A natural gas powered container ship.
 

My son works for General Dynamics Shipbuilding Division and he called me up and asked if I wanted to go to a ship launching. Most of the ships they have helped build are mundane military and commerce vessels. He says this one is right up my alley - the greenest commercial vessel to date.

General Dynamics NASSCO: Ship Ceremony Information

Here is a bit more about the engines from Greencarcongress.

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2014...24-doosan.html

The ship is to operate in the Gulf leveraging the low cost and clean burning natural gas that is available to the Americas. It is also able to run on standard fuel oils as needed.

I don't know if security will allow me to take any pictures, but I'll try and post up what I can sneak out.

Is that really the world's first LNG container ship? I remember reading an article about this a few years ago, but I thought that there had been a few others that were already sailing by now.

The rendering looks amazing. Pics ( if possible ) would be awesome.

My brother worked on LNG carriers, had huge spherical containers in the hull, early 1970s.

Big deal about a ship collision that never happened, insurance rates skyrocketed and they went straight to the mothball fleet.

Long time ago.

regards
mech

What a shame. FUD goes a long way when it comes to stopping progress. LNG carriers have made quite a comeback in the last few years; I'm glad to see that LNG container ships are gonna be seeing some action.

They say they are doing it for cleaner emissions, lower CO2.
I say BS. They are doing it because oil is only going to get more expensive and natural gas is going to stay stable for the foreseeable future.

And some harbors impose higher fees for "highly-polluting" ships.

Sounds like everybody wins, then.

The only ones who lose are those who cant stand the thought of cheaper, better, faster international commerce.

First always comes with caveats.
 

I believe it is one of the first ships to run largely on NG as it's main fuel. It's fuel capacity is enough to allow it to transit the Gulf. The idea of pilot injected hybrid diesel engines is certainly not new. The intention to run up to 95% of the fuel load on NG for the bulk of the journey is. However, other ships could do the same route on largely NG but are not uniquely tailored to the fuel. Those ships use the NG fuel as "port fuel" to avoid the emission penalties Cripple Rooster pointed out, that many port authorities levy on gross polluting ships. Ocean going ships use the very cheapest of fuel oil - bunker oil. Viscous and sulfur laden, the pollution per hour of these ships can equal the output of thousands of cars and trucks operating for a day. The new line of NG ships that are coming out now and in the future will be optimized for the gas fuel.

A big part of using NG as a fuel is, as Old Mech pointed out, safety. This new ship has numerous technologies that should prevent the ship compartments from turning into fuel/air bombs.

Another feature of these new ships is the inclusion of a small water treatment plant to treat all the bilge and ballast water to mitigate or eliminate the transfer of flora and fauna as well as pollutants.

The uniqueness of these ships is more the inclusion of all these technologies. This may be their claim to a "first".

Very Cool!!!