Paul Gunton lays down a challenge set by the Sustainable Shipping Initiative
I’ve had my knuckles rapped since my comment piece last week. I had meandered mentally around a report about LNG’s “Market, bunkering infrastructure investments and risks” that had been commissioned by an organisation called Transport & Environment (T&E) from the University Maritime Advisory Services (UMAS), which is based at University College, London, (UCL).
I had noted that T&E’s report was somewhat dismissive of LNG’s long-term potential as a marine fuel and I found it disappointing in not providing an alternative strategy. In response, a senior research associate at the UCL Energy Institute emailed me to question what he took to be my “argument that UMAS does not provide alternative strategy” to LNG use and drew my attention to the work UMAS is doing with Lloyd’s Register and many others under their joint Sustainable Shipping Initiative (SSI) umbrella.
He kindly sent me a couple of SSI reports, including its latest, published in May. “Whoever is following the fuels discussion would have come across this,” he said. Well, that’s me and I had not seen the May report so I accepted his rebuke.
But I stood by what I had said, because the T&E report – although authored by UMAS – is not part of the SSI study programme. It was for a different client with a different agenda and UMAS fulfilled its brief well. My appeal last week was that T&E should commission further work from UMAS, not that UMAS had in some way fallen short of its task.
The UMAS/LR report for the SSI, on the other hand, is called Zero Emission Vessels, what needs to be done? As with the T&E report, I don’t pretend to have read every word; instead, I have looked for sections that address its title’s mission.
It considers three technology options – hydrogen fuel cells, electric systems and biofuel for internal combustion engines – and three ship types: bulk carriers, container ships and tankers. In summary, all will be more expensive than with conventional powering options, with biofuel the best option by that measure. Electric ships in those categories would be hammered by the cost of batteries.
Another parameter the report looks at is the upstream emissions produced to make each of the propulsion options possible. Again, biofuel comes out well, although the electric option does even better in one projection. Nonetheless, the report’s conclusions begin by stating “The results consistently show that advanced biofuels may represent the most economically feasible zero-emission alternative for the shipping industry.”
On its own, that statement does not answer the question in the report’s title, but its conclusion does eventually get round to that in its closing sentences: “Further analysis is needed alongside a plan to encourage and invest in such development. … The economic analysis of the options conducted in this study needs to be factored into a wider decision-making process by the industry into the most suitable pathway towards zero emissions, no doubt requiring the most ambitious members of the industry to challenge the status quo.”
Now you’re talking.
So my comment this week is simply to put that challenge before you. Many of you, I am sure, consider yourselves to be ambitious members of the industry. Will you challenge the status quo, as the SSI would like you to? Do you accept the idea that the ball is in your court?
Email me and tell me about your response to all this.
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