- Adopting a policy of waiting until a future fuel is proven and available, as some appear to prefer, will exacerbate the greenhouse gas (GHG) challenge the world is confronting.
- Shipping’s current public decarbonisation debate is focused on the destination and pays little attention to the roadmap and practical details of how we reach our goals.
- Investing in dual-fuel (DF) engine technology and taking advantage of LNG today, we have the opportunity to reduce GHG emissions now.
A recent news article published in the Sea LNG highlights the importance of LNG in the present era shipping to reduce carbon footprint.
A LNG policy that counts
Adopting a policy of waiting until a future fuel is proven and available, as some appear to prefer, will only exacerbate the greenhouse gas (GHG) challenge the world is confronting.
For every large (14,000 TEU) container vessel that continues to burn fuel oil instead of LNG, the opportunity to reduce emissions by the equivalent of removing 13,000 family cars from the road is missed.
As GHG emissions are cumulative, the decarbonisation challenge only gets tougher.
Advantages of using LNG in ships
Not only does LNG provide a pathway to decarbonisation in its own right.
But it also provides the physical infrastructure and asset base that can be used by other alternative fuels, when and if they become commercially viable.
The cost to society will be substantially less than the trillions of dollars estimated to construct the full infrastructure for future alternative fuels.
Shipyards will also gain valuable experience in building vessels propelled by cryogenic or gaseous fuels.
Moreover, the development and dissemination of guidelines and processes for the safe bunkering of these fuels in ports around the world is enabled.
Critically, the capacity to train seafarers in the use of new fuels will be developed.
Dual-fuel engine technology
Investing in dual-fuel (DF) engine technology and taking advantage of LNG today, we have the opportunity to reduce GHG emissions now, with up to 21% GHG savings on a well-to-wake basis (up to 28%, tank-to-wake). These reductions include all methane emissions.
Sustainable bio-LNG
LNG paves the way for the introduction of sustainable bio-LNG in the near term and zero-emission synthetic LNG in the long term.
Bio-LNG provides significant GHG reductions and is already being introduced.
Just 10% of drop-in bio-LNG with LNG provides approximately two years of additional compliance under Poseidon Principles measures.
Both fuels can be used interchangeably with existing LNG infrastructure and marine engines.
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Source : Sea LNG
