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24 Feb 2020
Hybrid drives: Siemens sends in the machines
Encouraged by the success of a hybrid drives program, Siemens is going all out in Norway to automate production of that core marine energy storage enabler, the lithium battery. Offshore service vessel charterers, rig owners, ferry operators and ship owners are the target market. Trondheim’s technical university and a recent history of hosting battery makers and system integrators has made it launchpad…
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03 Feb 2020
Ship Repair: How to Foil Well-laid Plans
It was Canadian whalers, the Norwegians tell us, who first noticed that a dead whale does not bob in the waves. The carcass didn’t pitch or roll, either, and it was somehow “self-propelled” — its fins giving it forward motion and acting as stabilizers, or foils. The story still inspires Trondheim company Wavefoil, maker of scalable, retractable foils that offer ship owners and designers fuel savings and passenger comfort.
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16 Jan 2020
Subsea Robots in the Splash Zone
From their base deep within a former World War II U-boat pen, Norwegian outfit, OceanTech, is developing a set of robot tools that cling to offshore structures in order to effect inspection, maintenance and repair, or IMR. Old submarine anchorages are now subsea testing and training sites, but the North Sea is still the target. Hundreds of aging platforms and subsea structures require IMR that’s too costly…
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26 Aug 2019
FLNG Project Count Hits 20
Finance — or at least project economics based on long-term commodity prices — appear to be factors limiting a surge in investments in floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) a new study by U.S.-based numbers cruncher, World Energy Reports, revealed Monday.Among a growing count of floating producers in the planning stage, some are destined to become FLNG, increasingly the go-to solution discussed for producing stranded or remote gas.
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22 Jul 2019
Offshore wind: One-stop power conversion
With the United States and China about to start their respective offshore wind build-ups, grid operators wondering about the efficiency of their turbines or the emissions-areas compliance of their wind-service vessels will be warmed to know there’s someone they can talk to. Yaskawa’s The Switch — a Japanese industrial giant’s European environmental tech business — is offering one-stop wind-energy shopping.
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14 Jun 2019
Offshore wind: One-stop Power Conversion
With the United States and China about to start their respective offshore wind build-ups, grid operators wondering about the efficiency of their turbines or the emissions-areas compliance of their wind-service vessels will be warmed to know there’s someone they can talk to. Yaskawa’s The Switch — a Japanese industrial giant’s European environmental tech business — is offering one-stop wind-energy shopping.
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23 May 2019
Catching Cruise Off-Guard: Norway’s zero-emissions fjord cruises
Norway on Jan. 1, 2026, will begin a ban on cruise ships powering through the Unesco-listed heritage fjords on anything but zero-emissions propulsion. For now, that means battery power, but few of the 190 cruise ship calls to these fjords are made with that kind of electro-chemical fuel on board. From now until 2026, you can still cruise the fjords on a closed-loop, or in-line, scrubber system, but few cruise ships have these installed.
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10 May 2019
Norway Builds Drone Fleet for coastal “Sulfur Patrols”
Norway is growing its arsenal of military grade drones for missions that’ll take them into the exhaust streams of ship’s funnels. With the IMO now supporting the 0.1 percent sulfur cap on marine fuel from Jan. 2020, and with southern Norway below the 62nd parallel officially a European Emissions Control Area, or ECA, the Norwegian Maritime Authority, the NMA, is cracking down on illegal sulfur emissions.Oslo’s NMA and its domestic enforcement allies — the Norwegian Coast Guard (Kystvakten)…
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08 Nov 2018
BREAKING: Tanker, Frigate Collision Shuts Down Norwegian Oil, Gas to Europe
Norway has been forced to close the Sture Oil Terminal near Bergen and has started closing down the nearby Kollsness gas-and-condensate terminal — a lifeline of heating gas to Europe — after an early morning collision between a $440-million frigate and an oil tanker.The frigate Helge Ingstad, now listing heavily to its port side, is loaded with torpedoes and weapons systems said to be unstable as a result of the collision.
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21 Jun 2018
Odin's Eye & the Quiet Trawler
When it was time for France Pelagique to start renewing its fleet, an electric-power alliance of Dutch and Scandinavian yard interests formed up and delivered. The result was the first installation aboard a trawler of NES’s Odin’s Eye, a DC grid solution to integrate another first for trawlers — quiet-running permanent magnate, or PM, propulsion.Where to begin a fleet modernization that ends with green credentials and richer harvests?
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12 Apr 2018
For Hire: Battery Hybrid PSVs
Systems integrator and equipment maker Rolls-Royce has quietly been adding hybridizing energy-storage packages to a diverse list of vessels. Yet, so, too, has one of its clients — Louisiana-based SEACOR Marine, as it reacts early to tightened emissions and energy-management standards, or EMS, for vessels plying Europe and North America. Fuel savings and energy-company clients seeking green credentials are…
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22 Dec 2017
Driver-less Ships: Autonomy in the Maritime Sector
In a show of prototypes, a pod of unmanned sailboats from around the world competes to cross “The Atlantic” test tank in Horten, Norway. Cross the real ocean, and the Sail Bots race similarly challenges scholarly robotic-vessel designers to North America for a bit of station-keeping, collision-avoidance and “cargo moves”. For all, the future seems bright — the first commercial runs of unmanned vessels are underway or scheduled worldwide.
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29 Nov 2017
A New Breed of Tug
When markets expand niches are created, goes the logic. For builders of tugs, that market is “floating gas” and the expanding use of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, as a fuel. In support of LNG, there’ll be more oceangoing tug duty — the new floating storage and regasification units, or FSRUs, mean busier LNG carriers, and LNG cargo owners have an interest in tug escorts that share their “carbon footprint”.
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27 Nov 2017
Wind Energy Workboats: A US Offshore Build-up
Block Island — U.S.-based Deepwater Wind’s five-turbine, 30-megawatt wind park — was the first. It showed what was possible, what might not have been optimal and how long it all takes. Since then, incentives for onshore-wind have been curbed, while a tax credit for offshore wind has been extended. Wind parks are in the works. States have power companies buying offshore wind energy, and experienced…
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01 Nov 2017
Designer-built Adventure Cruise
The 2016 Polar Code has its first luxury-adventure cruise adherents for the long, new ice-free seasons in the high latitudes. Likewise, many designs winning over owners and explorers target exotic Asia-Pacific destinations. Competition is fierce among “designer-shipyards” seeking to build their designs, but their creations could face fewer hurdles to construction than the designs of independents without a yard.
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19 Sep 2017
Schulte Marine Concept MD Kozdron Talks Shipbuilding
If you are an American thinking Asia for converting a vessel, building a drydock or contracting a medium-sized newbuild, then Krzysztof Kozdron, Managing Director of Germany-based Schulte Marine Concept (SMC), is the man you need to speak to. Easy to talk to, the Shanghai-based naval architect and engineer knows shipbuilding from all sides. Parent company Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM) has owned and operated ships for 150 years…
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24 Aug 2017
Shipbuilding: Mega Yards
The Woodmac report we saw offered us cause for pause — “Strong activity from the (major oil companies)” while “national oil companies have tightened their purse strings.” What Maritime Reporter found, was that national oil companies — nation-builders, for many — are putting their money in affiliate shipyards. The hope of two, new shipbuilding giants is jobs, innovation, national survival and export security.
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07 Aug 2017
Ultimate SIM: Kongsberg's Digital Ecosystem
Ship owners can expect a rich digitalized offering from Kongsberg Group after the merger of its software-producing, oil-and-gas technology division; its maritime simulation (SIM) business and the company’s renewable energy department. Kongsberg Digital is the successor to these, and among the new entity’s cloudlike offerings are new ways to learn and train, as well as new SIM business models. Behind it all is the ultimate learning academy…
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02 Aug 2017
Playing Catch: Northern Europe Fisheries Fleet Review
Record hauls of wild fish, an unprecedented return on farmed salmon, finance and subsidy garner new orders, new designs and emboldened suppliers. In Scandinavia, particularly Norway, rich, carefully managed fisheries raise just one question for the commercially minded — which wave of business to ride. A growing number of large and small players are in on the action, as historic profits are heralded up and down the supply chain.
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27 Jun 2017
Earth, Wind & … Fire Protection
Three years ago coatings giant Jotun was buying up real estate for U.S. market access and location savings. The effort to get closer to its shipping and offshore customer base is still underway with research aimed at protecting client assets in frontier areas like the arctic. An R&D expansion at Flixborough in the U.K. and in the Arctic archipelago of Spitsbergen aims to make active the fire response of passive surface treatments.
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