In an interview with Poul Woodall, a senior manager in international shipping, he told Ti about the EU recently announcing that companies and shipowners will be able to blend sustainable fuels from a non-biological origin with fossil fuels, to reduce the average carbon content. This reduction is required by the FuelEU Maritime Initiative, which forms a substantive part of the EU’s Fit for 55 Package. Most of the other maritime decarbonisation initiatives are pushing for the reduction of fossil fuels in volume terms.
The GHG intensity requirements are set as a percentage reduction relative to a reference value of 91.16 gCO2e/MJ. The percentage reduction requirement increases gradually every five years to 2050. This applies to ships over 5000 gross tonnes visiting a port within the EU, although there is an expectation that the directive will eventually be extended to ships under this.
The most obvious way to lower the average carbon content is to blend biofuels with fossil fuels, but they are in short supply and not all of them are sustainable, which is why the EU will allow blending of sustainable synthetic fuels. There are many benefits, for example electrofuels, or e-fuels – a very specific type of synthetic fuel produced with electricity from renewable energy sources, water and CO2 from the air – do not release additional CO2 so they are climate neutral. They can directly replace their fossil fuel equivalents or ‘drop in’, because their volume and energy density are very similar. This means they will work with current petrol and diesel engine technology and can use the established fuel infrastructure for storage and distribution. They are cleaner than fossil fuel equivalents, creating fewer particulates and nitrogen oxides.
LNG qualifies for the initial period of the FuelEU Maritime Initiative, but in the future, in around 8 years, LNG ships will have to reduce the average carbon content in the fuel too, which can be done by blending in bio-or E-LNG.
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