In contrary to the World Bank point of view, there is a bright future for LNG in the decarbonization of the shipping industry. The World Bank report seemed to have missed an important recent technical development: Marine Carbon Capture Systems.
Recently, great progress has been achieved regarding the capturing of CO2 from the exhaust of LNG-fueled ships.
Carbon capture technology
Among others, R&D in the Netherlands – by Conoship, TNO Delft and other partners – leads to feasible and practical ship-based solutions, utilizing ‘the cold’ of the LNG (-160 dgr. C) to liquefy the CO2 and store it in regular liquid-CO2-tankcontainers on board.
The captured CO2 can be unloaded while bunkering LNG, to be stored for example offshore in empty gas fields, for which infrastructure is under development in Norway (Northern Lights), Rotterdam (Porthos), Amsterdam (Athos) and by parties like CarbonCollectors.
As the captured and liquefied CO2 can be ‘food-grade,’ wider utilization is foreseen in the future as an important and valuable feedstock for the production of synthetic fuels, like synthetic -kerosine, -diesel, -methanol or -methane.
Next to ‘green hydrogen,’ the production of synthetic fuels requires vast amounts of CO2, for which ‘direct air capture’ is a very inefficient source.
Future applications
Conoship R&D and design studies show that by future application of onboard CO2-capturing, liquefaction and storage, LNG-driven ships can both be:
- a good direct economic and ecological alternative to diesel-driven ships, realizing large reductions of SOx, NOx en PM/Sooth and smaller reductions of CO2;
- a good future-proof economic and ecological solution, increasing the reduction of CO2-emissions (possibly stepwise) to the desired economical & ecological level by application of a CO2-capturing installation.
By integrating the CO2-capturing installation in the initial ship design at Conoship, we reduce the future impact of the modification. However, CCS installations are also suitable for retrofits on board of LNG powered vessels.
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Source: Manifold Times
