News & events

23.12.2020

Merry Christmas and Happy 2021!

22.12.2020

Investigating the carbon intensity of ferries

Ferry emissions are over-proportional with respect to the number of these ships. Half of the European ferry emissions stem from the Mediterranean, this largely reflecting a greater number of ships operating in this sea. Which factors affects ferry carbon intensity and energy efficiency? New insights and perspective from a study realized by the CMCC Foundation in the framework of GUTTA project activities.

Climate change mitigation requires curbing emissions from all sectors, including shipping. The European Union has set ambitious targets to achieve this goal. The European regulation number 757 on Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification of CO2 emissions (EU-MRV) contributes to it by collecting CO2 emission data from all vessels above 5,000 GT calling at ports within the European Economic Area.

In this area, ferries represent just 3% of all vessels. However, in 2018 they accounted for 10% of CO2 emissions from all ships in the EU-MRV. Why carbon footprint of ferries is so high? Is it related to sea or navigational conditions? Or perhaps to any characteristics of the vessels?

A CMCC study presented last June during the 21st IEEE International Conference on Mobile Data Management and realized in the framework of GUTTA project’s activities, explores this issue while providing new insights and perspective.

The analysis, led by Gianandrea Mannarini, senior scientist at the CMCC Foundation, explores various energy efficiency indicators. Results reveal some clustering in the vessel population and the key factors are year of build, vessel length, service speed, and fuel type. Georeferencing data provide additional information on the continental patterns of the Ro-Pax emissions.

About the half of the total ferry emissions stem from the Mediterranean; this largely reflects a greater number of ships operating in this sea. More in detail, the study highlights a weak correlation between CO2 emission per service hours and the mean annual sea state (significant height of waves where the ferry operates); this correlation is slightly higher just for smaller ferries (i.e., length below 120 meters). Researchers also assess which factors influence ferry carbon intensity, defined as CO2 emissions per transport work, highlighting a great variability spanning five orders of magnitude, while the ferry size varies by less than two.

“This variability is influenced by many factors” Gianandrea Mannarini explains, “such as ferry size, propulsion features, age and other characteristics of the Ro-Pax vessels, such as number of vehicles carries, number of cabins available and other passenger services. However, we will have to use data from multiple years for better analysing how ferries performed with respect to emissions”.

In certain ways, energy efficiency reflects the ship’s age and the tendency to build bigger and bigger ships during the last decades. “The data”, Mannarini adds, “indicate that some of the most carbon intensive vessels were built during the past 20 years. More and better time-resolved emission data from the vessels, possibly at individual voyage level, would enable a better assessment, which is the first step for informing International policies and regulations aimed at reducing both carbon intensity and absolute emissions.”

Source: CMCC

18.12.2020

Ammonia as a fuel for shipping: challenges and opportunities

On December 16, 2020, the director of HUB Mare nostrum, Sandro Vidas, participated in the webinar Ammonia as a shipping fuel: challenges and opportunities.

Ammonia is a hydrogen based fuel that can be used in certain fuel cells or as a fuel for direct combustion in internal combustion engines. According to the Hydrogen Europe comparison tool, it is considered a very promising option mainly for larger ships but there are still many issues to tackle. Ammonia is an interesting case among the e-fuels options not only because it is the only fuel that doesn’t contain carbon but also because it is already produced globally in large volumes, which could accelerate the transition of shipping towards decarbonization.

Speakers and topics:

Tristan Smith, UMAS - Estimates of the comparative techno-economics of hydrogen and ammonia as marine fuels, and ammonia’s wider hydrogen economy and energy system interconnection

Rob Stevens, Yara International - Scaling up ammonia

Frederik Van Nuffel, Exmar - Transport of Ammonia by Ship

Julia Hanson, IVL Swedish Environment Energy Institute - Ammonia and hydrogen from a system perspective

Kjeld Aabo, MAN Energy solutions, Unlocking ammonia’s potential for shipping: the 2-stroke ammonia engine

Paul Davies, Lloyd’s Register - Using ammonia as a fuel: regulatory aspects

Bernt Skeie, Prototech - The ShipFC initiative: Norwegian project to convert offshore vessel to run on ammonia

17.12.2020

Green Shipping Expert Group

Green shipping experts begin activities for zero emission future 

EU funded STEERER project kick starts the work of the newly formed Green Shipping Expert Group with first workshop

STEERER aims to:

• Jointly set emission targets towards 2050 (including targets for 2025 and 2030);

• Develop a Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda to be able to reach these targets in time;

• Develop an Implementation Plan to reach the targets in due course while staying competitive and offering a valid business case;

• Developing and implementing a communication campaign, aimed at broader awareness of the waterborne transport sector and its commitment towards zero-emission transport;

• Monitoring and assessing the implementation of the Strategy defined and adapting where necessary, after the project’s conclusion, by the Green Shipping Expert Group.

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06.12.2020

Happy St Nicholas Day!