As 2010 draws to a close, and before looking forward to 2011, we thought we would review some of our most popular posts of the year on the Cavotec blog.

With many of us taking a break at this time of year, we thought our review of 2010 should get underway with a cruise: especially cruise ships that have been fitted with shore-to-ship electrical power, also known as ‘cold ironing’, units that reduce particulate, NOx and SOx emissions when these vessels are in port.

Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas, the largest cruise ship in the world, and her sister ship, Oasis of the Seas, are equipped to use shore-to-ship power, also known as ‘cold ironing’. Click here for the full story.

Our most popular post on the Airports side was the update of our major infrastructure project in Bahrain. A groundbreaking application is seeing the delivery of an entirely integrated state-of-the-art utility system for Bahrain International Airport. The final commissioning phase of this project is due to start as planned, during Q1 2011. Read the full post here.

In October, we reported how our automated mooring technology, MoorMaster™, has been adapted to a rugged application at Port Hedland in Western Australia, where 14 MoorMaster™ units have been installed at the port’s Utah Point iron ore berth. Click here for the full post.

Since its introduction in 1998, several versions of MoorMaster™ have successfully performed some 32,000 moorings at container, bulk handling, Ro/Ro, ferry and lock applications around the world.

For General Industry, we rather enjoyed the post on our collaboration with Norway’s Maritime Robotics that sees our radio remote control technologies installed on unmanned, remote controlled vessels for applications in the offshore and maritime industries. For full details, including a video, on this exciting project, click here.

And just for a bit of fun before the holidays, a reminder of how some innovative thinking can make waiting for your aircraft a novel experience: the slide built into the side of Singapore Changi Airport. Click here to take the ride on the slide!

Thanks to all those who have taken the time to comment on our posts – and do let us know whether we have missed your favourite post in our review. Here’s to another busy, productive year in 2011: we’re looking forward to it.

Richard Branson’s Carbon War Room organisation has launched an online, free-access data resource – Shippingefficiency.org – that rates the efficiency of some 60 per cent of the world’s shipping fleet.

The service is designed to help ports, ship owners, operators, charterers, insurance companies, shipbrokers and other stakeholders, to include vessel efficiency when making business decisions.

Shipping Efficiency provides energy efficiency ratings for over 60,000 vessels according to the International Maritime Association’s Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI). A separate search tool available on the site supplies ratings based on the Clean Cargo Working Group Index, which benchmarks container vessels’ CO2 efficiency against other vessels operating on the same major routes.

As we have reported in previous posts, Cavotec’s Alternative Maritime Power, AMP, or ‘cold ironing’, is making a contribution to making the shipping industry cleaner and more efficient – albeit only when vessels are in port.

There are currently some 200 operational AMP systems on ships, while the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Vancouver, Seattle, Antwerp, Goteborg, Stockholm and several others across northern Europe have used the technology for many years. We welcome Shipping Efficiency as part of industry’s ongoing efforts to improve efficiency and reduce environmental impact.

Initiatives taken by the Port of Los Angeles (POLA) to operate more sustainably and create employment in and around the port are highlighted in a recent short film. Click on the link below to view.

Industry leaders describe how the port successfully combines “greening” environmental programmes with economic growth to create an environmentally and economically sustainable port.

The film includes an interview with Cavotec CEO, Ottonel Popesco, who describes how Cavotec and POLA have worked together to introduce shore-to-ship electricity supply, Alternative Maritime Power (AMP), at the port. We have also worked on AMP with POLA’s sister port, the Port of Long Beach.