link: Italians to Electrify Cruise Ships in Port - nytimes.com txt: Cold Ironing - From Wikipedia
Cold Ironing (or AMP - Alternative Maritime Power) is the process of providing shore-side electrical power to a ship at berth while its main and auxiliary engines are turned off. Cold ironing permits emergency equipment, refrigeration, cooling, heating, lighting, and other equipment to receive continuous electrical power while the ship loads or unloads its cargo. [...] As ships traditionally were not subject to emissions control, since the days of diesel powered ships, research was largely focused on using cheaper forms of fuel to run their engines. As a result, internationally, ships have been using Heavy Furnace Oil – residual petroleum – as the optimal choice of fuel. This fuel, the reverse of gas oils (which are derived through distillation of crude oil), is high on particulate matter and studies show that one ship can pollute as much as 50 million cars annually. The fuel used by ships is called bunker fuel. Further research indicates 60,000 of cardio-pulmonary mortalities due to Particulate Matter from ship emissions. These deaths have been detected far inland due to prevailing wind conditions from seaward. Total world trading fleet stands at 50,000+ merchant ships (Lloyds data as of Jan-2008). Each ship spends approximately 100 days in port in a year. For every kilowatt-hour (kW h) electricity, about 200 grams of bunker fuel is consumed. Each 1 kilo of bunker oil =3.125 kilos of Carbon dioxide. It is assessed that globally ships use 411,223,484 tonnes of fuel annually.