Scrubber Skeptics Like Lemmings Jumping Off a Cliff: Strang

Carnival Corporation’s Tom Strang presenting at the Platts 16th Annual Bunker and Residual Fuel Conference in Houston. Image Credit: Ship & Bunker

If delegates at the Platts 16th Annual Bunker and Residual Fuel Conference in Houston last week are any indication, there are still plenty of industry stakeholders yet to be sold on the environmental credentials of scrubbers.

As participants voiced their thoughts on the technology as part of the event's Q&A sessions, several delegates reiterated the view held by many critics that the technology can not be environmentally sound as it simply takes pollution destined for the air and puts it into the sea.

The debate was eventually balanced by Carnival Corporation's Tom Strang, Senior Vice President Maritime Affairs, who drew chuckles from delegates after beginning his presentation by quipping, "as you might already guess I'll probably take a different view to those people who think they know something about scrubbers, because clearly from what I'm hearing so far, none of you do."

"I hear lots of people talk about this and they've not done the basic science," he later said.

"They've not done the research, they're just following on from everyone else. They're like lemmings jumping off a cliff."

As well as highlighting the work that Carnival has been doing to show washwater from its scrubbers is not harmful to the marine environment, Strang also hit out at authorities that have put scrubber bans in place without explaining why.

He stopped short of naming any such ports specifically, but bans on open-loop scrubbing by Singapore and Fujairah in last November and January respectively have gained significant media attention.

"Not one of the ports and harbours that's produced a ban or made restrictions has done any scientific research to support what they're saying," Strang said.

"We have and we're now beginning to put that on the table."

Scrubber advocate group Clean Shipping Alliance 2020 (CSA 2020), of which Carnival is a member, said in May it was making good progress on convincing Port Authorities that scrubbers are not a threat to their marine environment.