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Third annual container shipping alternative fuels survey



21 November 2023
25 min read

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  • Alternative fuels come with a lot of baggage. To be truly green the fuel must have been processed with renewable or nuclear electricity and any carbon produced captured and sequestered.
    Considering the deep sea fleet consumes around 200 million tons FOE per annum, that will require replacement with green fuels.
    Not to forget that the current production of ammonia is mainly used for making fertiliser and the fertiliser industry also wants to “go green” as do all the current users of Hydrogen, ammonia and methanol. The fleet will be in competition for green fuels with the traditional users making the quantity of green product required even greater. On top of that, most green fuels are based in hydrogen, Green hydrogen is generally produced by electrolysis, requiring large quantities of renewable or nuclear electricity to generate the required hydrogen.
    As a result the cost of these fuels will never fall to the levels that we are paying today.
    The infrastructure for hydrogen is very dificult to implement because of the size of the molecule, Ammonia is toxic and methanol, unless green, actually puts more CO2 into the air than distillate fuels.
    LNG is already with us, the distribution network is already in place and growing rapidly and by dilution with bioLNG or e-LNG can produce emmissions less than the best of all of the other fuels. The downside is the necessary collection and processing of the biogas from a multitude of (currently) small producers.
    At this time and for some time to come LNG is still provides the most attainable reductions in CO2 production, including methane slip.

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