MTF: Alternative fuel pilots and training are important for safe maritime decarbonisation

The Maritime Technologies Forum (MTF), founded by seven flag states and classification societies including DNV and Lloyd’s Register, has released a comprehensive assessment to compare the feasibility and readiness of alternative marine fuels.

The forum was founded in 2021 and seeks to bridge the gap between technical knowledge and regulatory process.

The newly released assessment applied MTF’s Framework for Assessing Decarbonization Technologies and Alternative Energy Carriers to fossil MGO, fossil LNG, bio-methanol and green ammonia.

It covers eight categories of evaluation, including sustainability and environmental, safety, security, economic feasibility, regulatory, people, technology status and engineering.

In addition to assessing each fuel based on the relevant criteria, the evaluation also takes into consideration the level of availability of data to support the assessment.

The report found that when bio-methanol and green ammonia are compared to fossil MGO and LNG they perform better in the sustainability and environmental category but score lower in other key categories, primarily due to the lack of a comparable fuel value chain.

As regulations and research for bio-methanol and green ammonia expand, it is expected they will become increasingly competitive fuel solutions.

The assessment also found that because bio-methanol and green ammonia lack sufficient data, more training and pilot projects will be needed to better understand the economic feasibility of both fuel solutions and to gain practical experience to build a scalable and global workforce.

Commenting on the report, Knut Arild Hareide, Director General of Shipping and Navigation at the Norwegian Maritime Authority, said: “The anticipated and much-needed scaling of handling more hazardous fuels such as liquefied methane, methanol, ammonia but also hydrogen, in a liquid or gaseous state, requires competence building and certified training to ensure the safe decarbonisation of shipping. Working with our colleagues from major class societies and other flag administrations to apply this framework was an important step forward in helping identify future priorities and needs for further development.“

The publication’s primary author, Georgios Plevrakis, ABS Vice President for Sustainability, said: “We are pleased to deliver this report which further underscores the need to collaborate on training and to conduct pilot projects for alternative fuels if we are going to meet the industry’s decarbonisation goals.

“Applying MTF’s framework to alternative fuel options provides a critical snapshot on readiness and identifies the gaps where we need to refine our focus and increase our research efforts if we are to develop economic and technologically feasible fuel options.”

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