GREENER CRUISE LINERS

A new generation of Panamax cruise liners is coming on stage. To meet market demands for more outside cabins, there's an added passenger deck on a narrower superstructure than in previous generation cruise ships. To meet growing concerns about the cruise industry's environmental impact, they boast the latest in "green," environmentally friendly technology.

Two recent deliveries, Celebrity Cruises' Millennium and Costa Cruises' Costa Atlantica, illustrate the trend. Built by Alstom's Chantiers de l'Atlantique in St Nazaire, France, the 294 m, 2,450 passenger Millennium is the largest passenger vessel ever built in France. The 292 m, 2,680 passenger Costa Atlantica is the largest ship yet from Kværner Masa-Yard's Helsinki , Finland shipyard.

Millennium offers 80 percent ocean-view staterooms, 74 percent with verandas. The ship also offers the industry's largest Penthouse Suites- nearly 3,000 ft2 with veranda-and including such things as a butler's pantry, personal exercise equipment, and Baby Grand piano.

The ship's 25,000 ft2 AquaSpa is described as the largest and most sophisticated spa at sea, while the 14,000 ft2 shopping area, the Emporium is billed as "the largest designer boutique afloat, including fashion labels never before available at sea."

GAS TURBINE POWER
So far as passengers and the travel industry are concerned, the Millennium's most intriguing features, could well be the Olympic Dining Room, paneled with wood from the Titanic's sister ship, Olympic, or the two panoramic elevators. The glass-enclosed elevators are an industry first, offering guests ocean views as they move from deck to deck.
From the technical viewpoint though, what makes Millennium a breakthrough ship is that it is the first cruise liner to be powered by a gas turbine installation, specifically by two 25MW GE LM2500+ aeroderivative gas turbines. These are applied in a COmbined Gas turbine and steam turbine integrated electric drive System (COGES) configuration.
Emissions from the gas turbine installation are significantly less then those from a comparable diesel installation. For example, NOx is cut from 12.0 g/kWh to 4.0 g/kWh, SOx from 13.6 g/kWh to 0.9 g/kWh and particulates from 5.0 g/kWh to 0.13 g/kWh.
There's a financial penalty for this "greeness" in that the gas turbine not only burns a lighter, cleaner fuel than the diesel but is less fuel efficient. The COGES approach helps to somewhat offset this disadvantage. As in a straightforward diesel electric "power station" concept, the Millennium's gas turbine prime movers produce energy that is converted to electricity for use wherever it's needed. In the COGES arrangement, exhaust energy that would otherwise be lost is utilized to produce steam that powers an 8MW steam turbine.
While COGES is commonplace in shoreside power stations, this is its first installation in a cruise ship.
The engineering, gas turbine packaging and system integration for COGES was handled by S&S Energy Products, a GE Power Systems business and a GE Marine Engines Marine Systems Supplier. Also helping offset the diesel's fuel efficiency advantage is the gas turbine's compact size. In the Millenium, for example, the space savings allowed the ship to be designed with 40 extra--revenue generating-cabins.

Contributing to the space savings is the fact that the Millennium uses a podded drive.
At 19.5 MW each, the two Mermaid pods fitted to Millennium are the most powerful thus far.

Besides the gas turbine prime movers, Millennium boasts several other "green" features. The ship is, for example, the first to be fitted with a Norsk Inova incinerator flue gas cleaning system. Millennium's gray water treatment system include disinfection and membrane filtration treatment that take waste to near potable water standards.

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