two propellers results in further energy savings of 4 percent compared to a one engine/one propeller design.
Boosting the energy efficiency of the vessel further is a waste heat recovery system situated in the engine room that captures and reuses heat and pressure from the engine’s exhaust that would normally escape as wasted energy. Reusing this waste heat increases the power to the engine by 9 percent, reducing fuel consumption by 9 percent.
