Maritime transportation accounts for nearly 3% of global energy consumption, around 3% of greenhouse gas emissions and both energy consumption and emissions are expected to further increase over the coming decades. This paints quite a bleak picture, so when a paper is produced that argues that it’s not all doom and gloom, it gets interesting.
The paper argues that not every ship needs to become battery-electric. This goes against the standard anti-eco argument, that states that marine transport is not suitable for electrification. Inland vessels, ferries, coastal ships, offshore support vessels, service craft, port craft and many short-sea routes operate in regular patterns that are much friendlier to electrification.
The report finds that, by 2030, roughly 30% of maritime energy consumption and nearly 20% of maritime greenhouse gas emissions are technically electrifiable.
Source: Clean Technica: Read The Article
PSR Analysis: The report / paper infers that by electrifying smaller vessels, maritime emissions can be significantly reduced. Meanwhile, when the industry focusses on larger, deep-sea vessels and looks towards alternative fuels such as ammonia or hydrogen, it may be missing a relatively easy win. And it’s something that has already started to happen with vessels such as ferries. PSR
Guy
