RESEARCH SCIENCE VERSUS SOUND ENGINEERING

We are taught at school that science protects against ignorance. It is taught to be a thorough and robust process to seek and discover the truth. The process often starts with a hypothesis in which a statement is made that must be testable and falsifiable. The statement should be framed in the simplest terms possible, but being clear and precise, and the statement should not be a question. Ideally, it should relate to a discrete variable. The process of undertaking the evaluation should eliminate the influence of other variables. This is known as the control part of the research.

In summary, science and research and substantiating a hypothesis involves precise, often defined and very narrow and discrete criteria.

Engineering involves a much more holistic approach and is principally involved in problem solving, taking into account as many factors and influences as possible. Added to that a chartered engineer, similar to a doctor’s Hippocratic Oath, has an obligation to society of honesty and transparency.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel was not only a great engineer in his lasting achievements – he must also have been a great leader considering the extent of the design work required to achieve the constructions in his name. He must also have been a great influencer with a good understanding of commerce in order to persuade the vast investment in his huge projects.

The reason for discussing science and hypothesis and engineering and solutions is to highlight the different priorities of each discipline and how they affect society and the planet both negatively and positively.

There is no doubt engineers make mistakes often by not accounting for an unknown factor that is critical to the design.

In the shipping world, brittle fracturing of steel in Second World War Atlantic convoys led to the loss or damage of more than 1,000 ships. Once the phenomenon was understood and the Charpy V notch test used to assess steels for cold temperature brittle fracture, new steels were developed with better welding characteristics that no longer suffered this phenomenon.

In engineering terms, on the whole, solutions are developed to account for all manner of factors from safety, cost, durability, aesthetics, regulations and many more considerations.

During the covid-19 pandemic, with science using the hypothesis that by mapping the genetic code of the virus and using many years of research into mRNA technology, a vaccine was designed that could negate the virus spike protein. Prior work on two other coronavirus outbreaks, SARs and MERs, assisted in the final work for the covid-19 vaccine. The breakthrough approach quickly provided effective protection to hundreds of millions of the world population. That breakthrough was the result of diligent and precise evaluation of a hypothesis and its subsequent translation into a protective vaccine.

Good versus bad

In the world of clean shipping, it appears that science, or perhaps pseudo-science, is being used to justify the beliefs of a small group of activists, who in turn appear to have influenced the European Commission with pre-conceptions of what is a good fuel and conversely what is a bad or “dirty” fuel that should be banned. Putting this simply, non-governmental organisations (NGO) activists in unison with the European Commission have been seeking to ban the use of high sulphur fuel oils and heavy fuel oils on board ships.

To justify their position, many studies have been commissioned to attempt to demonstrate the harm caused by ship’s using these heavy fuels. There have been claims of more harm caused by a spill, increased emissions of black carbon, risk to ship’s crew from possible hydrogen sulphide residues and the alleged toxicity of discharge water from exhaust gas cleaning systems.

On the other hand, when the International Maritime Organization (IMO) sought to reduce the emissions of sulphur dioxide from ships burning high sulphur fuels, engineers undertook careful, detailed and holistic evaluation of the possible solutions to eliminate or reduce these sulphur oxide emissions.

One solution was the removal of the compounds post combustion, which provided a significantly lower well-towake CO2 emission than switching to more refined low sulphur fuels.

Today, some 30% of all marine bunkers are high sulphur fuel. It is treated post combustion to remove sulphur oxides (SOx). This is achieved in the main by using sea water to wash out the SOx, neutralise the subsequent acid and return the sea water back into the sea.

It is not disputed that the returned water, the discharge water, also contains other compounds of the products of combustion. But historically for more than 70 years, some 90% of marine bunker fuel was high sulphur fuel oil. Its combustion resulted in all those same products of combustion. The gases and compounds simply entered the atmosphere in the exhaust gas and would eventually settle on the sea or land through precipitation or by gravity. The washing of the gas avoids the entry into the atmosphere and short circuits the path, resulting in cleaner air quality.

There is a genuine question of what might be the difference in the effect of a concentrated point source discharge of these compounds when compared with the historical path via the atmosphere where it would have spread over a larger area?

Point sources do not necessarily equate to a more serious hazard. The tailpipe of a motor vehicle is a point source of toxic compounds.

However, the affected bodies, known as receptors do not normally dwell within the vicinity of the tail pipe. This dilution and other affects ameliorate or eliminate the toxicity of the tailpipe exhaust. So, there is a dilution effect. But if, despite dilution, the compounds are additive, or in other words just build up, they would again reach concentrations of toxicity which could be seriously harmful. However, this rarely happens as other processes result in the reduction or elimination of the toxicity.

So, we have two effects that must be considered, known as dispersion and fate.

The Exhaust Gas Cleaning Systems Association (EGCSA) takes the possible impact of exhaust cleaning technology very seriously. The organisation has assisted in the development of the IMO guidelines, known as the Exhaust Cleaning Systems (SOx) Guidelines.

EGCSA has taken note of concerns raised by the European Commission and some NGO activists. EGCSA has responded by undertaking independent assessments and analysis in an attempt to quantify any alleged detrimental effects, especially with respect to the discharge water.

Needless to say, to date there have been no significant findings of a substantive nature that uphold the allegations of detriment to the marine environment caused by ship’s exhaust gas cleaning systems discharge water.

Despite the work of the EGCSA to seek the truth, the European Commission, in concert with some European Administrations, continues to pursue a principle that the use of high sulphur fuel oil will result in harm and detriment to the marine environment from the discharge water.

Common threads

In the absence of evidence, the European Commission has funded several studies through various so called “science” programmes. In some cases, this has resulted in eminent organisations damaging their credibility and standing.

With some NGO reports numbering in excess of 20 documents claiming that the discharge water is causing harm, the EGCSA has undertaken a review of several of the reports. It should be noted that many of them have been under the auspices of EUfunded science programmes and as such wish to imply that the work is scientific research.

What was uncovered in the review of these documents were several common threads. Some of these threads are apparent in documents submitted to IMO justifying concerns about exhaust gas cleaning system discharge water. For brevity some of the common threads are bulleted below:

» Less than 30% of the documents contain original measured data.

» Many of the documents re-use previously reported measured data and re-present conclusions.

» Virtually none of these “science” reports use a control measure to eliminate other variables.

» Some reports study data on one or two compounds and then conflate the conclusions on these compounds with claims of the hazards of other compounds which are not evaluated or measured in the report.

» No reports make a genuine effort to consider dispersion or fate. In other words, what happens in the real world.

» No reports consider the historical emission via the atmosphere when making claims of the impact of the compounds now being discharged via the discharge water.

» In no case is an assessment compared to large industrial emitters of discharge water post exhaust gas cleaning. Many of these power stations and refineries have had the discharge water measured for years by experts with little cause for concern.

While sound engineering has developed a technology solution (sea water exhaust gas cleaning) that is apparently more sustainable than a switch to low sulphur fuels, it appears that pseudo-science – often funded by the European Commission – is being used in an attempt to cast doubt on the exhaust gas cleaning technology.

This research science is not only resulting in harm to individual researchers’ integrity, it harms the science community and wastes resources that could be better directed to assessing other challenges facing the shipping industry.

In this case sound engineering is being badly let down by bad science.

There have been plenty of initiatives relating to green shipping and improving efficiency and performance in recent months, with new funding available to support such schemes