The shipment looks for hydrogen as it seeks to burn the fuel in the bunker
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The Compagnie Belge Maritime du Congo launched its first steam-powered ship, the SS Leopold, on its first voyage from Antwerp to the Congo in 1895. Today, the heirs of the CMB colonial-era group carry passengers on a hydrogen-powered ferry between the Belgian city and nearby Kruibeke.
“This is the fourth energy revolution in shipbuilding: we need to change our boats from oars to sails to steam engines and re-engine them,” said Alex Saverys, CEO of CMB and one of the oldest families of boats in Belgium.
Marine transport generates about 3 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and without measure, the contribution will increase over the decades as global trade grows. The International Maritime Organization, the UN agency that regulates global industry, wants to halve its impact by at least half by 2050.
Many people in the industry have high hopes for using blue or green hydrogen – which is produced using natural gas to capture carbon or renewable electricity and is the only byproduct that contains water when burned – to help keep it out of the bunker’s polluting fuels.
“There is no doubt that the delivery of hydrogen in 2050 will be a transport energy carrier,” said Lasse Kristoffersen, CEO of Torvald Klaveness in Norway. “The question is, how do you produce and what form do you use as a carrier?”
But other executives who exploit the giant holes that traverse the planet to transport from raw materials to consumer goods are hydrogen skeptical that they may be somewhat involved in the fuel transition.
Pilot projects such as CMB demonstrate that it is viable on a small fuel scale on specific routes with supplied infrastructure, with 85% of emissions in the sector coming from shippers, oil tankers and container vessels. analysis by Royal Dutch Shell. Nothing can be as efficient and cheap as fossil fuels.
“This is not going to be an easy decarbonisation sector,” said Bud Darr, executive vice president of Mediterranean Shipping Company, the world’s second-largest container group. “The need for autonomy on board ships requires carrying a large amount of fuel. We need a lot of alternative fuels on a scale and we urgently need them. We are keeping an open mind and looking at all possible solutions. “
Hydrogen has a low energy density compared to heavy fuel oil. To store it as a liquid below -253C, heavy cryogenic tanks taking up precious space are required to make it unviable for large cargo vessels.
“With the current state of technology, we can’t use hydrogen to power ships,” said Morten Bo Christiansen, head of decarbonization at AP Moller-Maersk, the MSC’s biggest rival.
However, the industry is increasingly optimistic about the use of ammonia, a compound of hydrogen and nitrogen, without the emission of greenhouse gases from global commercial working horses.
Although it smells bad and toxic, ammonia is an easy liquid, it is already transported around the world on a scale, and has an almost double the energy density of liquid hydrogen.
“The cleanest and most realistic transportation fuels of the future are hydrogen-based fuels, including green ammonia,” said Rasmus Bach Nielsen, head of decarbonization fuel at the Trafigura raw material store.
According to engine manufacturers, the technology is available. Finland’s Wärtsilä has said it will be ready to expand its ammonia-powered engines by the end of next year, and Germany’s Man Energy Solutions plans to deliver an ammonia-fueled oil tanker in 2024. Both have said new engines will be put in place until the supply infrastructure is in place. it should be compatible with bunker fuel.
Almost all of the 176m tonnes of ammonia produced each year, mostly for fertilizers, currently use “gray” hydrogen extracted from natural gas in energy-intensive CO2 emissions.
Scale-free ammonia production is a difficult task. According to this, it would take about 150m tonnes to meet the 3050 shipment fuel demand by 2050 a report By Haldor Topsoe Catalysis Company. This would require 1,500 terawatts of renewable energy per hour, roughly the same as last year’s global wind energy.
The pockets of the shipping industry are now demanding a general carbon tax to accelerate the production and uptake of next-generation fuels.
“The technology is there and ready,” Bach Nielsen said. “Now we need regulations.”
However, agreeing on a carbon price with 174 IMO member states, including oil producers and exporters of raw materials, is not an easy task. The EU will make proposals in June to include the shipping system in emissions trading, but shipping officials believe global carbon taxes should be 47 times higher than current EU record prices of more than € 47 per tonne for hydrogen-based fuels to be competitive. .
Switching to hydrogen or hydrogen-based fuels may be a lengthy process, as the industry has to be careful not to switch to fossil fuels. Even now, only 11% of new vessels that order will be fed liquefied natural gas, according to Drewry’s advice.
Efforts by large shipping companies to decarbonize in the medium term are focused primarily on low-carbon synthetic fuels and biofuels.
Maersk, which plans to launch its first carbon-neutral vessel in 2023, is opting for methanol, which is biomethanol extracted from wood, such as wood or trapped CO2 and e-methanol produced from green hydrogen. The French CMA is investing in CGM biomes. Both are compatible with existing engines.
Calculators say the biomass resources required for biomethanol are limited and production can lead to environmental problems such as deforestation and water degradation. They also noted that they emit CO2 when they absorb the CO2 they produce while burning it.
“Why should we release CO2 into the ground when we first get caught in the fuel?” asked Kristoffersen of Torvald Klaveness.
Many intelligences believe that this somehow allows hydrogen to decarbonize the shipment on the basis of any long-term view. Few, however, can confidently predict how quickly that can happen.
“We expect technical challenges to be resolved in the coming years,” said Jan Dieleman, head of ocean transportation at Cargill’s U.S. grain store. “The main challenge is the regulatory framework, as even large-scale production of these fuels will always be more expensive than fossil fuels. If we want to decarbonise shipping, we need regulations to drive change. “
Hydrogen rainbow colors
© Christopher Furlong / Getty Images
Green hydrogen Renewable energy technologies are made using clean electricity to electrolyze water (H2O), separating the hydrogen atom within it from its molecular oxygen twin. Very expensive today.
Blue hydrogen It is produced using natural gas, but carbon emissions are captured and stored or reused. Amount of negligible production due to lack of capture projects.
Hydrogen gray This is the most common way to produce hydrogen. Steam comes through the reformation of methane from natural gas, but without trapping emissions.
Hydrogen brown The cheapest way to make hydrogen, but also the most harmful to the environment, is because thermal coal has been used in the production process.
Hydrogen turquoise It uses a process called methane pyrolysis to generate hydrogen and solid carbon. It has not been proven on scale. Concerns about methane leakage.
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