Underwater Robots Keep Ships Clean to Cut Carbon Emissions

As the shipping industry is looking into ways to reduce carbon emissions, a new kind of underwater robot may be the solution, reducing the pollution of cargo ships by keeping them clean so they can use less energy to move around.

The robot, HullSkater, removes the “biofilm” of algae and other microorganisms that attaches to the sides of a ship’s vessel, which requires the ship to use more power to move in the ocean and thus results in higher carbon emissions.

“In the past, you had to bring the ship to a dock for cleaning and potentially for repainting,” says Hans Peter Havdal, general manager at Swedish technology consulting company Semcon, which partnered with marine coating company Jotun to design the new robot. “If you carry the HullSkater on board, you can launch this cleaning device while you’re waiting for the ship to be loaded. You can maintain the hull, clean it, and hence reduce the fuel consumption.”

Each ship using the robot – which has been tested on ships globally – could cut carbon emissions by 22,000 metric tons in a five-year span, which is the equivalent of burning 24 million pounds of coal.