To meet IMO’s decarbonisation targets of reducing greenhouse gases from shipping by 40% by 2030 and 50% by 2050 compared to 2008, carbon-neutral ships will need to begin entering the fleet. This will require a massive scale-up of alternative fuels, including synthetic and biofuels, to meet shipping’s needs. This ramp up of production will need to be underpinned by government policy and financial support.
Additionally, charterers are looking to vessel owners to comply with their own sustainable visions by using biofuels.
These are some of the key takeaways from Riviera Maritime Media’s When will biofuels move beyond the trial phase and scale? webinar, produced as part of Marine Propulsion’s Marine Fuels Webinar Week held in March.
“The biomass is available,” panellist Damien Valdenaire, scientist executive refining at European environmental research organisation Concawe, told the audience in one of three insightful contributions. Citing the latest estimates that show availability could increase by between 70M and 140M tonnes a year by 2050, with demand growing by 2.2% a year, he said: “Demand follows availability.”
However, another panellist, Prashanth Athipar, principal of the maritime supply chain for excellence and sustainability at BHP, cited some of the hurdles lying ahead of the wider use of biofuels, especially from a charterer’s perspective. “We need to understand the business side and the technicalities,” he said, while also pointing out the advantages of biofuels over rivals, such as their suitability for existing engines, ease of blending with current fuels, and the ready-made infrastructure in place. “These are big ticks,” he said.
Yet technical challenges remained, such as the tendency of some biofuels to oxidise and degrade if stored more than six months…
