In focus: Energy transition drives development of zero-emission fuels across all sectors

Renewable electricity has been a remarkable success over the past 20 years, but the same cannot be said for other energy uses. However, the global energy transition trend stands to change this as witnessed in a week behind us by a number of collaborative initiatives launched to address the challenge of decarbonisation in heating, energy storage, and transportation sectors.

The offshore energy industry, specifically offshore wind and marine renewable energies, might emerge as a catalyst for the increased uptake of clean fuels worldwide, with the latest multi-disciplinary project looking to explore the potential of harnessing these renewable energy resources to produce zero-carbon hydrogen and ammonia fuels.

Namely, the £10 million research project has brought together 28 industrial partners, including oil and gas majors BP and Eni, to work together to develop new technologies and systems that will directly tackle challenges associated with energy storage, renewable heat and the decarbonisation of transport such as road, marine and aviation.

Since transportation has been deemed as somewhat difficult-to-decarbonise sector, the shipping industry has this week received a positive clean fuel-related announcement as carbon recycled methane produced by methanation technology moves closer to being recognized as zero-emission ship fuel.

Carbon recycling, which is the process of capturing and reusing emitted CO2, is said to become an increasingly important pathway to the realization of a carbon-neutral society.

Such society seems to be more within reach with each passing day, as witnessed in the latest plans by BP and German offshore wind developer EnBW which set out to develop a 2.9GW offshore wind farm, combined with green hydrogen production plant and electric vehicles charging network in Scotland.

With an investment of £10 billion (around €11.65 billion), the two partners have applied for ScotWind seabed lease area with an intention to ‘accelerate Scotland’s entire energy transition – from producing clean power to using it in new industries’.

The offshore energy supply chain is also moving along the lines of energy transition with the Italian cabling giant Prysmian, a significant supplier of links and interconnections for offshore wind farms, announcing its target to achieve net-zero for its global operations between 2035 and 2040, as well as for its value chain emissions by 2050.

Back to the oil and gas majors, this week has also seen a French-based TotalEnergies teaming up with energy transition company Technip Energies to decarbonise LNG plants and offshore facilities.

The move is set to accelerate the energy transition, as two partners aim to reduce the carbon footprint of their existing facilities and greenfield projects in key areas, such as LNG production and use of hydrogen for power generation, or processes for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS).

On the other hand, oil major Shell said this week it would appeal a recent ruling issued by a Dutch court ordering the company to accelerate its carbon emission reduction target, under which Shell is to reduce its global net carbon emissions by 45% by 2030.

Shell said that it was focused on rising to the challenge of the ruling and accelerating its ‘Powering Progress’ strategy to become a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050, reminding that the court did not consider this as the hearings that led to the ruling had taken place several months earlier before the strategy was released.