2050: There’s 9,164 Days to Go
This week at MarineLink…
A group of people met at the University of Alaska Fairbanks at the end of October to brainstorm a possible new economy for Alaska and a clean energy source for the world: geologic hydrogen.
It’s not that new a concept. Villagers in Bourakébougou, Mali, found a source of geologic hydrogen while unplugging an old water well in 2011. Subsequent scientific research confirmed an extensive hydrogen field in the strata below, and it is now used to generate electricity for the village.
Other natural hydrogen deposits have been found in Canada, Russia, Australia, Germany and New Zealand. Alaska could be next.
Could this be good news for shipping? Probably not, but in the absence of natural sources, it highlights the challenge of scaling up the production of green fuels due to the high demand for renewable electricity needed to make them. Current estimates suggest that the shipping industry would need a substantial share of the world’s renewable electricity production to satisfy its need for net-zero fuels.
This week, Lerche-Tornoe, General Manager at Oceanly, pointed out: “While alternative fuels are part of the future, current infrastructure and energy availability isn’t enough to support a full transition. Relying too heavily on green hydrogen could strain global renewable energy resources given that only a fraction of today’s hydrogen production is classified as green.”
He says that the focus should be on smarter practices and incremental improvements, provided by energy saving devices, until renewable technologies are more accessible. This would counteract the inefficiencies involved in producing and using green fuels considering, for example, the 80% energy loss from renewable electricity production via green hydrogen and e-fuels to a ship’s propeller.
Advances continue to address the inefficiencies. CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, reported this week that it has successfully trialed a new hydrogen production technology which demonstrates that affordable renewable hydrogen can be generated at scale to help decarbonize heavy industry.
This could help reduce the expected competition for green energy between shipping and shoreside consumers.
Shipping is trying hard to advance its cause. The Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping has released an updated version of its Fuel Pathway Maturity Map this week, providing an overview of the alternative fuels that are expected to play a pivotal role in decarbonizing the industry by 2050.
The update highlights progress made since 2022. “This update counters the prevailing narrative that maritime decarbonization is at a halt. The progress captured in the Fuel Pathway Maturity Map demonstrates that the technical side of the industry is on the right path, with tangible advancements in key areas. This should enforce confidence in the green transition in stakeholders across the value chain,” says Christoffer Lythcke-Elberling, Head of Transition Modeling & Analytics at the Center.
That message comes at a time when the impact Donald Trump might have on global decarbonization efforts is unclear. However, this week a senior executive at ExxonMobil said that US oil and gas producers are unlikely to radically increase production under his presidency.
"We're not going to see anybody in 'drill, baby, drill' mode," said Liam Mallon, head of Exxon's upstream division, at the Energy Intelligence Forum in London. "A radical change (in production) is unlikely because the vast majority, if not everybody, is focused on the economics of what they're doing," he said. "Maintaining the discipline, driving the quality, driving the information, will naturally limit that growth rate."
The Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping added more fuel for thought for shipping companies this week by also publishing its examination of the feasibility of a goal-based fuel standard. The goal-based marine fuel standard and pricing mechanism are mid-term GHG reduction measures specified in the revised IMO Strategy on the Reduction of GHG Emissions from Ships, adopted in July 2023.
Center modeling indicates that given the significant gap between the price of fossil fuels and sustainable alternatives, the penalty in the standard should be big enough to incentivize use of sustainable fuels and energy, that is at least $450 per tonne of GHG emitted. Non-compliance costs should remain at least at this level through to 2050 to make sustainable alternatives economically viable throughout the transition.
There are 9,165 days to go to sort out the battle between fossil fuel and green hydrogen, but to meet the IMO’s mid-term goals, shipowners will surely need to be taking sides before then.