It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sunday, February 06, 2022
Biofuels Have a Big, Big Problem Nobody Talks About
Think of economically viable alternatives to traditional fuels like gas and diesel. Nothing makes more immediate sense than biofuels. They use waste, produce fewer emissions, and lower the supply of untreated fuels needed everywhere else.
The United States alone is a powerhouse in the cultivation of corn – an ingredient that has now become extremely important for biofuels. When driving across the Upper Midwest, you will be met by vast corn fields stretching to the horizon in either direction. This agricultural giant was the bedrock of the American diet. Corn flower, corn bread, corn meal – all staples of traditional American food – are now being actively forgotten. Farmers and companies are pivoting toward the energy industry. Today, nearly half of all corn production is used for making ethanol. Mixing this liquid with gasoline results in a reduction for the carbon footprint of all those commuting.
For most Americans today, the gasoline they use is composed by up to 10% of ethanol and farmers are making more than ever because of the government mandate. Moreover, the current administration is being lobbied to up the percentage of ethanol found in fuels.Why this is happening There is nothing inherently wrong with burning fuel as long as we develop a method to capture its products. Unfortunately, we have become like the yeast trapped in a brewer`s vat: we are using the fuel provided and releasing toxic byproducts. At some point, the alcohol produced reaches a concentration that is extremely harmful. Here, survival is no longer an option. Moreover, nobody is interested in investing in a dying economic sector like hydrocarbons. But, for us humans, biofuels try to address this imbalance before it`s too late or, you know, before EVs completely take over.
The theoretical cycle of biofuels is comprised of the theory that they can be restored over a short period of time, unlike fossil fuels. You take the corn, you ferment it and, voila, you have fuel that can be burned, can release CO2 and it will all be taken back by next year`s crop.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 2019 only 5% of the total energy was biomass. Almost half of that has been ethanol. The primary method of producing this liquid is from yeast. Without oxygen and with the help of bacteria, it uses anaerobic respiration where it converts sugar into energy and ethanol. The U.S. is the largest producer of ethanol, and the quantity made is growing yearly.What we will face Given the fact that it`s being requested to double the percentage of ethanol in fuels and turning them into biofuels, the land needed to plant corn only will amass over 30,000,000 hectares. One fifth of the U.S. farmland will be used only for producing ethanol.
Farmers are getting more cash for their crops and the need for larger quantities of corn will only encourage the use of land in this direction. Croplands are expanding at an explosive rate: over 1,000,000 acres per year! Therefore, natural habitats are suffering in the U.S.
Food prices have also risen because of this growing interest in ethanol. Corn is being used for chickens, cows, and other animals, so, naturally, the prices of eggs and milk are now much higher than ever before. This vicious cycle will continue, and the average U.S. citizen will pay even more.
On top of all that, one liter of ethanol contains only 5.130 kcal, and to make it you need 6.600 kcal of energy. This means that from the start there is a loss of 22,3%. It is a negative process. This is not a green technology because, in reality, photosynthesis is also a very inefficient way to turn sunlight into usable energy. On average, plants can capture and convert about 1% of sunlight, while humans can use up to 20% of the sunlight with photovoltaic cells. Corn is even worse at this than your average plant – 0,25%.Growing plants for food is a necessity, growing plants for power is irrational Corn also needs a lot of water to grow properly and is, as stated above, inefficient. Water is incredibly scarce, and its absence is already causing havoc in some parts of the world, not only U.S. Using it for that part of the agriculture that in the end produces biofuels is wrong. The water footprint of biomass energy is 72 times higher than that of fossil fuels and 240 times more than solar! More, over 80% of freshwater is already being used for agriculture in the States. Increasing crops for biofuels will just raise this percentage to an unsustainable level.
Nonetheless, the government will keep subsidizing this sector just because it represents over 300,000 jobs, which cannot be lost under any administration that wants a second term.Viable alternatives Batteries are still heavy and still short ranged for heavy duty vehicles or planes.
The precious freshwater can be preserved by using algae. This, however, is expensive. The cost is now somewhere between $300 and $2600 per barrel. It has great potential and that is why researchers like those at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are already working on it to make it as cheap as possible. They are trying to create new strains of algae because it has a greater fat content, which can be turned into green crude oil that can eventually become fuels for transportation.
Finally, we need alternative technologies, and we should invest in them. Unfortunately, we don`t. Biofuels obtained from ethanol and fossil fuels are not at all green or sustainable.
Visualized: a third of Americans already face above-average warming
An unofficial thermometer reads 55C (132F) at Death Valley
National Park, California, in 2021.
Photograph: David Becker/Getty Images Temperatures in 499 counties across west, northeast and upper midwest US have already breached 1.5C (2.7F)
More than a third of the American population is currently experiencing rapid, above-average rates of temperature increase, with 499 counties already breaching 1.5C (2.7F) of heating, a Guardian review of climate data shows.
The US as a whole has heated up over the past century due to the release of planet-warming gases from burning fossil fuels, and swathes of the US west, northeast and upper midwest – representing more than 124.6 million people – have recorded soaring increases since federal government temperature records began in 1895.
Though the climate crisis is convulsing the US, it is doing so unevenly. Hotspots of extreme warming have emerged in many of America’s largest cities, and places as diverse as California’s balmy coast to the previously frigid northern reaches of Minnesota, while other places, particularly in the south, have barely seen their temperatures budge.
“The warming isn’t distributed evenly,” said Brian Brettschneider, an Alaska-based climate scientist who collated the county temperature data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa). “Many places have seen dramatic changes, but there are always some places below the average who will think, ‘It didn’t seem that
Ventura county in California has heated up more than any other county in the contiguous US, according to the Noaa data, experiencing a 2.6C (4.75F) increase in total warming in the period from 1895 to 2021. Meanwhile, counties that include many of America’s largest cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, San Fransisco and Boston, have all seen their average temperatures rise far beyond the national average, which stands at around a 1C (1.8F) increase on pre-industrial times.
Mark Jackson, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service based in Oxnard in Ventura county said the county’s temperature increase is “a remarkable number, it’s a scary number when you consider the pace we are looking at”. Jackson said the county has seen a large increase in heatwaves, including a spell above 37C (100F) last summer that “really stressed” the local community.
Ventura county, which hugs the Californian coast northwest of Los Angeles, is known for a pleasant Mediterranean climate cooled slightly by the proximity of the ocean. But Jackson said that recent heatwaves have seen warm air flow down from mountains in the nearby Los Padres National Forest to the coast, while the ocean itself is being roiled by escalating temperatures. “It’s been really remarkable to see it get that hot right up to the coast,” he said.
California is in the grip of its most severe drought in 1,200 years and scientists say this is fueling the heat seen in many places in the state – Los Angeles has warmed by 2.3C (4.2F) since 1895, while Santa Barbara has jumped by 2.4C (4.38F) – by reducing moisture in soils, which then bake more quickly.
Higher temperatures are also worsening the risk of wildfires in the state. “We lost everything,” said Tyler Suchman, founder of online marketing firm Tribal Core who in 2017 fled with his wife to escape a huge wildfire that razed their home in Ojai, in Ventura county. “It was harrowing. The winds were blowing like crazy and the hills lining the highway were all on fire, I had never seen anything like it.”
Just 11 months later, a separate wildfire destroyed the couple’s next home, in Malibu, as their neighbor scooped up water from his hot tub in a desperate attempt to tackle the flames. “No one wants us to move next to them now,” Suchman said. “You can see how the area has changed over the 18 years since we moved to Ojai. It’s a beautiful place but regretfully we can’t live there now, the risk is too great.”
Hotspots of above-average warming are found across the US. Grand county in Utah, a place of sprawling deserts, cliffs and plateaus, is the second fastest warming county in the lower 48 states, while every county in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Connecticut has warmed by more than 1.5C (2.7F) since 1895.
It’s the more northern latitudes that have experienced the most extreme recent heat, however, with counties in Alaska making up all of the top six fastest warming places since 1970 (comparable temperature data for Alaska does not go back further than the 1920s). Alaska’s North slope, situated within the rapidly warming Arctic, has heated up by an enormous 3.7C (6.6F) in just the past 50 years.
“There really is a climate shift underway in Alaska, everyone can see things are different than they used to be and everyone is concerned about what the future here will look like,” said Brettschneider, who said even his teenage children have noticed the retreat of sea ice, an elongating fire season and a dearth of cold days.
The warmth is also melting frozen soils, known as permafrost, causing buildings to subside and roads to buckle. “If you drive on the roads near Fairbanks you better have a strong stomach because it feels like you’re riding a rollercoaster,” said Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University and chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy.
Other locations that traditionally used to severe cold have also seen sharp temperature increases. Roseau and Kittson counties, in northern Minnesota, are both in the top five fastest warming counties in the lower 48 states, with their warming driven by winters that have heated up by around 3.8C (7F) in the state since modern record keeping began.
Winters are warming more quickly than summers because more heat usually escapes the land during the colder months, but it is now being trapped by greenhouse gases. “Some might say ‘well I like warmer winters’ but people are noticing negative impacts, such as changes to the growing season and the loss of cultural practices such as cross-country skiing races,” said Heidi Roop, a climate scientist at the University of Minnesota. “Even small temperature changes have big consequences.”
Globally, governments set a goal in the 2015 Paris climate agreement to avoid a temperature rise of 1.5C (2.7F) above the pre-industrial era. Beyond this point, scientists say, the world will face increasingly punishing heatwaves, storms, flooding and societal unrest.
While certain areas of the US have already passed 1.5C, the important metric is still the global average, Hayhoe said. “In some places a 2C increase is fine but 2.5C is when the wheels fall off the bus, some locations are OK with 5ft of sea level rise because of their elevation while others can’t cope with 5 in because they are low-lying,” she said. “Local vulnerability is very customized. What’s relevant for communities is whether the world meets its targets or not, it’s a collective target for the world.”
That global threshold is in severe peril, with some forecasts warning that 1.5C (2.7F) could be breached within a decade without drastic cuts to carbon emissions. Communities will need to brace themselves for the consequences of this, according to Roop.
“The warming we are seeing is pushing at the bounds of lived human experience, of what we thought was possible,” she said. “We are paying the costs for that and we need to prepare for the changes already set in motion, as well as to prevent further warming.”
HOMOCIDE & ECOCIDE
FPSO Explodes and Sinks off Nigeria with 10 Aboard
Trinity Spirt caught fire and sunk off the Nigerian coast
An aging tanker that was operating as a floating oil production and storage vessel (FPSO) exploded and caught fire before sinking off the coast of Nigeria on Wednesday, February 2. Ten people working aboard the vessel were reported missing and presumed killed.
The Trinity Spirit, which was 274,774 dwt and measured 1,105 feet, was built in 1976. Shebah Exploration and Production Company Limited (SEPCOL) which was the operator at the Nigerian oil field reports that an offshore company purchased the FPSO Trinity Spirit from ConocoPhillips and leased it the vessel to SEPCOL on a bareboat basis. The FPSO was serving as the primary production facility for the OML 108 in Nigeria's offshore Ukpokiti oil field located near the Niger Delta.
The company indicated that the Trinity Spirit could process up to 22,000 barrels per day as well as inject up to 40,000 barrels with water per day. Its storage capacity was 2 million barrels of oil, although it is not known how much was aboard at this time. The Nigerian oil ministry indicated that the Ukpokiti oil field was not in production in 2020 and 2021. Some reports are indicating that the company was in financial trouble and that the Nigerian authorities revoked the production license in 2019.
Details about the incident are scarce. Local media outlets report that there were one or more explosions aboard the vessel early on Wednesday followed by the raging fire. Pictures from the scene show the vessel settling midships with the fire raging near the accommodation block and bridge.
SEPCOL issued a brief statement saying that the vessel had caught fire after an explosion confirming that 10 people were working aboard the vessel. They said that attempts to contain the situation were being made with help from local communities and other oil fields companies working in the area.
"The cause of the explosion is currently being investigated and we are working with necessary parties to contain the situation," said the company's chief executive Ikemefuna Okafor in the written statement. "We appreciate the assistance provided us by the Clean Nigeria Associates, the Chevron team operating in the nearby Escravos facility, and our community stakeholders as well as fishermen, who have been of tremendous assistance since the incident happened.”
Nigerian officials said efforts were underway to contain the environmental damage to the vessel and that they planned to conduct a full investigation into the cause of the fire.
Design Efforts Proceeding for Mobile Test Vessel for Tidal Energy
Preliminary conceptual design for the mobile test vessel for tidal energy research (IDOM)
The U.S. Department of Energy in collaboration with engineering firm IDOM and Florida Atlantic University’s Southeast National Marine Renewable Energy Center is moving forward with the plans to develop a vessel designed to test tidal energy technologies in a range of real-world environments. The project, which was selected by DOE in December 2020, has issued a request for information soliciting feedback from developers of current energy converters on how the mobile test vessel can best support the development of energy technologies.
“As the marine energy industry continues to advance technologies towards commercialization, there is an ongoing need for testing at all levels of technological development,” they write in the solicitation for input. “The slow pace of design and in-water testing cycles is further exacerbated by the limited availability of testing infrastructure at various scales, complex and time-consuming permitting processes, and expensive environmental monitoring.”
The vessel concept was proposed by IDOM and Florida Atlantic University in response to the DOE’s effort to support foundational research and development and expand testing capacity to advance the marine energy industry. DOE believes the vessel can address the gap in the testing capabilities as part of its broader program to accelerate research in the field.
Existing testing infrastructure in the U.S. can only accommodate small-scale current energy converters with rotors two to three meters in diameter. DOE believes there is a need for a mobile testing capability that can accommodate CECs with up to eight-meter diameter rotors for testing turbines under different flow conditions in a wide range of test conditions.
The concept for the mobile test vessel (MTV) is that it would accommodate a wide range of turbine types and sizes, current speeds, depths, wave conditions, and seabed types. The MTV would support anchoring and mooring for the testing of CECs in rivers, tides, and or open sea. It would also potentially incorporate an onboard power generation system to support test setup, maintenance, inspection, testing, and services for data acquisition systems.
The RFI seeks information from developers and others involved in the research to understand technologies that would utilize the MTV as well as how the MTV can best support the development of CEC technologies and testing. The responses will be used for strategic planning to ensure the MTV’s capabilities are aligned with industry needs. Based on the input, the project seeks to define the MTV’s main requirements and its final configuration.
The effort to develop the designs for the test vessel comes as the DOE announced a new round of grants to support testing of wave energy projects at an offshore facility. DOE awarded $25 million in funding to support eight projects that will make up the first round of open-water testing at the PacWave South test site located off the Oregon coast. Oregon State University is targeting the summer of 2023 for the first tests at its offshore facility.
IMPERIALISM AT SEA
Ocean Shipping Reform Act to Strengthen FMC Reaches U.S. Senate
The U.S. Senate is set to take up reform of the federal regulations for the global shipping industry focusing on the challenges that American exporters have been experiencing due to port congestion and disruptions in the global supply chain.
On Thursday, Senators John Thune of South Dakota and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota introduced the Ocean Shipping Reform Act following the U.S. House of Representatives passage of its version of the bill in December 2021. The bill, which represents the first reform of the Federal Maritime Commission and its authorities in decades, has already met with strong criticism from the shipping industry.
The Senate version of the bill, which has wide support from a broad coalition from the agricultural sector as well as manufacturers and related businesses such as trucking, is similar to the House version that passed with a strong partisan vote. According to the senators, the bill would level the playing field for American exporters by making it harder for ocean carriers to unreasonably refuse goods ready to export at ports, and it would give the FMC greater rulemaking authority to regulate the carriers’ business practices.
“Congestion at ports and increased shipping costs pose unique challenges for U.S. exporters, who have seen the price of shipping containers increase four-fold in just two years. Meanwhile, ocean carriers have reported record profits,” said Klobuchar. “This legislation will level the playing field by giving the Federal Maritime Commission greater authority to regulate harmful practices by carriers and set rules on what fees carriers can reasonably charge shippers and transporters.”
Among the specific provisions contained in the draft are rules to prohibit ocean carriers from “unreasonably” declining U.S. exports. The FMC would be given greater authority to oversee the export practices as well as to register the shipping exchanges focusing on contract negotiations. The FMC would also be able to self-initiate investigations into the business practices of the carriers as well as enforcement actions. To create greater transparency, carriers would be required to report quarterly to the FMC on their import and export volumes and the number of containers brought to the U.S. on each vessel.
“Producers across America are paying the price,” said Thune arguing that ocean carriers do not operate under fair and transparent rules. “The improvements made by this bill would provide the FMC with the tools necessary to address unreasonable practices by ocean carriers, holding them accountable for their bad-faith efforts that disenfranchise American producers.”
The World Shipping Council lobbying on behalf of ocean carriers was quick to renew its criticism of the efforts. “The deeply flawed bill passed by the House at the end of last year would place government officials in the role of second-guessing commercially negotiated service contracts and dictating how carriers operate ship networks – an approach that would make the existing congestion worse and stifle innovation,” said John Butler, President & CEO of the WSC.
Butler contends that “when ships cannot get into port to discharge and load cargo because of landside logistics breakdowns, it is clear that further regulating ocean carriers will not solve the deeper challenges in U.S. supply chains.” He argues that carriers have deployed every available ship and container to move the record levels of cargo. The World Shipping Council says it hopes to work with Congress to seek real solutions that further strengthen the ocean transportation system.
“The dark oceans were the womb of life: from the protecting oceans life emerged.” These were the words in a prophetic speech by Arvid Pardo to a UN meeting in 1967. It was amongst the first sessions convened to deliberate creation of a body of laws to govern the global oceans. It culminated in the modern United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), as adopted by the UN in 1982. Arvin Pardo would go on to earn the credit as the father of UNCLOS.
Since then, UNCLOS remains the most far-reaching treaty ever negotiated under the auspices of the UN, and a harbinger of a global attempt to regulate the maritime domain.
While UNCLOS is fairly settled on many questions of governance, contemporary challenges such as climate change, protection of high seas fisheries and management of strategic ocean spaces – like the South China Sea - are prompting a debate over reviewing the established law.
For example, climate change poses considerable challenges in the future application and interpretation of the UNCLOS.
“Whilst this is not a completely new dynamic - in that the changing ocean and coastline conditions have always had to be addressed by the law of the sea - rapid climate change and its impact upon the oceans has the potential to impact upon nearly all aspects of ocean activity. Particularly, its unpredictable consequences for many coastal states,” writes Donald Rothwell and Tim Stephens in their book, The International Law the Sea.
This concern has jolted Pacific States from Kiribati to Tuvalu to map their remote islands in a bid to claim permanent exclusive economic zones (EEZs), stretching 200 nautical miles, irrespective of future sea level rise. As global warming leads to rising seas, Pacific nations fear their islands could eventually be flooded, shrinking their EEZs and their rights to fishing and seabed resources within their boundaries. Therefore, they are trying to lock in the existing zones now.
A 2018 resolution by The International Law Association supported the vulnerable islands, arguing that any maritime zones determined under UNCLOS “should not be required to be recalculated should the sea level change affect the geographical reality of the coastline.”
The enforcement and dispute resolution mechanism of UNCLOS has been brought to question in the wake of rising tension in South China Sea. China is a party to UNCLOS after it ratified the treaty in 1996. This notwithstanding, China has refused to accept a major ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague, which found its claims in the South China Sea inconsistent with UNCLOS. The five-judge tribunal hearing the case was established under the compulsory dispute settlement provisions of UNCLOS, and its ruling should be final and legally binding to all parties concerned. Unfortunately, due to lack of an enforcement mechanism, China can still assert and pursue its claims in the South China Sea, even if the legal basis for such activity is untenable. In light of this, international law analysts say that a dilemma occurs on the question of whether China should withdraw from UNCLOS.
The effectiveness of UNCLOS dispute resolution mechanism is also covered in an ongoing House of Lords inquiry in UK, which is currently examining how UNCLOS is fit for purpose in the 21st century.
Meanwhile, in view of the ever-increasing human rights violations at sea, especially for seafarers and fishermen, does UNCLOS provide for their protection?
This is a relatively new question for legal scholars. Usually, whenever a discussion of human rights at sea and its connection to UNCLOS arises, it is dismissed because it is addressed in discrete sections of the treaty – specific segments addressing modern slavery, human trafficking, search and rescue at sea - supplemented by 2006 Maritime Labour convention and IMO guidelines.
Elizabeth Mavropoulou, head of Research at Human Rights at Sea, suggests that this perspective reflects a narrow understanding of human rights at sea, incorrectly equating it to minimum labor and welfare standards onboard vessels. She recommends that human rights at sea should be a central theme of UNCLOS, alongside other pertinent questions on ocean governance.
Indeed, amending UNCLOS to address some of the emergent issues could be a genuine challenge. However, we must also consider that UNCLOS as drafted may not be up to date with our fast-changing world, given the modern realities of climate change and geopolitical rivalry.
Video: Oil Tanker Taking on Water After Hitting Breakwater
Torm Emilie struck the breakwater arriving in Taiwan
[Brief] A Danish-registered product tanker clipped the breakwater while arriving in Kaohsiung, Taiwan earlier this week. The vessel took a severe list before authorities cleared it to dock and begin an emergency unloading.
The 74,999 dwt Torm Emilie was entering the port of Kaohsiung when it apparently misjudged the harbor entrance and hit the southern breakwater on February 1. The tanker, which was built in 2004, reportedly breached the hull in its ballast tanks and while not causing an oil leak took on a list reported to be as much as 14 degrees.
Inbound from Kuwait and the UAE after a stop in Singapore, the 748-foot tanker was carrying a load of an oil derivative product known as naphtha. Authorities reported that there was no danger of an oil leak but they made immediate arrangements for the vessel to come alongside at the Intercontinental Wharf. An oil boom was strung around the vessel while they began pumping both the product and the water. Later reports indicated that they were able to bring the vessel back to a 9 degree list. It was expected to take at least two days to unload the tanker before repairs could begin on its hull.
Op-Ed: Is a Fossil-Free Future for Shipping a Realistic Goal?
Without extreme caution, we may pull high-carbon fuels into the value chain in pursuit of the zero-emissions dream.
The world's first hydrogen tanker loads its first cargo of coal-based H2 for the Japanese-Australian HESC project, January 2022 (HESC)PUBLISHED FEB 4, 2022 4:15 PM BYPAUL BLOMERUS
LONG READ
Countries around the world are adopting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions targets of zero emissions by 2050. The global marine shipping industry is also evaluating whether to increase the current International Maritime Organization agreed target of a 50 percent reduction by 2050 to a 100 percent reduction. Large international shipping companies such as Maersk, MSC and CMA CGM, have already committed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 or sooner.
Replacing the current fossil fuels used in ships – such as heavy fuel oil – with cleaner alternative fuels could provide solutions to the challenge of decarbonization and Clear Seas’ ongoing research on reducing GHGs from marine fuels provides some valuable insights.
Electrify the fuel
To find a path to zero-carbon marine shipping, the complete system from fuel production through to its consumption to propel the ship needs to be considered. Fortunately, years of innovation have made ships the most efficient form of transport worldwide, and allowed the development of the most fuel-efficient engines and propeller drives. Energy efficiency measures – such as using high tech sails – can help reduce the amount of fuel ships need, but the remaining energy needed to power ships has to come from somewhere. Could renewable electricity be used as a clean source of power?
Electrification holds great promise for reducing GHG emissions from a whole range of existing fossil fuel intensive processes in industry, home heating and vehicles. This is because renewable low-carbon electricity from wind and solar has fallen in cost to make it a plentiful and economically viable alternative.
But how do we get this cleaner electricity from the source to the ships? Batteries are a great option for short trips on vessels like ferries and pleasure boats, but for large-scale ocean transport they are too heavy and bulky to store the required energy. This is where alternative fuels come in. By converting electricity into fuels – so called e-fuels – there is a potential means to solve the problem of how to transport the electricity to the ships.
Hydrogen as a building block
The best way scientists and engineers have found to convert electricity into a fuel is through a process called electrolysis that splits water (H2O) into the hydrogen and oxygen it is made of by running electricity through it in an electrolyzer. Large amounts of electricity are required for this process – the entire daily average electricity consumed by a Canadian household would only make half a kilogram of hydrogen through electrolysis, with the equivalent energy content to drive a family car just 12 miles. But the result is hydrogen gas produced without any fossil fuels – referred to as “green” hydrogen.
Unfortunately, hydrogen alone is not a very good fuel for ships. Though hydrogen can be burned quite efficiently in the ship’s engine, refueling and storage onboard the ship presents a significant challenge. Hydrogen is a highly flammable, lighter than air gas and, even when pressurized into cylinders or liquified through a cooling process, it remains too bulky in the quantities required to replace regular marine fuel. Hydrogen storage tanks are also costly, heavy and energy intensive to fill.
Example of a hydrogen factory concept powered with renewable energy sources. The hydrogen plant to be built in Varennes, Quebec, will use hydroelectric power.
But all is not lost for alternative fuels. By combining the green hydrogen produced through electrolysis with other gases like nitrogen, carbon dioxide and oxygen, found in the atmosphere, simple compounds like ammonia, methanol and methane can be manufactured and more easily stored in ship fuel tanks in the quantities required. These chemical compounds can still be burned in existing ship engines if small modifications are made to their design and construction. But to make these synthetic alternative fuels out of hydrogen, sustainable sources of the other chemical elements are needed.
Ammonia fuel is a front runner but it’s toxic
Of the synthetic alternative fuels under consideration, manufacturing ammonia from green hydrogen is perhaps the easiest. The process is widely used today for fertilizer manufacturing and the only other element required for ammonia, chemical formula NH3, is nitrogen – and this is in plentiful supply in the air that surrounds us. The bad news is that separating the nitrogen from the air is an energy intensive process, as is the ammonia manufacture. Another challenge with ammonia is that if spilled, it can turn into a toxic vapour cloud that is deadly for humans and animals. So why is ammonia even considered? Its ease of manufacture on a vast industrial scale and our experience in safely transporting it in bulk on ships, trains and trucks for the fertilizer industry are good reasons to back ammonia in the alternative fuels race.
The ammonia molecule (formula NH3)
Burning ammonia in a ship engine has been proven to be possible, and although there are concerns regarding GHG emissions from the nitrous oxides produced in its exhaust as well as the smog-producing nitrogen oxides (NOx), these look like they can be managed. Ammonia gas can be turned into liquid for transportation and storage by chilling it to a relatively modest -27 degrees F.
Methane fuel draws on fossil fuel experience
Synthetic e-methane has an advantage over ammonia in that its fossil precursor has already been widely used as a ship fuel in the form of liquefied natural gas. This means that we already have processes, standards and regulations for the safe design and operation of ships using methane as a fuel. However, one major drawback of synthetic methane is that, like the prime component of fossil natural gas, it is itself a greenhouse gas. Though relatively short lived compared to carbon dioxide, its unintended release would need to be vigilantly prevented in a similar way to other synthetic GHGs like refrigerants.
The second disadvantage is one that it shares with methanol: manufacturing methane (chemical formula CH4) requires the addition of carbon represented by C in the formula. Although carbon in the form of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion surrounds us, capturing it and using this source of carbon does not produce zero GHG fuel because the carbon originates from a fossil source.
Instead, manufacturers of zero GHG methane need to either capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from the combustion of plant matter, for example at pulp mills or wood-fired power plants, or capture it directly from the atmosphere.
The supply of carbon dioxide from biological sources like wood that captured the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through natural processes is limited, so long-term solutions for zero GHG marine fuels would need to rely on so-called direct air capture methods that chemically extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It remains to be seen if the cost of carbon captured this way can be decreased low enough through scaling up of these processes to make synthetic fuels containing direct air captured carbon dioxide.
The methane molecule (formula CH4)
Methane’s main advantage over other synthetic fuels is that it can be used in existing LNG-fuelled ships without modification and can utilize the existing and growing infrastructure built for the transportation of fossil fuels. The same infrastructure and fuel tanks could potentially also be used to store ammonia, even though its storage temperature of -27 F is not nearly as low as the -260 F that is required for LNG. Ammonia has a higher density than liquefied methane, so this would also need to be factored in to designs of LNG fuel infrastructure.
Methanol fuel is a complex but easier to manage alternative
Methanol, while still toxic, would be easier to manage than both ammonia and methane because it is a liquid at room temperature. There is significant experience safely transporting it in bulk on ships for the global chemical trade and burning it in an engine seems to present few problems.
Methanex Corp., of Vancouver, B.C., operates the largest fleet of methanol tankers in the world, a growing proportion of which are now equipped with methanol burning engines. Unfortunately, the methanol burned in these engines is produced from fossil natural gas, and Clear Seas research has revealed that more GHG emissions come from this fossil methanol than from existing fossil fuels produced from oil.
But the fossil methanol production infrastructure also presents an opportunity. Usually, industrial methanol is produced using hydrogen made by splitting fossil natural gas in a steam methane reformer. The first step in producing zero GHG methanol is to substitute the hydrogen from fossil natural gas with green hydrogen produced from electrolysis. Unfortunately, like methane, methanol also requires a source of carbon because its chemical formula (CH3OH) contains a C for carbon. Like e-methane, direct air capture of atmospheric carbon dioxide would once again need to be deployed to manufacture e-methanol.
The methanol molecule (formula CH3OH)
The challenge of scaling up green hydrogen production from electrolysis
Ammonia, methane, and methanol rely on a plentiful supply of green hydrogen from electrolysis. This is the crucial and potentially weakest link in the chain. Plans are starting to be put into effect to develop a network of green hydrogen production facilities and Canada’s low-carbon electricity grid supplied through hydroelectric power makes it an attractive location. Varennes, Que., will be the site of one of the world’s largest green hydrogen facilities. Costing $200 million, the plant will consume 88 megawatts of electricity and produce 11,000 tonnes of hydrogen annually. But this only equates to enough energy to supply just over half the fuel needed for a single large container ship with pure hydrogen.
Clearly, it’s not economically viable or practical for each ship to have two $200 million fuel production facilities supplying it. Advances in electrolysis technology will be required to improve the output, but fundamental limitations created by the chemical energy required to split water molecules make this a challenge – a maximum of just 26 grams of hydrogen for every kilowatt hour of electricity consumed. So, if the Varennes plant could be made 100 percent efficient and ran 24 hours a day, its output would only increase to 20,000 tonnes of hydrogen per year, enough for one container ship. Making the synthetic ammonia, methanol or methane with the hydrogen does make it go a little further, but making enough green hydrogen to decarbonize the global marine shipping industry remains a significant challenge.
Could hydrogen from fossil natural gas bridge the gap?
Hydrogen for the petrochemical industry is usually produced by heating fossil natural gas in the presence of steam – so called steam methane reforming. Could this be used to substitute for the green hydrogen until electrolysis technology is improved? Clear Seas research indicates that hydrogen produced through this method emits more GHGs than conventional marine fuel produced from oil. It should not be considered as an alternative.
Carbon capture and sequestration is often proposed to fix this problem of excessive carbon dioxide emissions created when hydrogen is produced from natural gas. Canada is the site of one of the largest carbon capture and sequestration plants in the world. Shell Canada’s Quest facility near Edmonton, Alberta cost $1.35 billion and can capture and store just over 1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year in underground caverns. This may sound like a lot of carbon dioxide, but in reality, it equates to the annual carbon dioxide emissions of just five large container ships.
Although Shell plans to expand the capacity for carbon dioxide capture and sequestration to almost 10 times the Quest facility, these projects are primarily designed to deal with the emissions from Shell’s gas processing and oil refineries and could never cope with the emissions from large-scale hydrogen production for marine fuel. And even if capture and sequestration could be scaled up, there is uncertainty in the scientific community about the ability of the underground rock formations to sequester carbon dioxide without it leaking out over time.
Canadian renewable energy company Ekona Power Inc., of Burnaby, B.C., is piloting an alternative technology called pyrolysis that splits the methane in natural gas into hydrogen and carbon dust. This carbon dust could be more easily managed and disposed of than carbon dioxide gas, but the technology is still at a very early stage of development.
How about biofuels?
Biofuel versions of both methane and methanol can be produced from any organic material. Plants are where most organic material comes from, and they capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow, so when they are turned into fuel to be burned it is considered carbon neutral.
Bio-methanol can be produced by heating wood chips until they produce a gas and then cleaning and purifying that gas to create the final product. Methanol is also produced in wood pulp mills as a by-product of the pulping process, but this is usually burned by the pulp mills to generate energy. In theory, these sources of bio-methanol could be directed to providing ship fuel. But global production of bio-methanol is currently extremely limited and is estimated at only 0.2 million tonnes per year by the International Renewable Energy Association. This would only be enough fuel for fewer than two large container ships.
Bio-methane is more common than bio-methanol, and the Canadian Biogas Association calculates that six petajoules of gas is currently produced at 280 sites across Canada alone. These include digesters of animal waste as well as gas captured from landfills and sewage treatment works. For context, six petajoules is only enough gas to fuel two or three large container ships.
These two examples illustrate the immense scale of the challenge to provide biofuels for use in the marine shipping industry. With increasing demand for net-zero emission fuels, competition for the organic raw materials for fuel production will only intensify. Dedicated sources of organic matter for fuels like genetically engineered algae have failed to deliver, and concerns about the local ecological and climate change impacts of land-use changes from new vegetation plantations make these options less and less viable. Though biofuels might play a role in the transition to zero GHG marine fuels, it will likely only be a limited one.
More work is needed to achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions from marine fuels
Considering the full energy system from fuel production through to energy use on the ship, ship technology is not necessarily the weak link in the chain. Solutions for fuel tanks and engines that can store and burn zero GHG emissions alternative fuels are ready now or have development programs well underway. Retrofitting the large 2-stroke engines predominately used in ocean-going ships to allow them to burn any combination of alternative fuels looks to be relatively easily accomplished, and ship designers are responding to the challenge of modularization of fuel storage to allow methane, ammonia or methanol tanks to be installed in existing ships.
The critical gaps seem to be upstream in the fuel production part of the value chain, and the large-scale production of green hydrogen from electrolysis. Current solutions will need significant advances to scale up to the volumes of production needed. If methane or methanol are to be used, then major advances in direct air capture of carbon dioxide will also be needed to provide the other raw materials for the fuel. Biofuels can help in the interim, but only a tiny amount and they don’t present a solution for the full-scale decarbonization of marine shipping.
It appears that extending our reliance on fossil fuels with carbon capture and sequestration of either carbon dioxide or solid carbon may need to be considered as a least bad interim option, but extreme caution is needed to guard against unintentionally bringing higher carbon intensity fuels into the value chain in the pursuit of the zero GHG emissions marine fuel dream that may never be truly realized.
Although synthesized alternative fuels provide a potential pathway to zero GHG marine shipping by 2050, it is still a narrow and treacherous one, and there is certainly scope for innovation and more radical solutions to help open the way to a truly fossil fuel free future.
Paul Blomerus is the Executive Director of Clear Seas and an internationally-experienced researcher and leader in innovation with a proven track record in industry and university research management. He holds a Ph. D. in Engineering Science from the University of Oxford, England, and a Mechanical Engineering degree with first-class honors from the University of Cape Town, in South Africa.
This article appears courtesy of Clear Seas and may be found in its original form here.
The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.
Example of a hydrogen factory concept powered with renewable energy sources. The hydrogen plant to be built in Varennes, Quebec, will use hydroelectric power.
