MSC Group first announced its latest initiative in July of last year. This time, the plan was to work with shipbuilder Fincantieri and energy infrastructure provider Snam on a feasibility study for designing and building the world’s first ocean-going hydrogen-powered cruise ship.
The firms stated at the time that they would examine “important elements connected to the construction” of such a vessel over the next 12 months, including the necessity to incorporate hydrogen technology and fuel cells onboard.
This was major news among all the sustainability announcements in recent months and years.
An organization of MSC’s size and strength aligns itself behind what many see as not just a realistic but also a necessary path for a cruise to achieve its emissions reduction goals.
With Fincantieri and Snam on board, there is genuine hope that, over a year later, this will be the first step on what will undoubtedly be a difficult and twisting journey.
“The decisions we make today for technologies and fuels for future boats need to be the correct ones,” MSC Cruises senior vice-president of cost optimization and process improvement Michele Francioni adds. “It’s crucial that we interact as broadly as possible to promote technological development.” We can’t just sit around and hope that something will happen.”
Frank Wolak, president, and CEO of the Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Energy Association shares this viewpoint. “Hydrogen and fuel cells give a chance to concurrently power both propulsion and auxiliary operations, while lowering local air and noise pollution, both onboard and off-board at the port of call,” he explains.
“Hydrogen fuel cells give the cruise industry a zero-emission travel option,” he continues. Furthermore, because there are no moving components in fuel cells, they function silently, eliminating both noise and the need for maintenance.”
The fantasy of hydrogen
On a worldwide scale, the Hydrogen Council produced a Hydrogen for Net Zero study in November 2021, arguing that a hydrogen economy, in addition to electrification, was critical for future emission reductions and attaining global commitments.
“Put simply, there is no climate solution without hydrogen,” stated Daryl Wilson, executive director of the Hydrogen Council, in a statement at the time.
Lines are eager to get on the hydrogen bandwagon because of these benefits, as Wolak illustrates. Northern Xplorer is one such firm, with CEO Rolf A Sandvik describing it as a “cruise company in the making” that plans to sail in Norway.
The business, which is collaborating with ABB, has a lofty goal of launching 14 ships, the first of which will be operational in 2024/2025.
“One of the most promising alternatives for decreasing dangerous emissions is hydrogen-powered fuel cells,” says ABB vice-president of maritime business development Jorulf Nergard.
Havila Voyages is another hydrogen enthusiast. The company, which just launched its first ship, has made no apologies for bragging about its environmental efficiency and usage of battery hybrid power to cut emissions.
It told CTN that its ships were built in such a way that they may be changed to run on hydrogen in the future.
However, as Matthew Valentine, the line’s UK national manager, points out, it is not without its difficulties: “Electromechanically, panel-wise, our boats are set up to convert to other fuels. Because today’s LNG tanks cannot be utilized for hydrogen, if we switch to hydrogen, we’ll need to build new tanks.
“Because the hybrid system is critical to the running of our ships, we will continue to employ battery power.” We are able to convert since our ships are propelled by electric motors that are driven by batteries, which are then charged by the engines, making it easier to switch fuel types.”
Silver Nova, the first ship in Silversea’s Project Evolution, began building late last year and is scheduled to debut in summer 2023. It will include a hybrid mix, incorporating fuel cells.
“The project is well along,” Francioni says of MSC. “We’re looking at two primary areas.” “These are the latest technology for converting hydrogen into power onboard a vessel, as well as how the supply chain may appear.”
Bringing hydrogen initiatives to fruition
One thing that many of these ideas have in common is that they are just that: plans, not actual ships sailing the high seas right now.
Experts believe the bottlenecks are caused by supply rather than technology. “The expense of clean hydrogen generation and the availability of hydrogen distribution and fueling infrastructure are the two key barriers to making hydrogen power more broadly available today,” Wolak says.
“Building out hubs, where numerous users of hydrogen may utilize the same fueling facilities and equipment to pool demand, is one way to solve infrastructure and supply network difficulties.”
“Ports, where port operations logistics trucks and water-going boats may both increase hydrogen demand, are one viable site for these hubs.”
“The correct policy decisions,” according to Francioni, are critical to “promote investment in developing the infrastructure for the kind of scaling up that is necessary.”
“We need to move away from hydrogen sourced from oil or gas and toward green hydrogen, which can be produced with no accompanying carbon emissions,” he explains. “Unfortunately, there is just a little amount of green hydrogen on the market right now.”
Another stumbling block, according to Francioni, is that “the majority of present hydrogen-related initiatives are linked with compressed hydrogen, which is a reasonably straightforward solution for small-energy demand industry, such as the car sector.”
“What we are doing with our partners is attempting to match these objectives to a level where you can start producing bunker hydrogen and start testing the first boats,” Dina Lanzi, head of H2 technology development at Snam, says.
Because it’s a chicken-and-egg situation, you’ll need to coordinate and develop a shared plan to test the fuel before it can be expanded.”
Hydrogen ships are now in service
Despite these obstacles, Northern Xplorer expects to have its first ship operational in a couple of years, as previously stated.
“By 2024-2025, a growing number of ships will be using hydrogen for propulsion, and the first Northern Xplorer ship is planned to be in service at this time,” Sandvik explains.
“Unfortunately, hydrogen is not a silver bullet answer to the future fuel problems.” The vast majority of cruise ships are significantly larger than what we are contemplating.”
“There are studies and pilots examining hydrogen energy in various forms — compressed hydrogen, liquid hydrogen, hydrogen as ammonia, hydrogen as methanol,” adds ABB’s Nergard.
“Two or three of them are likely to become the standard form of future green fuel.”
“There’s a lot of work to be done,” Francioni says, “but I’d like to believe that by 2030 or so, there may be an ocean cruise ship driven by alternative fuels like hydrogen.” To achieve this, we must continue to collaborate, be ambitious, and optimistic.”
Hydrogen has a lot of potentials.
CTN
