The Week in Alternative Fuels
Here are some key developments in alternative bunker fuels from the past week.
PHOTO: Yara's ammonia production plant on the Herøya peninsula near Porsgrunn in Norway will initially produce 20,00 mt/year of green ammonia by 2024, with scale up to 400,000 mt/year planned. Yara
Smaller (IMO) and bigger (EU) steps have been made towards tightening restrictions on how much greenhouse gases ships can emit. And with a backdrop of calls to "supercharge" the transition to renewable energy to avert climate disaster, shipping and energy industry players are mulling how involved they want to get in alternatives to high-carbon fuels.
Among the most critical factors to consider is the cost-competitiveness of low- and zero-carbon fuels. Blue, and especially green, ammonia prices are projected to stay unattractively high until production costs come down or carbon dioxide is taxed to narrow its premium over conventional fuels. Yara Clean Ammonia president Magnus Krogh Ankarstrand talked to ENGINE and offered insights into the company's long-term price projections for ammonia and whether its blue or green form is most feasible.
Blue hydrogen with carbon capture is easier said than done, as carbon capture technologies are still at a nascent stage of development for high capture rates at scale. This concern led Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) to partner with Omani carbon mineralisation firm 44.01 to test a potentially game-changing way to permanently mineralise CO2, and ideally make it incapable of slipping back into the atmosphere.
When producing marine fuels with renewable potential such as biofuels, it is crucial to have access to sufficient sustainable feedstocks. This was discussed in the final chapter of ENGINE’s Alternative Fuels series, in which we examine how far biofuels can go towards making up a significant chunk of the future marine fuels mix.
Producing the fuels is one thing. It is also necessary to build out global supply chains and bunker infrastructure to distribute and deliver them. The Port of Amsterdam has struck a partnership with the UAE government-owned renewable energy producer Masdar and other firms on a project to produce green hydrogen in Abu Dhabi for export to Amsterdam. They will target demand from several sectors, including shipping, aviation and steelmaking.
A key unanswered question is how shipowners can make sure that the fuels they are actually as green as they are purported to be. Research conducted by Lloyd's Register, TYMLEZ and Authentix has attempted to tackle just that. They have assessed how well blockchain and synthetic market systems can track the "true carbon intensity" of hydrogen and ammonia. The aim is to determine whether finished marine fuel products have been produced as grey, blue or green.
By Konica Bhatt
Here is our selection of five top alternative fuels stories from this week:
Q&A: Blue ammonia is a long-term option - Yara Clean Ammonia
Lloyd’s Register assesses role of technologies in tracking carbon intensity of marine fuels
