Commercial shipping accounts for the movement of more than 90% of traded goods around the world. Oceangoing vessels are critical to maintaining global supply chains.
However, while shipping produces 31 times fewer emissions than air freight, and 10 times less than a cargo truck, the industry is nevertheless a major source of global emissions. In 2018, global shipping accounted for around 3% of total worldwide emissions. By 2050, that figure could increase significantly, driven in particular by rising e-commerce volumes.
If this continues as predicted, data gathered by the European Commission projects growth in shipping “will undermine the objectives of the Paris Agreement”. Regulators and shipping companies need to take “effective measures” at a global scale, the Commission adds, noting that “EU action to make sure maritime transport plays its part in achieving climate neutrality in Europe by 2050 is an essential step in incentivising the necessary reductions.”
Could international shipping be net-zero by 2050?
Last year, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) revised its sustainability targets, setting a more ambitious goal than its 2018 resolution. Now, the UN-backed shipping agency is targeting “net-zero GHG emissions from international shipping by or around, i.e. close to, 2050, a commitment to ensure an uptake of alternative zero and near-zero GHG fuels by 2030.”
The EU, which typically leads the world in terms of sustainability reform, extended the EU’s Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) recently. The legislation now covers CO2 emissions from all large ships (of 5,000 gross tonnage and above) entering EU ports, regardless of the flag they fly.
The EU ETS is a mandatory ‘cap and trade’ system that previously applied to emissions from power stations, industrial plants and aircraft in the EU. Participants must acquire and surrender ‘emissions allowances’, representing quantities of regulated emitted GHGs on an annual basis.
Emissions regulations are only part of the puzzle, however. If regulators and companies are going to decarbonise global shipping, the industry needs new ways of cutting emissions from cargo ships.
A new age of sail?
There are several ways in which shipping companies are aiming to cut down on their carbon emissions, from manufacturing new, cleaner fuels, to atavistically exploring a return to an age of sail.
Pulling from methods used by Japanese shipping companies during the 1980s oil crisis, shipping companies have been exploring the use of rigid sails as a way to reduce fuel consumption in oceangoing vessels. Swiss shipping firm Cargill revealed in March the results of a six-month test period of the Pyxis Ocean—a cargo freighter retrofitted with large sails made from the same material as wind turbines.
The ship, retrofitted with two WindWings built by BAR Technologies, saved an average of 3 tonnes of fuel per day. Jan Dieleman, president of Cargill’s Ocean Transportation business, reported finding the results encouraging.
Earlier this year, French company Grain de Sail celebrated the christening ceremony for Grain de Sail II, the world’s largest modern cargo sailboat.
However, savings per cargo vessel that would amount to the equivalent of removing 480 cars from the roads each year isn’t enough to get the industry to its net zero target. Ships’ propeller systems limit the potential of wind to power cargo ships, which supply only up to 30% of the energy required for navigation – even less in adverse weather conditions. While wind propellers and sails are a valuable piece of the puzzle that is making cargo ships less reliant on its engines, they’re unlikely to entirely replace fuel engines. The shipping industry is unlikely to ever fully return to an age of sail. To achieve sustainability, the shipping industry must also transition from oil to alternative green fuels to support renewable options like solar and sail.
Green fuel manufacturing at a global scale
To determine the true environmental impact of a fuel, it is crucial to consider not just the emissions from burning it in a ship’s engine, but also the emissions from its entire lifecycle – including extraction, production, transportation, and storage, called “well-to-wake.”
An electric car isn’t truly zero-carbon if its electricity comes from fossil fuels. Likewise, a ship isn’t green if its ammonia or methanol was produced using natural gas.
Green hydrogen is created by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. To do it sustainably, the process uses electricity from renewable sources such as wind or solar power. Another fuel, green ammonia is produced by combining nitrogen from the air with green hydrogen. This uses the Haber-Bosch process. Lastly, green methanol comes from heating plant or organic waste. The resulting gas is then forms the basis of bio-methanol.
Renewable energy for greener fuels
These fuels need to be generated exclusively using renewables if they are to be considered legitimately green. Right now, there isn’t enough of that renewable energy to go around. As a result, there isn’t enough new fuel. Shipping companies are turning to stopgap measures as a result, or just continuing to burn fossil fuels and eat new taxes as they arise .
According to a 2022 study by the International Chamber of Shipping, the shipping industry will need up to 3,000 terawatt-hours (TWh) of renewable electricity annually if it wants to generate alternate fuels using exclusively renewable energy.. That’s nearly the current global output of wind and solar power, (about 3,444 TWh).
“Despite increasing willingness in the shipping industry to pay a premium for green fuels, the lack of availability of those fuels is frustrating,” Julien Boulland from Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore, wrote recently. “A hard truth is that the timelines required to scale up new fuel production capacity will not meet the significant emissions reductions needed this decade, in line with the IMO’s revised strategy, adopted in 2023. Therefore, shipping should use all levers that are already available to reduce its energy needs in the short term, through operational efficiency and clean technology.”
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