OPINION: How workboats can achieve ‘near zero’ emissions now
While maritime industry headlines have been dominated by cargo owners’ latest orders of alternative-fuelled vessels or the steady adoption of energy efficiency technologies by some bold first movers, the workboat sector has been quietly, yet dramatically, innovating.
Advances in alternative fuels, hybridization and performance optimisation have been driven in recognition of the contribution that smaller support vessels make to the sustainability of various marine supply chains.
Workboat owners and operators have a diverse range of environmental stakeholders, from servicing offshore operations and inland waterways to port operations.
Owners therefore face challenges in meeting specific operational requirements to ensure safe and efficient operations but also a complex range of emerging environmental regulatory requirements.
Despite a surge of creative engineering solutions, the scale of the challenge is still vast.
With more than 21,000 workboats emitting 40 million tonnes of CO2 a year, and less than 1% of them sailing today with reduced emissions, if targets are to be met, the mainstream adoption of alternative fuels and technologies needs to scale quickly.
Hydrogen breakthrough
Hydrogen fuel cells are one option for multiple applications on water and onshore.
They have a higher energy conversion efficiency than internal combustion engines, with typical values ranging from 40%-60%.
Hydrogen itself is one of the marine industry’s promising options as a marine fuel, providing its logistical and availability challenges can be overcome.
We know, for example, that hydrogen has low energy density – and it is cumbersome and expensive to store and transport.
However, when it comes to using methanol as a hydrogen carrier and fuel cells for marine operations, it is possible to have the best of both worlds.
e1 Marine believes its methanol-to-hydrogen generator technology holds the key. It has already been proven to help the automotive industry decarbonise and is now adapted for maritime applications.
By using methanol – grey, green or a mix – as feedstock for e1 Marine’s patented, proven methanol-to-hydrogen generator, vessel operators can create fuel-cell grade hydrogen onboard a vessel as, and when, it is needed.
When paired with fuel cells, it can provide standalone propulsion. This circumnavigates many of the complexities around hydrogen such as its storage implications and availability.
Proving performance
As investing in new fuels and technologies is unchartered territory for vessel owners, it’s critical that solution providers can demonstrate robust performance data. Ultimately, no one wants to the be the person who signs off on investing in technologies that become obsolete or under deliver.
That’s why e1 Marine commissioned an independent study conducted by maritime research house Thetius. The exercise validated a model that was developed between e1 Marine, Element 1 Corporation and Maritime Partners LLC to quantify the reduction of GHG emissions achieved by the solution using grey, green or blended methanol when compared with standard diesel combustion engines.
Using 50,000 hours of operating data from eight inland workboats in the US to develop a cumulative load comparison, the results demonstrated that the methanol-to-hydrogen generator on inland waterway vessels can reduce EPA-regulated emissions by up to 99%, even when using grey methanol, compared to conventional diesel engines.
The technology can also reduce GHG emissions by up to 85% when using green methanol as feedstock in the same application.
For smaller vessel main propulsion and ocean-going vessels’ auxiliary engines, the Thetius findings – based on a large amount of operating data – underline the capacity of e1 Marine’s generator technology to almost eradicate local pollutant concerns and offer a clear pathway to 2030 and 2050 GHG emission compliance.
Enabling hydrogen fuel cells for workboats has real emissions benefits.
Vessels with hydrogen fuel cells propulsion using hydrogen generators that refgorm methanol and water as feedstock would produce up to 28% fewer GHG emissions using grey methanol.
In contrast, an EPA Tier 3-compliant marine diesel engine would produce more carbon dioxide, 10 times more CO2 and four times more methane on the same vessel.
For inland waterways, this technology can be integrated into newbuilds, such as the M/V Hydrogen One, in which e1 Marine is playing a key role.
For existing boats, the solution can provide independent shore power in a container for cold-ironing.
In turn, as workboats look for alternative fuels like methanol at scale, ports will be better positioned to meet increasingly stringent environmental targets, both by reducing emissions from vessels hoteling, or from other shiploads by using this technology in modular form alongside fuel cells to create electricity for port operations, such as electric cranes, drayage trucks and other port equipment.
Beyond carbon
E1 Marine believes methanol-to-hydrogen generators can meet the propulsion demands of a workboat while making a meaningful contribution to regulatory compliance.
In inland and coastal environments where workboats operate, minimising emissions is critical to improving air quality as well as making progress towards international carbon reduction targets.
It is e1 Marine’s goal to provide a renewable, flexible and cost-effective power source to enable the scaling of the sector’s environmental performance and by doing so, to strengthen the future of marine supply chains.
