Re-engining QM2

[Anders Johannessen]

Hello. Just wondering, and please correct me if I'm wrong,  but isn't the brown/yellow-ish smoke coming from QM2 these days largely a product of the exhaust gas scrubbers installed during the 2016 refit?

Thanks,
Anders.

[Thomas Hypher]

Hello. Just wondering, and please correct me if I'm wrong,  but isn't the brown/yellow-ish smoke coming from QM2 these days largely a product of the exhaust gas scrubbers installed during the 2016 refit?

Thanks,
Anders.

As far as I know it is, along with a lot more white smoke too. I gather she has urea-based exhaust scrubbers now hence the different colours of smoke instead of the thick black and brown smoke QE2 sometimes (actually quite often on second thoughts) emitted.

[Perhenric Lönnberg]

Wonder what will happen to the gas turbines with the new emissions regulations and LNG coming along in the industry? Will they be removed in the coming years?

The gas turbines is rather easy to fix see https://www.ge.com/power/services/gas-turbines/upgrades/liquid-to-dual-fuel-lm2500 .

The big issue is where to put the LNG. She is currently running on HFO and MGO. HFO is like the black stuff in asphalt and are solid at room temperature. Both HFO and MGO has a flash point over 60°C. It is easy to store the fuels in tanks down below that are made of the same plates as the hull.

LNG is liquid in the tank but a gas in room temperature. She will probably need 2000 - 4000 tonnes of LNG. This will be stored in big gas tanks that needs ventilation and a lot of safety. I can recommend the link below for more info.
https://www.dnvgl.com/Images/LNG_report_2015-01_web_tcm8-13833.pdf

The positive with LNG is that the fuel is about 10% cheaper then HFO. That will make the gas turbines 30%-50% cheaper then they are today.

I looked up some fuel prices in Rotterdam and tried to compare to crude oil. The numbers are not exact.

HFO/IFO380 332$/tonne
mgo 471$/tonne
Crude oil WTI 383$/tonne (I used the conversion rate that 1 tonne = 7.33 barrels)

[Thomas Hypher]

Welcome to the forum Perhenric! And thank you for the extra information.

It is good to see the gas turbines can be converted to run on LNG - gas turbines being remarkably flexible with other fuels besides kerosene and what you wouldn't think would be fuels in certain applications, with what the Abrams Tank has been run on coming to mind in that regard!

The LNG storage would be the problem as you mention, however another member of the forum going by the username HolyNougat used to work on QM2 as a deck officer and said she has a lot of spare "dead" space behind the scenes, the most he's known on any ship and particularly compared to QE2. Maybe this would be in QM2's favour?

[Rob Lightbody]

Welcome to the forum Perhenric! And thank you for the extra information.

It is good to see the gas turbines can be converted to run on LNG - gas turbines being remarkably flexible with other fuels besides kerosene and what you wouldn't think would be fuels in certain applications, with what the Abrams Tank has been run on coming to mind in that regard!

The LNG storage would be the problem as you mention, however another member of the forum going by the username HolyNougat used to work on QM2 as a deck officer and said she has a lot of spare "dead" space behind the scenes, the most he's known on any ship and particularly compared to QE2. Maybe this would be in QM2's favour?

I did hear, on the grapevine as it were, that there were thoughts about removing the turbines and putting suites in their place... making the turbines more efficient would be infinitely preferable - I love that she's so powerful.

[Thomas Hypher]

I did hear, on the grapevine as it were, that there were thoughts about removing the turbines and putting suites in their place... making the turbines more efficient would be infinitely preferable - I love that she's so powerful.

Nothing would surprise me...

Likewise making the gas turbines viable again fuel cost wise or switching them out with newer, more efficient but equivalent power gas turbines (don't want to fry her switchboards  or require costly and potentially tricky to carry out modifications to her electrical setup) would be far more preferable in my opinion. It would be a great shame if she lost her ability to cross in 6 nights as originally designed with their removal, and was neutered speed wise generally speaking.

[andyh]

One would assume now would be the ideal time to carry out any modifications, but it is unlikely Cunard would have or be able to find or spend the resources in the current climate to carry out the mods.
If they could we could see it as further future proofing her