Active researches and developments have been made in many industrial sectors as international efforts have become unavoidable for air pollution which has been accelerated by industrialization. Together with this, strong regulations have also been implemented for sustainable growth.
In the maritime industry which accounts for majority of international logistics, regulation against air pollution for the ships over G/T 400-ton has been implemented by the IMO. MARPOL 73/78 Annex 6 which regulates the reduction of greenhouse gases emitted by ships especially contains EEDI (Energy Efficiency Design Index), EEOI (Energy Efficiency Indicator) and SEEMP (Ship Energy Efficiency Management Plan) which measure greenhouse gas emissions in technical and operational terms and indicate their effects. By managing the efficiency of logistics volume through these indexes, it has shown improvement in environmental effect through numerous studies on such various areas as engine development, optimization of ship shapes, substitution of biofuels and route optimization.
In the case of vessels with less than G/T 400 tons which are excluded from the regulation, however, environment-friendly measures solely depend on the efforts of each country. Though they account for meager 13% of GHG emissions from marine transportation, their emission per ton exceeds that of container lines and tank lorry vehicles, which makes the problem urgent. To solve this problem, Korea has been developing electric propulsion for small ships, installing LED lights for attracting fish school and implementing fishery closure and the designation of low-speed operation in the port areas. However, these somewhat circumventive and indirect methods are considered unlikely to achieve effective results in any serious ways.
In order to effectively measure the indicators which can practically judge environment-friendly effects of small ships, this study defines a method which measure the exhaust gas discharged from the engines even when the ships' operating conditions are changed and examines its effectiveness through case studies. This study proposes a simulation method to measure greenhouse gas emissions to assess environmental impact applicable to small vessels in consideration of the fact that the main engines of the small ships are very diverse unlike the large merchant ships and loading statuses and speeds are varied. In addition, by comparing and analyzing its effects and differences, study also verifies the effectiveness of the proposed method which is an improvement of the method using LCA so far implemented as an assessment tool for environmental effect for small ships.