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Maritime transport seems to be one of the main drivers of climate negotiations. Responsible for 3.7 per cent of Europe’s total CO2 emissions and 13 per cent of the transport sector’s emissions, it benefits from around EUR 24 billion per year in fossil fuel tax subsidies and various types of exemptions and is the only sector for which no real emission reduction targets have yet been set.
In addition to the climate impacts, the sulphur oxides, nitrogen and particulate emitted by ship engines when they idle on the quayside with their engines running cause EUR 60 billion in health costs and around 50,000 premature deaths per year in Europe. According to a study by the IMO (International Maritime Organisation), CO2 emissions from shipping could increase worldwide by between 50% and 250% by 2050 and jeopardise the goals of the Paris Agreement.
To date, there are still no sufficiently developed and economically viable technologies to decarbonise maritime transport during the shipping phase, but cold ironing is ready to reduce emissions to zero or close to it during port stops.
Cold ironing consists of connecting the ship to the quay with an electric cable and thus supplying the electricity needed for the operations necessary for parking, loading and unloading the ship and, of course, allowing all passenger services to be offered, even when the engines are switched off, which is not possible today. The technology is already in use in the ports of Gothenburg, Los Angeles and Marseilles and is proving to be functional and successful, as well as economically viable for those who use it.
If, however, a solution seems to have been found in the short and medium term for ports, the situation regarding emissions from ships, especially cruise ships, during navigation is much more complex.
At the moment, ship owners are turning decisively towards fuelling their ships with Liquefied Natural Gas, known as LNG.
The reason for this decision is that it greatly reduces emissions of sulphur oxides (SOx), making it possible to comply with current legislation regulating the content of this element in marine fuels. According to recent research by T&E, Transport & Environment, “Ship companies that are investing in LNG then emphasise among its merits the 20% reduction in CO₂ emissions, but omit from the calculation the huge emissions of methane, a gas with 82.5 times the climate-changing potential of carbon dioxide. Even if the efficiency of ship engines increased, leading to a reduction in unburnt leakage, the benefits in terms of greenhouse gas emissions would still be limited. Not to mention the methane leakage that occurs earlier in the gas production chain’.
The carbon intensity reduction targets in the maritime sector under the European Union’s ‘Climate Package’ should stimulate a shift away from heavy fuel oil, the most polluting marine fuel and currently the most widely used. However, shipping companies are focusing on the cheaper alternative: according to a T&E estimate, more than one third of European ships could be powered by LNG in 2025, which would basically be a way around the problem but not a solution.
Supporting the maritime companies, however, is the Climate Package launched by the EU for this sector, a package that does not envisage zero emissions by 2050.
Then there is another issue: LNG is internationally referred to by some as a bridging solution while waiting for other non-polluting technologies to be developed.
Yet, it seems that this is not the case: marine diesel is far less polluting than LNG.
If ships were to use this type of fuel offshore compared to the heavy fuel oil currently used, the impact would be drastically lower even than LNG.
The ‘revolution’ towards this type of fuel therefore appears to be a choice dictated solely by the need to pander to the more ideological and irrational aspects of the ecological transition fanatics, rather than by any real benefit to the environment.
Wiser would be, also according to many insiders and experts in the sector, to accelerate towards truly green fuels such as hydrogen, this one with almost zero impact and infinitely lower costs than LNG and Diesel. We shall see whether reason and the ability to wait for the best solution will win out or the new madness of all, evil and now that seems to pervade Europe recently
FeMO