Page 29: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (April 2021)

INTERVIEW SHIPBUILDING culty is their availability. While we can get (alternative fuels) into technology that is not yet mature and proven, especially easily in the major shipping hubs, vessels are not always priv- in marine applications,” said Kozdron, noting while there is ileged with sailing from Singapore to Shanghai or to Hong nothing new to operating engines on methanol, the challenges

Kong. They usually go to remote places, and availability of of doing so ef? ciently, effectively in the marine environment these fuels is problematic.” “is a completely different situation, a challenge.”

The ‘chicken and the egg’ scenario regarding fuel transition Finally, while the alternate fuel discussion is a big one, it and fuel availability has been ongoing for years. But there is far from the only engineering challenge facing ship own- remain technical and logistics hurdles, too. ers today. “Driven by environmental expectations is overall “Once you decide (on an alternate fuel) you need to have energy ef? ciency of the vessel,” said Kozdron. equipment, machinery capable of being operated on these fu- “Put simply, vessel are supposed to burn less fuel and carry els. The technology is (still) lagging behind.” He said while more cargo. So it’s an ongoing challenge for designers to the LNG tech and logistics have arrived, he noted “we are make vessel more ef? cient from the hydrodynamic perspec- almost there with LPG, however, methane and ammonia are tive. There’s a challenge for equipment makers, too. So the still in their infancy.” list of challenges is quite long, but, that’s why we are here: “There’s always a certain level of risk involved in stepping Engineers.”

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