Under a new ABS index, biodiesel showed up to 24 times more CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per dollar on a well-to-wake basis compared to other alternative fuels, as detailed in the ABS 2024 Sustainability Outlook, reports Seatrade Maritime.
Various fuel
The publication explores various fuel pathways the maritime industry may adopt in the pursuit of the IMO’s 2050 net zero emissions goal, as well as their performance against 2030 and 2040 GHG emissions reductions targets.
Looking at current prices per gigajoule of energy, biodiesel was the second cheapest of the fuels listed, beaten only by VLSFO.
ABS’ figures show VLSFO, fossil LNG and LPG all failing to meet either 2030 or 2040 GHG emissions targets when measured by grammes of CO2 equivalent emitted per megajoule on a well-to-wake basis. e-LNG, blue ammonia, blue hydrogen, bio-LNG, and biodiesel all comfortably meet the 2030 targets today, and are each expected to meet the 2040 targets as production efficiency improves over the next decade and beyond. e-ammonia, green hydrogen, biomethanol, e-methanol, and e-diesel all meet the stricter 2040 targets already.
The report introduced a new index to compare alternative fuel pathways, the GHG Abatement Cost (GAC), which subtracts the cost of VLSFO from each sustainable fuel, then divides the remaining cost by the fuel’s CO2 equivalent GHG reduction compared to VLSFO.
ABS applied the same methodology to three hypothetical future scenarios in order to identify the most economical path to 2050. The three scenarios look at futures where different fuel pathways have had high uptake and infrastructure development – e-fuel, biofuel and blue fuel.
Biofuel has the lowest GAC for two of the three scenarios, beaten only by blue hydrogen in the scenario of high blue fuels uptake. For each scenario, GAC was shown compared to VLSFO, highlighting fuels with the potential to offer lower costs than VLSFO in 2050.
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Source: Seatrade Maritime
