经济学人下载:船只防污技术(1)

All Ships suffer from fouling: the build-up below the waterline of shellfish, seaweeds and other organisms.
所有船只都会遭遇污垢：堆积在水线以下的甲壳类动物、海藻以及其他生物体。

This causes drag, which slows the affected craft and increases its fuel consumption.
这会造成阻力，降低了受影响船只的速度，增加了其耗油量。

Regular hull cleaning thus makes a considerable difference to the profitability of shipping.
因此，定期的船体表面清洗对航运的盈利能力有相当大的影响。

It also results in a useful reduction in the amount of planet-warming carbon dioxide emitted by the world's merchant shipping--
它还有效地减少了全球商船所排放的导致全球变暖的二氧化碳总量——

an industry that many environmentalists think is notoriously dirty and which could therefore do with burnishing its green credentials.
许多环保人士认为该行业是出了名的肮脏，该行业因此可以擦亮它的绿色证书了。

Roar Adland, a shipping economist at the Norwegian School of Economics, in Bergen,
卑尔根市挪威经济学院的海运经济学家Roar Adland表示，

says that a midsized oil tanker's fuel consumption (and also, consequently, its emission of carbon dioxide)
中型油轮的耗油量（同时，也会释放出二氧化碳）

drops by around 9% after its hull is cleaned at sea--something that happens, on average, once every six or seven months.
会在进行海面船体表面清洗后下降约9%——这种情况平均每六、七个月发生一次。

If the cleaning is done in a dry dock, which allows the process to be more thorough, that figure can be as much as17%.
如果是在干船坞进行清洗工作，那么这个过程会更加全面，该数字可达到17%。

At the moment, cleaning at sea is done by teams of divers.
目前，海上清洁工作是由潜水队员团队完成。

In recent years, robots have sometimes been added to underwater cleaning crews, and have proved effective.
近些年，机器人有时会加入水下清洁团队，而且效果很好。

Jotun, a Norwegian coatings company, and Semcon, a Swedish engineering firm, propose, however, to go one step further.
但挪威涂料公司佐敦漆以及瑞典工程公司Semcon提议更进一步。

They want to replace the divers completely with a machine. That machine, moreover, would not merely defoul a ship's hull, but stop it fouling up in the first place.
他们希望用机器完全替代潜水员。此外，这台机器不仅能够清理船只的船体，还能在一开始就防止船体污垢。

HullSkater, as the consortium dub their invention, is a 200kg hull-crawling robot.
他们将自己的发明称为HullSkater，这是一个200公斤重的船体爬行机器人。

It will reside permanently on-board ship, ready to be launched whenever the vessel is stationary--
它将永久驻留在船上，在船只停航时，随时准备启动——

for example, when it is waiting in the roads outside a port for a berth to unload and load. To deploy the robot, it is first lowered overboard by a crane.
例如，当它在港口外等待泊位装卸货物时。要部署这个机器人，首先要用起重机将其吊到船外。

Its four magnetic wheels, each of which is fitted with a motor, then clamp it to the hull and it can start trundling around.
它的四个磁铁轮子上都装有一个发动机，然后将它固定在船体上，它就可以慢慢移动了。

After this, the ship's crew need do nothing. Wherever the vessel happens to be on the planet,
之后，船员什么都不需要做。无论船只在地球上的哪个地方，

the robot is piloted remotely by an operator on land, who may be half a world away, via a 4G phone connection.
该机器人都能由陆地上的一名操作人员操控，相隔半个地球之远的操作员也能通过4G手机连接进行远程操作。

Inspecting and cleaning a hull takes HullSkater between two and eight hours, depending on the size and design of the ship.
检查和清理船体需要花费HullSkater两到八小时的时间，这取决于船只的大小和设计。

The robot is fitted with special brushes that can probe the nooks and crannies of naval architecture--
这个机器人装有特殊的刷子，可以探测船只的各个角落和缝隙——

the areas around propellers, for example--and its four cameras provide its operators with a detailed view of what is going on,
比如，螺旋桨周围的区域——并且其四个相机为操作人员提供了关于其工作进程的详细视角，

and also help to keep track of whereabouts on the hull the machine is.
同时也有助于追踪该机器人在船体上的位置。

The idea is to keep the hull permanently clean, by regularly removing from it the layers or slime-producing bacteria that are the first stage of the fouling process.
其目的是为了保持船体永久清洁，并通过定期清理表层或污垢细菌的方式来实现，这些是防污流程的第一阶段。