A new fact sheet from Seafish, the UK authority on seafood, describes some of the measures skippers can adopt to improve a vessel’s carbon footprint. This new fact sheet argues that skippers still have an active role to play in helping to reduce fishing vessel fuel emissions.
“A vessel’s carbon footprint is the emission of greenhouse gases or CO2 emissions from fossil fuels used during the building, use and disposal of a vessel. For every tonne of fuel used by a fishing vessel, 2.25 tonnes of CO2 will be produced. Good management by fishermen can substantially improve fuel efficiency and thus reduce CO2 emissions,” said Richard Caslake, Project Manager at Seafish.
The Seafish fact sheet describes the type of fuel used by the fishing sector. It also outlines current emissions regulations and how these may affect the fishing industry, and provides an overview of a fishing vessels carbon footprint.
The fact sheet details a number of ways that this might be achieved. These include increasing the efficiency of the power plant through the use of more efficient engines and revising the design of hull and propellers to reduce resistance and increase efficiency.
Fuel saving measures include:
• Reducing vessel speed to improve fuel efficiency
• Installing an electronic fuel meter to help monitor fuel consumption
• Establishing an optimum steaming speed
• Removing excess weight to lighten up the boat
• Shifting to low fuel (passive) fishing techniques such as static gear or seine netting.
There is also the option to use alternative fuels such as liquefied natural gas, wind power, biofuels and solar energy. The oxides of sulphur emissions from BioDiesel are at least 80% lower than low sulphur fossil diesel.
“As well as technical research projects focusing on improving fuel efficiency, we are also addressing the whole issue of carbon emissions. There are Seafish publications on this topic, and we are also trialling an easy-to-use data tool designed to help identify carbon emissions in the seafood industry," said Angus Garrett, Senior Economist at Seafish.
“Armed with data on fishing and harvesting methods, transport methods, processing techniques and cold storage time, skippers can find out the CO2 implications of their vessel,” he said.
The Seafish fact sheet Fishing vessel fuel emissions can be downloaded at www.seafish.org.
