Ships environmental problems

Because of vibrations, power stability, and particularly corrosion, commercial laboratory robotic systems available today would have problems on ships. This problem provides an opportunity for research engineers to develop means to modify some sections of the ship to improve power and platform stability. Environmental constraints of a sea-based system were never factored into the design of today s laboratory robots, but the systems could be modified somewhat to reduce these problems. For now, robots would be most feasible for land-based measurements. In the future, however, robots could be important for at-sea measurements, because continuous or repeated measurements are often made over the course of many days. 

The use of substitutes may appear to be more costly. However, the added safety provided by substitutes may make their use worthwhile and can, in some cases, actually lower the true cost of the project when the overall impact on the process, surrounding areas, and shipping is considered. Substitutes should be employed only if it is known that overall risk will be reduced. Inadequately tested processes and products may introduce unrecognized health, safety, and environmental problems. 

Marine pollution by oil spills or harmful chemicals is still one of the major environmental problems to be faced. Besides the accidental releases of pollutants the main source is assumed from the controlled release by ship traffic and oil production platforms. Since accidents or violations of regulations can never be completely excluded, precautions and instruments are needed to detect and combat maritime pollutions and a crucial element of this framework is airborne surveillance. Like no other system, airborne pollution control is capable a) to detect possible oil spills by radar sensors,... 

From the standpoint of sulfur recovery, recent experience has reemphasized the desirability, in most cases, of processes that permit recovery of elemental sulfur. Sulfuric acid is the useful by-product that is usually most readily and economically produced from sulfur dioxide, but it cannot be economically shipped for long distances or be economically and safely stored for long periods. Elemental sulfur can be shipped long distances or stored indefinitely with minimal environmental problems. 

Landfills, especially marine sites or those near the coast, sometimes pose serious environmental problems because they can give rise to deferred impacts. In the open air, storms can dump thousands of plastic bags close to the sites, sometimes into the sea. These contributions, however, remain localized, in contrast to those due to the abandorunent of waste which is mainly related to human behavior. The latter constitute a significant part but one which is not quantified in the statistics. Experts speak of aroimd 10% of waste that would eventually finish up in the sea. Discharges from ships and rivers constitute a significant part. 

When the surface roughness increases by 30 i, the fuel consumption necessary for maintaining the same speed increases by I %. Hence, when the surface roughness increases by 1 mm, the fuel consumption increases by 30%. Marine animals and plants such as barnacles and algae adhere to the ships hull and it can be a serious problem. On account of these reasons, a large amount of organotin compounds have been used in antifouling paint. But environmental problems occurred as described above, and this book will not describe them in further detail [93-97]. 

There is a continuing trend towards the use of liquid sulfur tank ships in international trade and the installation of liquid sulfur terminal facilities at points of consumption. This was being brought about because of environmental problems associated with the storage and shipment of dry bulk elemental sulfur with its associated dust problems, and the preference of consumers for the dehvery of hquid sulfur... 

Environmentally, these aLkanolamines present little problem. Only AMP has been studied extensively, but it was found to be degradable, to be of low toxicity to fish and microorganisms, and to be nonaccumulative. TRIS AMINO has been added to water used to ship fish in order to improve viabiUty. 

A plastic waste processor (from Carderock Division) has been developed to compress the Navy s plastic wastes into discs, solving the environmental and space problems from 600 kg daily plastic waste (20 m ) per ship. Seaward International Inc and Carderock Division are developing a marine piling (The SeaPile) in structurally reinforced composite with a core made of these discs. 

Literature reports applications for disinfecting medical equipment, oculars (Shimmura et al. 2000), fuel cells, vegetables (Izumi 1999) and green house substrates (internet presentation 2005), pipes and containers in breweries (Gutknecht et al. 1981) or in other fields of food industry (Hemlem and Tsai 2000 Tsai et al. 2002), ship waste waters, etc. Applications outside the drinking water area are mentioned here because many waters are environmentally important and connected with the drinking water chain (Fig. 7.1). Thus, the problem is much more relevant than may at first be expected. 

It is always difficult to find a suitable shipping conpany for transporting hazardous waste. They fear problems from environmental groups as well as problems during stopover in a third country. Under the Basel Convention there is an established notification process to inform third countries in advance about the transport of hazardous waste, but some governments do not want foreign waste to pass through their territory. 

---