The Ocean Conservancy and its colleagues at UMAS released a new paper titled “Future Maritime Fuels in the United States of America – the Options and Potential Pathways.”
The study addresses which alternative shipping fuels are now available and how the United States might convert to them. The research comes on the heels of another released earlier this week that details the magnitude of emissions and the possibility for decarbonizing the US-flagged fleet.
To escape the most grave implications of climate change, the global economy must swiftly decarbonize. Electrification and renewable energy sources are frequently the best course of action. However, for bulk transportation across our oceans, which now accounts for 3% of global emissions and is expected to expand, zero-emission fuels combined with energy-efficient equipment are the most cost-effective way to decarbonize.
“The United States is primed to the lead the way in the transition to green fuels for the maritime sector,” said Daniel Hubbell, shipping emissions campaign manager for Ocean Conservancy. “Producing green hydrogen-based fuels can kickstart the transition to new shipping fuels along promising green corridor routes within the U.S. and can make key down payments that will drive further investments in renewable energy and feed the demand for climate action within the global transportation sector.”
Both hydrogen and ammonia have the potential to power cargo vessels while releasing no greenhouse gases. When emissions from green hydrogen and green hydrogen-derived ammonia are considered over their entire lifecycle, they are the only scalable fuels capable of meeting the Paris Agreement’s emission reduction targets. Green hydrogen fuel is created by breaking water molecules into hydrogen using renewable energy, while nitrogen is recovered from the air and combined to form green ammonia using renewable energy.
Other hydrogen fuel types, such as grey, blue, or brown, rely on a combination of fossil fuels and hydrogen, which will continue to generate carbon dioxide and support fossil fuel infrastructure. At the moment, existing grey and brown hydrogen generation processes produce the equivalent of around one-third of the European Union’s carbon dioxide. Leakage of methane during the production process is another cause for concern when producing grey or blue hydrogen due to its strength as a greenhouse gas – it is 81 times more efficient than carbon dioxide at warming the environment over a 20-year period. Carbon capture technologies will be required to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production of various types of hydrogen, and the technology is not currently capable of absorbing carbon dioxide efficiently enough.
Joe Taylor, Consultant at UMAS and lead author of the report said: “The forthcoming decade is crucial for the US to initiate the transition to Scalable Zero Emission Fuels (SZEF) in the maritime sector and become a leader in the global shift away from fossil fuels. To fulfil the ambitious targets set by the new administration, the Department of Energy must revise its hydrogen strategy and put a far greater emphasis on green hydrogen production, coupled with an extensive expansion of renewable energy capacity.”
The United States government is prepared to steer the international shipping industry away from fossil fuels and toward environmentally friendly hydrogen. Already, the US government has committed to assisting industry in achieving zero emissions by 2050 and has taken a leading role in significant worldwide initiatives to accelerate the adoption of zero-emission fuels, such as Mission Innovation, the Clydebank Declaration, and the First Movers Coalition. Domestically, the United States already possesses the technological competence and energy infrastructure necessary to implement zero-emission fuels along the country’s east and west coast shipping lanes.
The maritime industry’s transition to zero-emission fuels, most notably green hydrogen, must occur quickly and will require both financial and strategic help from the US government. The government must reconsider its Department of Energy’s hydrogen program, improve its renewable energy output, and use existing domestic and regional shipping routes – which account for 10% of global shipping fuel consumption – that are already well-suited for shifting this decade.
