New Canadian cargo ship addressing climate change docks in Hamilton

A new cargo ship has arrived at the port of Hamilton, carrying steel that will help construction efforts across the city.

But it’s also one of a fleet of new ships addressing climate change.

The Federal Hamilton delivered 1,700 tonnes of steel, which will help build infrastructure across Hamilton and Canada.

“We connect the nations of the world in peaceful trade. So we bring for Canadian construction, we bring materials in. And for Canadian farmers we service them by taking their product out of the market,” Vice President of Flee Management for Fednav, Martin Krafft said.

The ship arrived at Pier 12 at noon on Monday after a nearly two-month journey that began in Japan, where it was built, and ended here, at Canada’s busiest Great Lakes port.

“We had some bad weather. Now the weather is bad, but when we sailed out, the weather was relatively okay,” Federal Hamilton Captain Salil Chakravorty said.

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The ocean-going vessel is designed to travel across large seas. It can also navigate through the great lakes, carrying with it bulk cargo.

In fact, the Federal Hamilton is part of the Fednav fleet. Fednav is Canada’s largest dry bulk shipping company.

“Our naval architect department was able to optimize the cargo intake so we are carrying more cargo for less emissions,” Krafft said.

The Federal Hamilton is one of 10 brand new ships that are the most efficient in Fednav’s fleet, emitting 33 per cent less carbon than the vessels they replaced. They also emit 87 per cent less nitrogen oxides.

The vessel can run on biofuel, which is often produced from cooking oil waste. It’s a more eco-friendly alternative to fossil fuels.

However, the ship didn’t make its first journey by using biofuels. It all depends on availability.

“Fuels from biological sources are gonna be very scarce because you need enough feed stock,” Clear Seas Executive Director Paul Blomerus said.

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But some improvements are better than nothing, Krafft says.

“It’s getting the house in order, meaning you don’t need to wait until you finally have the silver bullet to fix it all with a new fuel,” Krafft said.

“Every little step which we do helps. So the naval architecture of the ship, the technology which we’ve put into the ship all help its efficiency.”

Marine shipping is the most energy-efficient way to move large volumes of cargo, but it also represents three per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

“Canada is probably quite a large contributor to that in proportion to our global economy because we are so reliant on international trade, particularly of bulk commodities,” Blomerus said.

Fully decarbonizing shipping is not something the shipping companies can do alone, Blomerus says, but regulation has clearly helped, particularly on restricting nitrogen oxides.

For the Federal Hamilton, it has more work to do. Soon, it’ll be off to Thorold, then various ports across the Great Lakes, before they close for the winter season.