Page 16: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (November 2024)

The Path To Zero

Future Fuel or Not ...

© AA+W/AdobeStock ... Hydrogen will Power the Clean Energy Shift

By Sean Caughlan, PE, Principal, Marine Engineering, Glosten he marine industry is faced with the enormous long-term maritime decarbonization goals will not only re- challenge of reaching net-zero greenhouse gas quire improvements in the ef? ciency of technologies like fuel emissions by midcentury to meet ambitious targets cells, batteries, and clean combustion, but the industry will

T set by the International Maritime Organization also need to make a major shift towards low- or zero-carbon (IMO). Globally, the marine sector contributes to approxi- fuels that are both clean to produce and consume.

mately 3% of total greenhouse gas emissions, and in the US, It’s not at all clear what the fuel or fuels of the future will commercial and recreational vessels accounted for nearly be. Green methanol, green ammonia, green hydrogen, and 3% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2021. In the even some biofuels all show promise, but the ability of these near term, the revised IMO GHG Strategy adopted at MEPC fuels to scale successfully will dictate whether or not they are 80 aims to increase the uptake of zero- or near-zero-emission adopted. Today’s fossil fuels are extracted from wells and then energy sources to 5–10% of energy from international ship- re? ned and transported to markets, but fuels of the future will ping by 2030. need to be manufactured. This will take process energy and

This cannot be achieved with technology alone. feedstock materials, collectively known as a fuel pathway,

The marine industry has evolved around the use of fossil which can have an enormous impact on the carbon intensity fuels; ship designs, shipping routes, ports, fuel supply, skilled of a fuel. Not only will the energy to produce the fuels or feed- labor, and commercial business models are all keyed to the stocks need to come from zero-carbon sources, such as wind, cost and energy density of diesel. Achieving our near- and solar, or nuclear—they will also need to economically viable.

16 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • November 2024

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