Sailing into the wide green yonder
LEADING up to the publication of its Maritime Emissions Reduction National Action Plan (MERNAP), the Australian government has put out four supporting documents accompanied by calls for input from stakeholders. These papers have covered regulations and standards, energy sources and technologies, skills and training, and green-shipping corridors and partnerships.
In March, in MERNAP Issues Paper 4: Green Shipping Corridors and Partnerships, the government clearly outlined this country’s position as far as maritime emissions: “As an island nation dependant on shipping, Australia’s share of global sea freight is around 14%, and ships carrying our freight … contribute approximately 4% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from international shipping. Australia, therefore, has a key role to play in global efforts to decarbonise shipping.”
As has been repeatedly stated, the goal for the national economy is to reduce total greenhouse-gas emissions by 43% below 2005 levels by 2030, ultimately achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. To that end, the government is investigating what needs to be done now and offering whatever advice it can.
In reviewing tech and energy problems associated with decarbonisation, MERNAP Issues Paper 2 gives a list of ways for increasing the fuel efficiency of a vessel – for example, “Power assistance methods (including wind-assisted propulsion)” – before delving into alternative fuels and their availability/viability in Australia.
While this DCN feature doesn’t have the space to address every type of fuel or power source mentioned in the paper, it will look at a mix of interesting cases related to liquefied natural gas, ammonia, methanol, wind power, nuclear power and, on the land side of the supply chain, EV deliveries.
Energetic conversion awarded
Improvements to combat climate change, meet government/industry targets and satisfy consumer demands are being implemented at every step in the cargo-handling process, including portside and in the rail- and road-transport operations that support the mighty seagoing fleets.
An example of an eco-friendly upgrade in an area indirectly related to shipping is Australian logistics company Team Global Express (formerly Toll Group) introducing 60 electric trucks – 36 Volvo eFLs and 24 Daimler Fuso eCanters – at its Bungarribee depot in western Sydney, along with a solar-power system consisting of 400 kilowatts of panels, a one-megawatt battery and 63 chargers. As well as recharging the truck batteries, it feeds excess power back into the national electricity grid.
According to a news item on the TGE site, replacing 60 regular trucks with these EV equivalents will save 286 tonnes of CO2 per annum. What’s more, the firm envisions eventually making a third of its road fleet electric, which would amount to around 2000 trucks.
In a press release in March, CEO of TGE Christine Holgate said, “Team Global Express is proud to roll out an electric vehicle trial of this scale and support our industry and country’s renewable energy transition ambitions. As part of our partnership with ARENA [Australian Renewable Energy Agency], we will be sharing the knowledge we gain from the trial with other industry providers to benefit the entire sector.”
As pointed out on the Volvo website, e-trucks don’t just mean “zero tailpipe emissions”, either, as their quiet running translates to a superior usefulness as they are able to deliver early in the morning, late in the evening and even inside noise-sensitive locations.
New fuel, dual-fuel, multi-fuel
As the shipping industry seeks to decarbonise, it’s fair to say the primary focus is on finding a greener replacement for the current marine fuels that can still be produced at scale for an acceptable price. For some companies, this involves transitioning via dual-fuel or multi-fuel setups. Others are choosing a direct switch to a “future fuel”, at least for some of their vessels.
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is regarded as a good interim solution as, although not a clean fuel, it offers a significant reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions while fitting in easily with existing infrastructure and being widely available globally. A downside is the methane leakage that can occur during production, transportation and as part of the combustion process itself (“methane slip”). At the same time, technological advancements have continued to lessen the amount of leakage.
To examine one firm’s strategy, Norway’s Höegh Autoliners has ordered 12 multi-fuel Aurora Class vessels that will be equipped to initially run on LNG and low-sulphur oil, but also ready for conversion to running on ammonia when that greener fuel becomes more practical.
The first two ships, Höegh Aurora and Höegh Borealis, had their naming ceremonies in August and September, and Höegh Autoliners hopes to take delivery of a further two ships from builders China Merchants Heavy Industry every six months through to 2027, by which time they are all expected to be fuelled by ammonia. According to the official site, “The vessels will be cutting carbon emissions per car transported by up to 58% from the current industry average.”
The Fortescue Green Pioneer is proof that safe, technical solutions for ammonia-power engines exist.
Andrew Forrest, Fortescue
In a news release, Höegh Autoliners CEO Andreas Enger proudly stated, “With the Aurora Class, we are pioneering efforts to combat pollution in a hard-to-abate segment. We are setting new standards for sustainable deep-sea transportation, making a significant stride toward our 2040 net-zero emissions goal. As the largest and most environmentally friendly PCTCs ever built, the Aurora Class vessels embody the change our industry needs.”
Some discussion of the pros and cons of ammonia as a fuel is necessary at this stage. On the plus side, it doesn’t produce CO2 when combusted, can be made using renewable energy (“green ammonia”), and a supply chain already exists thanks to other applications. On the minus side, it’s toxic and corrosive, less energy dense (necessitating larger fuel tanks), and everything from associated regulations to the bunkering network is still in development.
Ammonia advancements
In March, Australian company Fortescue, in conjunction with the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore and other relevant organisations, was declared to have carried out the world’s first marine use of ammonia in a dual-fuel vessel also able to run on diesel.
Loaded with liquid ammonia from the facility at the Vopak Banyan Terminal, the converted offshore supply ship Fortescue Green Pioneer completed its exhaustive seven-week trial successfully, and has received the desired approvals from the Singapore Registry of Ships and the DNV.
In a statement, Fortescue chairman Andrew Forrest celebrated the dual-nation, dual-fuel achievement while calling for high standards in policing green shipping.
“Australia and Singapore are nations for whom the seas are our lifeblood, and Fortescue has seen firsthand the willingness of Singapore to lead the world in taking brave, innovative action to build green ammonia shipping,” he said.
“My message to the Singaporean government is only green is green. Anything else is made from fossil fuels. The Fortescue Green Pioneer is proof that safe, technical solutions for ammonia-power engines exist. But as I did at [UN Climate Change Conference] COP 28 in Dubai, I am once again calling on the world’s ports to get on with setting fair, safe and stringent fuel standards for green ammonia … We must push to see global emitters paying fair carbon prices for heavy fuels used in traditional shipping. These prices must provide clear investment signals to drive green investment.”
For an experiment on a grander scale, and in what can be viewed as something of a proof of concept, Norwegian chemical firm Yara International is aiming to have an ammonia-powered container ship operating between Norway and Germany from 2026. In what should be another world first, the presently-under-construction Yara Eyde will be part of a joint venture whereby subsidiary Yara Clean Ammonia and North Sea Container Line are planning to establish a fleet of solely ammonia-powered ships optimised for specific trade routes.
In a November 2023 corporate release, Yara Clean Ammonia president Magnus Krogh Ankarstrand declared, “This unique project takes a major step towards zero-emission supply chains for Yara and demonstrates that clean ammonia will be able to provide cost-effective and environmentally friendly maritime transport. Yara Eyde will demonstrate the maturity of ammonia as a maritime fuel.”
Methanol for Maersk
Danish shipping and logistics giant Maersk is opting for green methanol as its fuel of the future, having ordered 25 dual-fuel vessels – ranging in size from 2000 TEU to 17,000 TEU – capable of running on that or conventional fuel. It anticipates the entire “green fleet” will be operational by 2027, and that 25% of its container volume will be transported using green fuels by 2030.
Astrid Maersk, the second of the 18 large methanol-powered container ships on order, had its naming ceremony in Yokohama, Japan in April, and by June was visiting Koper, Slovenia for the first time in a commercial capacity.
Noting how important the co-operation and support of ports will be in making the industry’s energy transition work, country manager for East Adriatic and Central Europe at Maersk Ivic Vodopija said in a press release about the historic visit, “The launch of this class of vessels is a key milestone for Maersk in our journey to decarbonise ocean transportation. Astrid Maersk, together with her sister vessels, embodies our ambitions in the areas of sustainability and innovation. But this decarbonisation journey requires collaboration from the entire ecosystem, including customers, partners, regulators and all other stakeholders and Port of Koper is one of our key partners.”
DON’T SLEEP ON THE DATA
We’ve already noted that future fuels aren’t the only way to reduce emissions, and that a preliminary MERNAP paper suggests many possible improvements to render vessels more efficient. Melbourne maritime engineering company OMC International, famous for its e-navigation technology, believes organisations could also be making better use of the available data in their efforts to become more environmentally responsible.
OMC chief executive officer Peter O’Brien told DCN, “Alternative fuels will play a significant role in the decarbonisation of maritime, however, this transition at scale is still many years away. There is an increasing recognition of the value that data can bring, and the industry is moving to capture and analyse more and more data. However, we still believe many ports and shippers are under-utilising data they already have. The value is generated by amalgamating disparate datasets and simplifying the analysis process.
“This is part of what we aim to achieve with our solutions, automating analytics where possible, and providing users with the tools to easily interrogate scenarios of interest. With the ever-increasing volumes, there are challenges in storing, standardising and securing data, and we have a team dedicated to applying the latest technologies to address these.”
One of OMC’s products is the PortWeather system, which aims to provide “critical weather intelligence”.
Mr O’Brien was positive when asked about the degree to which climate change is affecting such intelligence-gathering, while admitting there are likely new problems to be faced.
“Ports have always had to deal with extreme weather events, although the frequency and magnitude of these are potentially increasing,” he said.
“This, combined with larger vessels and new vessel classes, means ports are potentially needing to risk-assess and operate in situations they have not previously experienced.
“This makes decision support technologies such as PortWeather all the more useful to assist port and terminal operators, harbour masters, pilots and shippers to operate safely and efficiently. [It] provides a common platform through which all measured and forecast environmental data from multiple sources and providers can be collated, analysed and displayed.”
Again, the emphasis is on maximising data, both for efficiency and to avoid negative events. OMC’s digital solutions have been shown to contribute to a reduction in shipping-related emissions, and the Aussie firm is currently working on “several new initiatives” that will increase the benefits to its customers – and the industry as a whole – in this crucial area.
Get your rotor runnin’
While debate continues as to the optimum future fuel, this hasn’t stopped marine manufacturers from reducing fuel use by streamlining vessel design (bow shape and hull shape can both make a significant difference) and incorporating other tech that has already been proven to increase efficiency.
One relevant area of technology is wind propulsion. The International Maritime Organization’s Future Fuels and Technology Online Information Hub lists a number of propulsive devices with varying degrees of relevance to and practicality for shipping, from traditional soft sails to soft wing sails, hard wing sails, towing kites, suction wings and Flettner rotors.
Those last devices are named after German inventor Anton Flettner, who began developing them way back in the 1920s. They consist of tall spinning cylinders on the deck of a ship that utilise what’s known as the “Magnus effect” (after another clever German) to generate a force perpendicular to their long axis and the direction of the airflow, which then propels the ship forwards.
As the IMO’s resource notes, the present-day version of Flettner rotors – now commonly known as rotor sails – can be seen in use on ro-ro, ro-pax, product tanker and bulk carrier ships.
In an August 2022 article on the company’s official site, Elias Boletis, then-director of Propulsion R&D at Finnish marine/energy giant Wärtsilä enthused, “[Rotor sails] are an exceptionally environmentally friendly way of generating additional propulsive force because wind power is fully renewable, and they are also an extremely flexible solution that can easily be integrated on board a wide variety of vessel types without impacting their operational viability.”
The same article claims that Flettner rotors can reduce fuel consumption and emissions by around 5% to as much as 30%, and similar figures are regularly quoted elsewhere.
As rotor sails themselves have advanced, so has their integration into existing setups. Mr Boletis continued, “Before installation, a comprehensive feasibility study is performed in order to determine the optimal number and position of the sails … [to ensure they] are integrated in such a way that they provide maximum benefit in terms of propulsion, and that they complement the main propeller and the other energy-saving solutions onboard. At the same time, we can plan the integration in such a way that the rotor sails do not negatively impact the vessel’s course-keeping or manoeuvring performance.”
This unique project … demonstrates that clean ammonia will be able to provide cost-effective and environmentally friendly maritime transport.
Magnus Krogh Ankarstrand, Yara Clean Ammonia
When it comes to rotor sails, Wärtsilä partners with British firm Anemoi Marine Technologies, which offers both fixed arrangements and deployable rotors that can be moved or folded away “in a matter of minutes”, allowing for greater flexibility in terms of cargo and conditions.
One of Anemoi’s recently completed projects was the installation of four five-by-35-metre rotor sails of the folding sort onto the 388,000 DWT Valemax ore carrier Berge Neblina for leading Singapore-based dry bulk owner Berge Bulk, the work being carried out at the Yiu Lian Dockyards (Shekou) in China.
In a press release in July, Paolo Tonon, technical director of Berge Bulk, was quoted as saying, “Leveraging the latest in wind technology to reduce our fleet’s emissions is an important part of Berge Bulk’s ‘Maritime Marshall Plan’ for decarbonisation. We are optimistic that these rotor sails can deliver up to 8% carbon reduction.”
The reference to the US’s post-WWII aid initiative may seem curious, but Berge Bulk’s plan also has four main goals, and is also very much about modernising industry, albeit for more environmental reasons.
The nuclear option
Follow any online debate about the overall best alternatives to marine diesel and heavy fuel oil for long enough and someone is bound to ask why we aren’t building nuclear-powered cargo ships. In fact, the China State Shipbuilding Corporation announced last December that it is working on a containership with a thorium reactor and capacity of 24,000 TEU. However, the arguments against nuclear commercial vessels may be as strong as, or stronger than, those for them.
Detractors pose questions about political and public opposition, the need for new regulations of several kinds, the need for specialist crew training (which, it must be said, will be necessary with certain future fuels, too), the need for added security and the difficulty of decommissioning nuclear vessels. They bring up the unsuccessful attempts to make a nuclear merchant ship genuinely viable in decades past by the US, West Germany, Japan and Russia.
Even if economic issues can be overcome … the security and safety concerns, real and imagined, would far outweigh the benefits of nuclear power.
George Moore, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
Proponents believe the above concerns are all solvable problems, and that it is worth doing so for zero-emissions ships that can go years between refuels, maintain a higher speed, range farther and, thanks to space and weight savings, carry more. Their counter-examples are the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, submarines and icebreakers which have enjoyed long-term success.
It’s not merely the Chinese speculating on the nuclear option. Wired magazine’s June 2023 story “Nuclear-Powered Cargo Ships Are Trying to Stage a Comeback” mentions development projects underway in South Korea and Norway; the former a somewhat secretive affair involving “multiple shipping lines”, the latter dubbed NuProShip, government-funded and based at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. The piece also highlights the work of Ondir Freire and Delvonei Alves de Andrade from Brazil’s Nuclear and Energy Research Institute, whose extensive study of the topic has led them to conclude small detachable reactors that can be moved between ships/facilities are the way to go.
Meanwhile, serious opposition to the idea of nuclear commercial vessels continues. Earlier this month, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists website published a mini essay entitled “Why Nuclear-Powered Commercial Ships are a Bad Idea”. In it, George Moore of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies reminded readers that past experiments in this area were controversial money-losers and emphatically stated his belief that, “Even if economic issues can be overcome with newer, cheaper technologies and increased carrying capacity of either cargo or … the security and safety concerns, real and imagined, would far outweigh the benefits of nuclear power.”
Mr Moore raised justified fears about terrorist attacks, reactor incidents at sea (perhaps in fishing grounds), the high level of information sharing between states that would be required to create adequate emergency-response plans, the challenges posed to the “international insurance system” and more besides. He cautioned: “It is essential that countries’ regulatory bodies for nuclear power plants be involved in the review of any commercial ships that are nuclear powered. The agencies will need to expand their risk-analysis methodology to include unique seagoing risks, and they should be empowered to block construction if the risks are found to exceed acceptable levels.”
This article appeared in the October | November edition of DCN Magazine
