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Low Carbon Shipping: A Systems Approach

The Low Carbon Shipping (LCS) Consortium aims to reduce the CO2 emissions of the shipping industry.

Project leader

Melanie Landamore and John Mangan

Dates

January 2010 to December 2012

Project staff

Dr Alan Murphy

Dr Michael Woodward

Dr Paul Stott

Prof Richard Birmingham

Dr Patrick Rigot-Muller

Prof David Campbell (NUBS)

Sponsors

EPSRC

Partners

UCL, University of Strathclyde, University of Hull, University of Plymouth, and 15 industry and government partners (including ship operators, designers, builders, technologists, brokers, classification society, NGOs, shipping industry clubs).

Description

Shipping is responsible for around 3-4% of anthropogenic CO2. Without taking measures these emissions are on a trajectory to increase.

The high level aims of the consortium are to investigate the following:

  • The relationship between transport logistics and future ship designs
  • The future demand for shipping (in relation to other transport modes)
  • The impacts of technical and policy emission reduction schemes on shipping
  • Implementation barriers to technical and policy emission reduction
  • The allocation and enforcement of emission allowances in policy scenarios

Identifying the best strategies for reducing carbon emissions of the shipping sector is a major challenge.

It requires a holistic understanding of how it functions technically, operationally and economically.

The project integrates studies on individual topics through a global model of shipping.

This consortium is established in response to the recent concerns in climate change, oil price and regulation.

Newcastle University leads Looking at Logistics (WP3) and Economics and Environnmental Costing (WP4). It contributes to the identification and analysis of Technologies for Low-carbon Shipping (WP2).