Assessing the environmental impacts of a ship's hull from a life cycle perspective

This paper presents an environmental impact assessment of important air emissions produced by the hull subsystem of an oil tanker over a typical life cycle of twenty five years. This assessment makes use of a novel framework for ship life cycle analysis which considers the ship as a system that may be detailed into major subsystems and further into system elements for which: (a) inputs, (b) processes, and (c) outputs, are identified and elaborated. Four important ship life cycle stages are taken into account in this framework; namely the shipbuilding stage, ship operation, major maintenance activities and finally ship dismantling. Emissions inventories for all identified processes are first developed and subsequently the impacts to the environment and human health are estimated by applying standardized and widely accepted impact assessment techniques.