Marine Diesel engines, thanks to enormous technological strides in the past few decades, have proven themselves powerful, reliable and efficient, to the extent that by year 2000 motor ships composed no less than 98% of the merchant fleet. Despite these plaudits, regulatory bodies continue to penalise the Diesel engine for exhaust gas emissions inherent in a combustion process using Marine Diesel Oil (MDO) fuel that almost always leaves by-products of oxides of nitrogen, unburned hydrocarbons, and carbon monoxide in the exhaust smoke.Environmentalists have the expectation that technology will solve all political and economic problems, and will not be disappointed to hear that developers have succeeded in harnessing low emission Liquid Natural Gas (LNG), a  clean fuel with lean burn combustion characteristics, to power the engine invented by Rudolf Diesel in 1897. Many analysts confirm the recent prediction of Klaus Deleroi, Senior V-P, MAN Diesel & Turbo SE, that: "When it come... [More]