DNV Maritime chief executive Knut Ørbeck-Nilssen says shipping needs all low- and zero-carbon alternatives, and should even look at creating ‘pink corridors’
International shipping has come a long way in the past five years, with a clear consensus around the need to reduce CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions and make investments in energy efficiency-saving technologies to reach IMO’s 2030 targets.
But one of the things shipping needs to stop doing, says DNV Maritime chief executive Knut Ørbeck-Nilssen, is trying to promote one alternative fuel by devaluing another.
“When you believe in a certain alternative fuel, there is no reason to talk down the other alternatives; we will need fuels for different trades, different ship types, and different size vessels. One fuel will fit, and one will not fit, and the granularity around these issues is quite important,” he explained to Riviera Maritime Media in an exclusive interview.
To comply with IMO regulations and those under FuelMaritime EU and the EU Emissions Trading System, shipowners are coalescing around several low- and zero-carbon fuels.
“LNG will work for some, and methanol or ammonia might work for others. Biofuel is obviously a very easy thing to convert to. But the aviation industry is looking to biofuels and the supply side is challenging, and prices will probably be very high. It is probably a good option for now, but in the longer term, it is going to be difficult for shipping to get hold of sufficient quantities of biofuel,” he says.
Mr Ørbeck-Nilssen is positive when he discusses the marine industry’s progress towards achieving IMO GHG emissions targets of a 20% reduction (“striving” for 30%) by 2030 compared to 2008. He sees this goal as obtainable through current investments in ESD technologies.
“Shipping will need access to better fuels”
But to get to IMO’s 2040 target of at least 70% reduction (striving for 80%) in annual GHG emissions and net-zero on or about 2050, he says international shipping will “need access to better fuels”.
Beyond widespread access and supply of low- and zero-carbon marine fuels, Mr Ørbeck-Nilssen implores shipping to think beyond the way it is operating today. “We have to challenge the status quo. We must be innovative and explore other opportunities and other ways of solving things. It is going to be extremely difficult because shipping is a hard-to-abate sector.”
Among the opportunities Mr Ørbeck-Nilssen sees in the future is nuclear energy. “2050 is quite a long way into the future, and there might be solutions that become available that we cannot see clearly now. One such solution could be the small modular reactors,” he tells us. He sees potential nuclear energy either being used for propulsion on a ship sailing in a green shipping corridor or to produce much-needed e-fuels.
“If you want to put the reactor on board a vessel, it is a smart thing to do this between two countries, or even within one country where you can actually control this much better,” he says, noting that this also might require a change in terminology. “This would be called a ‘pink corridor’ apparently,” he says.
Pink e-fuels are created using nuclear energy, while green fuels are produced using renewable energy. Being “in the pink” could be a way forward for decarbonisation.
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