Shipping emissions: Route optimisation using ocean currents and eddies may save 10% fuel use globally

An Australian scientist proposes freight and container ships optimise their routes based upon satellite data and a AI algorithm based upon the mapping of ocean currents and ocean eddies. 

This could save a freight route between Sydney and Wellington in New Zealand about 17 percent fuel use, with minimal deviation and change in delivery time. It could achieve these savings by tracking the flow of a large anticlockwise eddy in the Tasman Sea.

Projecting this globally: global shipping industry could potentially cut its total fuel usage by 10 per cent with his route optimisation algorithm, Estimated savings are projected to be nearly US$50 billion and 237 million tonnes of CO2 emissions every year.

Shane Keating is an oceanographer and associate professor of applied mathematics at UNSW Sydney. He has developed an application and is offering it through his just-launched UNSW spin-off company named Ocean Intelligence. 

“It’s essentially Google Maps for the sea, which offers the most efficient route in real time based on the behaviour of ocean eddies,” Keating said in this article in the Saturday Paper.

The solutions for decarbonising shipping emissions:

Shipping emissions is one of those niche areas, part of Transport emissions, that needs to be tackled. There is both a huge freight and logistics component, a smaller passenger component and the tourism component of cruise ships.

There are both technology and operational changes that can be made in the near term for existing ships:

Slow steaming. There is a cubed relationship between ship speed and energy consumption.

Changing practices such as 

• Retro-fit ships with wind propulsion technology. This technology is now very advanced, not one size fits all. Fletner rotors, advanced sail technologies and kites.
• Route optimisation in combination with wind technology. On one route up to 60 percent saving modelled
• Alternative fuels. Bio-methanol, ammonia, hydrogen, batteries. These fuels have many challenges. 

Keating's application is part of operational changes involving better route optimisation. Fuel use and emissions could be further minimised in combination with ship retrofit with modern wind technologies, or alternative fuels. 

See my January 2024 article, Addressing shipping emissions with Professor Alice Larkin in interview with Kevin Anderson (including embedded video).

Climate Citizen, 5 July 2023, Shipping levy on maritime emissions opposed by Australia at IMO conference

Climate Citizen, 9 November 2021, Guest Post: Shipping emissions must fall by a third by 2030 and reach zero before 2050 – new research

References:

Drew Rooke, The Saturday Paper, 1 June 2024, The ‘game changer’ that could transform international shipping, https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/life/technology/2024/06/01/the-game-changer-that-could-transform-shipping

John Englart, Climate Citizen, 4 Jan 2024, Addressing shipping emissions with Professor Alice Larkin in interview with Kevin Anderson https://takvera.blogspot.com/2024/01/addressing-shipping-emissions-with.html