- A new paper from Southampton University has concluded that: ‘Hydrogen through fuel cells requires the least amount of renewable energy investment.’
- It is to be expected that this significant energy saving will drive the industry to adopt hydrogen as its fuel of the future with the additional benefits of zero greenhouse gas and other air pollutant emission.
A new paper from Southampton University researchers on the relative merits of alternative marine fuels has concluded that: ‘Hydrogen through fuel cells requires the least amount of renewable energy investment,’ reports Bunkerspot.
Fuel of the future
In their paper published in Elsevier’s International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, the researchers said that: ‘Although some alternative fuels may theoretically appear as zero emission, our full life-cycle energy feasibility studies challenge this.’
They maintained that, when taking a ‘Wind to Wake’ approach: ‘The cases of both ammonia and methanol indicate higher energy contribution towards their production compared to liquid hydrogen.’
They added that: ‘The results obtained show that for the fuels considered, liquid hydrogen requires the least amount of renewable energy investment from all fuels discussed, 30% less than ammonia and 26% less than methanol when used in combination with a fuel cell and battery hybrid powertrain.’
Furthermore, they founded that the results are ‘consistent across the wide range of ship types’.
Consequently, they concluded that: ‘It is to be expected that this significant energy saving will drive the industry to adopt hydrogen as its fuel of the future with the additional benefits of zero greenhouse gas and other air pollutant emission.’
Click here to access the study, A wind-to-wake approach for selecting future marine fuels and powertrains, hosted on the ScienceDirect.com website.
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Source: Bunkerspot
