[FAQ] What Are the Low Carbon Technologies To Make Shipping Green?

Accounting for around three per cent of global CO₂ emissions, the shipping industry poses some major challenges when it comes to decarbonisation.

The Engineer spoke to three different players in the sector about their various approaches to turning marine green.

The panel includes:

• Jose Jorge Garcia Agis, Deputy Managing Director at Ulstein International
• Brian Østergaard Sørensen, Vice President, Head of Research and Development, Two-Stroke, MAN Energy Solutions
• Steven Henderson, Co-founder and CEO at Fleetzero

What green shipping technologies is your organisation is working on?

JJGA: Ulstein is approaching the decarbonisation of the industry in the same way that we have approached our ship design activities until now, holistically and systematically. Ulstein’s vision is to create tomorrow’s solutions for sustainable marine operations. This has required us to understand the needs of the operations – what is the vessel going to do and finding a smart way to support those needs in a sustainable way.

Zero carbon shipping is a complex choice of alternative fuels. There is not one unique solution to decarbonise shipping. Each vessel type, region of operation and type of operation will lead to the selection of a preferred solution.

In any case, we at Ulstein believe that more sustainable shipping operations will require the combination of four strategies:

• reduce energy consumption – by smarter hull designs – like Ulstein X-Bow, X-Stern and Twin X-Stern,
• use of greener energy sources – like methanol, hydrogen, ammonia or nuclear power,
• smarter use of energy onboard – enabled by the use of hybrid power plants and battery energy storage systems, and iv) more efficient vessel operations – enabled by digitalisation and smarter use of data from operations.

Ulstein is actively working with all four strategies and implementing them both in new-builds and vessels in operation.

BØS: On the two-stroke side, MAN Energy Solutions’ green journey began in 2011 with a full-scale test of a dual-fuel ME-GI (Gas Injection) engine at its Research Centre Copenhagen, followed by the first delivery in 2014. A low-pressure equivalent, the ME-GA engine, has since entered the market.

The first engine tests of the ME-LGI (Liquid Gas Injection) platform began in 2015, followed by the first sea-trial for the ME-LGIM (methanol) engine in 2016. Development of an ethane (ME-LGIE) unit followed in 2016 and ammonia-fuelled two- and four-stroke engines are also due to enter the market within the next few years.

In general, on the four-stroke side, since the introduction of its four-stroke DF engines in the mid-2000s, MAN has made excellent progress in reducing methane slip.

SH: Fleetzero is building battery-electric cargo ships to affordably decarbonize ocean freight. Our ships are powered by large battery packs designed into modified shipping containers – the same type of containers you might see carrying cargo on a truck, train, or ship.

Containerized batteries allow us to easily adjust the number of batteries a ship needs on any given voyage while also allowing us to remove the batteries for charging and maintenance. Our batteries are built with unprecedented energy density and ruggedness specifically for the harsh marine environment.

What are some of the big engineering challenges associated with your approach to green shipping?

SH: Range. Batteries are still far less energy dense than liquid hydrocarbons. Our core innovations lie in ways to build incredibly energetic batteries and get the most distance out of them at sea.

Another challenge is battery safety in a marine environment- specifically in designing batteries that are resistant to excess heat and fire conditions. We’ve developed many innovations that make our batteries much safer than the status quo for batteries used in other industries.

JJGA: The ongoing agenda for decarbonisation of the shipping industry is still surrounded by a set of technical, commercial, and operational challenges that need to be catered for during the design and engineering process of new vessels.

Technically, decarbonising shipping requires the use of alternative energies, new operational patterns, alternative ways of using energy onboard and many more implications.

Thus, we as ship designers and shipbuilders are required to adapt our working processes – Rules and Regulations are under development, requiring case by case, risk based approval process, use of new and alternative technologies – different fuel densities, stricter fire and explosion requirements, higher redundancy, and to implement flexibility in our designs so that the vessels can be adjusted to the future uncertain market conditions.

In other words, we have adapted our ship design and engineering processes to support ship owners in the challenging process of ordering their sustainable vessels.

BØS: In light of decarbonisation within the marine sector, MAN Energy Solutions notes that the modular design of its conventionally fuelled, low-speed ME-C engine portfolio lends itself to extensive retrofit options in regard to alternative green fuels, and that such retrofits already have a proven track record. Indeed, the company has already completed 16 such projects since 2015.

Read the full interview here.

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Source: The Engineer

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