The EU recently adopted rules requiring limits to carbon emissions and type-approval of internal combustion engines for Non-Road Mobile Machinery (Directive 97/68/EC, 01/2017). This sets more stringent limits for emissions from inland waterway (IW) vessels. As a consequence, there is an urgent need for emission reduction due to stronger environmental standard aims. Equipping North West Europe’s (NWE’s) ageing fleet with RIVER technology offers the potential for emission reduction.

The objective of RIVER is to reduce or eliminate the pollutants from the polluting engines. It is expected that 6600 engines on existing vessels will need to be replaced until 2050 and 2400 new vessels will come into operation.

RIVER aims to address these issues and to apply an Oxy-fuel combustion technology for Diesel engines that eliminates NOx (part of the GHG), and to capture, store all CO2 emissions. It is expected to reduce fuel consumption by up to 15%. The goal is to design, develop and integrate dedicated Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) systems into inland waterway vessels. The project also aims to demonstrate the feasibility on a small inland vessel.

The project includes 9 partners from 5 member states and 5 associated. Partners are experienced in CCS, Oxyfuel engine, treatment of CO2, Engine’s control and naval architecture.

By completing this questionnaire, we gain insight about your opinion about the CCS technology and its implementation.