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The Final Degree Project of a Master's student in Naval and Oceanic Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT) can solve one of the environmental impacts of cruise tourism, the emission of polluting gases while ships are moored in the ports, one of the reasons why environmental groups have asked to limit this type of traffic in Palma de Mallorca.

Natalia García Esquiva finished her studies at the UPCT with a job in which she proposed installing wind turbines and photovoltaic systems in the vicinity of the Escombreras dock to provide power to the ships while they are docked at the Port of Cartagena.

There are currently 28 ports in the world that supply electricity to the ships docked, but none in Spain.

The proposal of the Polytechnic is that the energy comes from renewable sources, to minimize the carbon footprint.

The environmental benefits in air quality that would be achieved by avoiding the use of motors with the proposal of their work earned the student the award for the best Master's Thesis awarded by the Interuniversity Chair of the Environment Port Authority of Cartagena - Campus Mare Nostrum.

The TFM, published in the Academic Repository of the UPCT and directed by Jerónimo Esteve Pérez and José Enrique Gutiérrez Romero, concludes, after studying the energy needs of the ships that have arrived at the port of Cartagena during the last 7 years, that the installation combined of eleven wind turbines and a photovoltaic plant could be able to supply 14,600 kilowatts of power, eliminating 10,500 annual tons of CO2 emitted by the auxiliary engines of the ships while they remain docked in the Port of Cartagena.

"It's an amount equivalent to the carbon dioxide generated by 6,100 cars a year," exemplified the author.

The research group in Naval Technology of the Polytechnic has directed other projects on cruise ship emissions and is currently simulating with high power processors the navigation of these ships in different sea situations to calculate optimal and environmentally more sustainable speeds.

In parallel, researchers of the area of ​​Technologies of the Environment of the UPCT are carrying out this year a project of the Chair of the Port Authority to study the air pollution generated by the cruise ships that dock in Cartagena.

Previously, this Chair has also financed studies of the Polytechnic on submarine noise and marine pollution in the largest port of the Region of Murcia.

Source: UPCT