{"id":112842,"date":"2022-07-20T07:23:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-20T05:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=112842"},"modified":"2022-07-15T12:26:56","modified_gmt":"2022-07-15T10:26:56","slug":"intolerable-risk-methanol-winning-the-hydrogen-shipping-race-as-new-studies-highlight-dangers-of-ammonia-at-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/intolerable-risk-methanol-winning-the-hydrogen-shipping-race-as-new-studies-highlight-dangers-of-ammonia-at-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Intolerable risk’ – Methanol winning the hydrogen shipping race as new studies highlight dangers of ammonia at sea"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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With the global shipping industry responsible for almost 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions today \u2014 and on track to reach 10% by 2050 at current growth rates \u2014 the sector is aiming to replace the fossil fuels it uses today with carbon-neutral alternatives, which for long-distance journeys would require green hydrogen or one of its derivatives, or possibly biofuels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
A rendering of the two dual-fuel methanol container ships that have been ordered by German shipowner MPCC, which will be chartered to Norwegian operator North Sea Container Line (NCL).\u00a0Photo: MPCC<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Hydrogen: hype, hope and the hard truths around its role in the energy transitionWill hydrogen be the skeleton key to unlock a carbon-neutral world? Subscribe to Accelerate Hydrogen, powered by Recharge and Upstream, and get the market insight you need for this rapidly evolving global market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to the poor volumetric energy density of compressed and liquid hydrogen (1.2kWh and 2.4kWh per litre, respectively), the zero-carbon maritime fuel of choice is often said to be liquid ammonia (NH3<\/sub>) \u2014 produced by combining hydrogen with nitrogen from the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only is it more energy dense by volume \u2014 the all-important metric for shipping \u2014 at 3.5kWh\/l, but it is also far easier to handle than liquid hydrogen, which requires cryogenic temperatures of below minus 253\u00b0C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, major shipping companies such as Maersk have already expressed a preference for a different hydrogen derivative altogether \u2014 methanol (CH3<\/sub>OH), which is produced by combining H2<\/sub> with captured CO2<\/sub>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only does methanol have a higher volumetric energy density of 4.33kWh\/l, but it is a liquid at room temperature, making it far easier to handle than hydrogen or indeed, ammonia, which must be stored at temperatures below of minus 33\u00b0C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the latest\u00a0Alternative Fuels Insight<\/strong><\/a><\/em>\u00a0report from DNV, 54 methanol-powered vessels are in service or been ordered from shipbuilders (including dual-fuel propulsion systems), compared to eight hydrogen ships, and zero ammonia-powered ones \u2014 although orders for the latter are expected soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And according to Recharge\u2019s<\/em> sister newspaper, the shipping title TradeWinds<\/strong><\/a><\/em>, three big-name shipowners \u2014 Denmark\u2019s Maersk, Germany\u2019s MPCC and France\u2019s CMA CGM \u2014 have already ordered 26 methanol dual-fuel vessels between them. And three more major operators \u2014 Cosco, Eastern Pacific and Pacific International Lines \u2014 are eyeing methanol propulsion for their next round of new containers ships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dual-fuel engines that can run on both methanol and traditional, highly polluting bunker fuel are the favoured option at present because methanol is not yet available as a shipping fuel at any kind of scale. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And of course, to be considered carbon-neutral, the methanol would have to be produced from green hydrogen, with all the energy used to synthesise methanol being renewable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOwners are waking up to the fact that the next alternative \u2014 ammonia \u2014 is not that easy,\u201d one ship broker told TradeWinds, mentioning ammonia\u2019s toxicity and the need to remove nitrous oxide \u2014 a potent greenhouse gas produced when burning ammonia \u2014 from the exhaust stream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is ammonia too dangerous to be a shipping fuel?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A new report by classification society Bureau Veritas and oil giant TotalEnergies found that ammonia\u2019s toxicity posed serious health risks for those on board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor shipowners and designers, therefore, a key challenge is to prevent accidental ammonia leaks during ship operations and bunkering,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whereas liquefied natural gas (LNG) becomes dangerous to humans at around 50,000 parts per million (ppm) in the air, ammonia starts to affect health at just 30ppm when permanently exposed, or around 300ppm when exposed for one hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modifications to design and safety distances should be much greater for ammonia than for LNG, they concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More stringent leak management on board and vapour gas processing is needed to avoid even small leaks reaching manned areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And a separate study, Future Fuels Risk Assessment<\/em>, released in late June by Together in Safety<\/a><\/strong> \u2014 a collaboration between several entities, including Maersk and oil majors Shell and Chevron \u2014 found that methanol posed the least overall risk of potential clean fuels, with ammonia having \u201chigh\u201d or \u201cintolerable\u201d risks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These included grounding or collision leading to hull breaches, damage to cargo equipment, and leaks during bunkering (ie, fuelling at port).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laurent Leblanc, senior vice-president of technical & operations, at Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore, said further experiments and analysis are required to reach definitive conclusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis preliminary study helped identify future areas to explore for de-risking ammonia as [a] fuel,\u201d Leblanc said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional tests could be performed for leak design scenarios, bunkering safety zones, bunkering arrangements and the effect of weather conditions, he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the global shipping industry responsible for almost 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions today \u2014 and on track to reach 10% by 2050 at current growth rates \u2014 the sector is aiming to replace the fossil fuels it uses today with carbon-neutral alternatives, which for long-distance journeys would require green hydrogen or one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"Ammonia derived from green hydrogen has been touted as the most likely clean shipping fuel of the future, but shipbuilding orders show that another H2 derivative, methanol, is currently preferred","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[10416,13305,10630,13718,20660],"supplier":[17130,4014,20659,20657,647,20658],"class_list":["post-112842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-circulareconomy","tag-fuel","tag-hydrogen","tag-methanol","tag-shipping","supplier-a-p-moller-maersk","supplier-chevron-corporation","supplier-cma-cgm","supplier-mpc-container-ships-asa-mpcc","supplier-shell-group","supplier-together-in-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112842"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=112842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}