This report is a background report to the MarE-Fuel project financed by the Maritime Fund and the Lauritzen Fund. Partners of the project has been DTU, Anker Invest, Mærsk Line, Copenhagen Economics, OMT and DFDS. In the report, potential decarbonization roadmaps or pathways for the maritime industry are presented, as well as the methodology of deriving them. Different future fuels and their emissions are highlighted. In addition, biomass availability plays an essential role in climate mitigation efforts towards net-zero by 2050, and thus we examined different biomass availability scenarios alongside greenhouse-gas emissions cap scenarios. The assumptions related to the underlying emissions can be found in the first chapter of the report. Besides the underlying emissions for a decarbonized maritime industry, the ship stock and the underlying transport demand play an essential role for a future decarbonized maritime industry. In the second chapter of the report, we address this issue by explaining how ship stock and shipping demand have been incorporated into the model. Finally, we present the optimization ship stock model developed to generate roadmap scenarios. We show the objective function and the underlying constraints of the model. The results of this work are presented and discussed. We also show some sensitivity analysis, which will shed light on the relevant parameters for the futureof the maritime industry. Our main findings can be found in the end of the report.
The 76th session of the Marine Environment Committee (MEPC 76) of the International Maritime Organization adopted several mandatory measures in June 2021 to reduce carbon emissions from ships. One of the measures is the carbon intensity indicator (CII), which is the carbon emissions per unit transport work for each ship. Several options of CIIs are available and none of them is chosen to be applied yet. We prove that, at least in theory, requiring the attained annual CII of a ship to be less than a reference value, no matter which CII option is applied, may increase its carbon emissions. Therefore, more elaborate models, combined with real data, should be developed to analyze the effectiveness of each CII option and possibly to design a new CII.
Maritime transport is the backbone of international trade. The amount of total international maritime trade in million tonnes loaded was 8408 in 2012 and had increased to 11.076 by 2019, for an average annual increase of 3.12%. In early 2020, the world fleet contained 98.140 ships of 100 gross tonnes and above with 2.06 million dead weight tonnage of capacity. The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from shipping activities are not negligible. According to the fourth GHG study commissioned by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), in 2018, global shipping emitted a total of 1056 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2), accounting for around 2.89% of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Due to the international nature of shipping, efforts to control CO2 emissions from ships are absent from the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. In an attempt to phase out carbon emissions from shipping entirely, the IMO formulated a strategy to cut the total annual GHG emissions from shipping by at least 50% from their 2008 levels by 2050; however, no mandatory rules have been promulgated since the release of this strategy.
Given the insufficient progress made by the IMO, the European Union (EU) decided to take a leading role in promoting the reduction of CO2 emissions from maritime transport. In 2015, the EU issued regulations on the monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) of CO2 emissions from ships with a gross tonnage above 5000 arriving at, within, or departing from ports under the jurisdiction of an EU member state, to come into force at the beginning of 2018. It should be noted that, under the MRV regime, even if only one port on a voyage is within the European Economic Area (EEA) and the other is not (e.g., a voyage from Rotterdam directly to Singapore), the ship must still report the total CO2 emissions of the whole voyage, rather than just the emissions of the part of the voyage within EU waters.
The MRV regime has been in operation for over two years, and the CO2 emissions data for the 2018 and 2019 reporting periods have already been published. Based on the data collected, on 16 September 2020, the European Parliament took the bold step of voting for the inclusion of maritime transport in the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS). This is a market-based system that uses economic tools such as a levy on bunker fuels and an emission trading system to provide monetary incentives for polluters to reduce emissions. The European Commission is conducting an impact assessment of the ETS, the results of which are expected in 2021. At this time, it is unclear how the inclusion of shipping into the EU ETS will work. There are two possibilities. The first is that only intra-EU voyages will be included; that is, only voyages from one EEA port to another EEA port will have to pay CO2 emission costs. The second is that both intra-EU voyages and voyages between an EEA port and a non-EEA port will have to pay CO2 emission costs, with the cost of a voyage between an EEA port and a non-EEA port being based on the CO2 emissions over the whole voyage, rather than the part of the voyage within EU waters. As the second possibility also covers the first possibility, we examine the implications of both possibilities but focus more on the second.
The reduction of Greenhouses gasses (GHG) and other air emissions represents a major challenge for ports. The world over, however, ports vary considerably in their efforts to reduce air emissions, and the causes for this variation remain under-researched. This paper examines the drivers for the adoption of air emissions abatement measures in a sample of 93 of the world’s largest ports, covering all continents and mobile emitters. We test five hypotheses with a Linear Probability Model to disentangle the impacts of key port characteristics on the current adoption of abatement measures and identify three key drivers for adoption: Population density, the port landlord business model, and a specialization in servicing container shipping. We also find that ports are more likely to implement specific bundles of measures, in particular combining pricing and new energy sources. Our work has implications for ports, as we suggest that they should coordinate abatement efforts to achieve effectiveness in their work.
Uncertainties on the global availability and affordability of alternative marine fuels are stalling the shipping sector’s decarbonization course. Several candidate measures are being discussed at the International Maritime Organization, including market-based measures (MBMs) and environmental policies such as carbon taxes and emissions trading systems, as means to decarbonize. Their implementation increases the cost of fossil fuel consumption and provides fiscal incentives to shipping stakeholders to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions reductions. MBMs can bridge the price gap between alternative and conventional fuels and generate revenues for funding the up-scaling of alternative fuels’ production, storage and distribution facilities and, thus, enhance their availability. By estimating the fuels’ implementation and operational costs and carbon abatement potential, this study calculates marginal abatement costs and estimates the level of carbon pricing needed to render investments into alternative fuels cost-effective. The results can assist policymakers in establishing robust and effective maritime decarbonization policies.
This paper aims to conduct an updated literature survey on the Market-Based Measures (MBMs) currently being proposed by various member states and organizations at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) or by the scientific and grey literature as a cost-effective solution to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from ships. The paper collects, summarizes, and categorizes the different proposals to provide a clear understanding of the existing discussions on the field and also identifies the areas of prior investigation in order to prevent duplication and to avoid the future discussion at the IMO to start from scratch. Relevant European Union (EU) action on MBMs is also described. Furthermore, the study identifies inconsistencies, gaps in research, conflicting studies, or unanswered questions that form challenges for the implementation of any environmental policy at a global level for shipping. Finally, by providing foundational knowledge on the topic of MBMs for shipping and by exploring inadequately investigated areas, the study addresses concrete research questions that can be investigated and resolved by the scientific and shipping community.
The pressure on shipping to reduce its carbon footprint is increasing. Various measures are being proposed at the International Maritime Organization (IMO), including MarketBased Measures (MBMs). This paper investigates the potential of a bunker levy in achieving short-term CO2 emissions reductions. The analysis focuses on the tanker market and uses data from the latest IMO GHG studies and a variety of other sources. The connection between fuel prices and freight rates on the one hand and vessel speeds on the other is investigated for the period 2010-2018. A model to find a tanker’s optimal laden and ballast speeds is also developed and applied to a variety of scenarios. Results show that a bunker levy, depending on the scenario, can lead to short-term CO2 emissions reductions of up to 43%. Policy implications are also discussed, particularly vis-à-vis recent IMO and European Union (EU) action on MBMs.
The regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping is becoming a matter of increasing concern. Two issues arise in particular. The first issue concerns the elaboration of rules on this subject. In this regard, Annex VI of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL), amended in 2011, constitutes a key instrument because it was the first legally binding climate change instrument since the Kyoto Protocol. The second issue relates to effective compliance with relevant rules. While the flag State has the primary responsibility to implement relevant rules concerning the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping, the flag State responsibility alone is inadequate to secure effective compliance with relevant rules. Thus, there is a need to examine the question whether and to what extent coastal and port States can regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vessels in international law. This article seeks to address these two issues. The article concludes that while port States can perform a valuable role in effectuating global rules provided in MARPOL Annex VI, port State control encounters several challenges. Thus, securing compliance with relevant rules should be an important issue in the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping.
Currently, the shipping industry is facing a great challenge of reducing emissions. Reducing ship speeds will reduce the emissions in the immediate future with no additional infrastructure. However, a detailed investigation is required to verify the claim that a 10% speed reduction would lead to 19% fuel savings (Faber et al., 2012).
This paper investigates fuel savings due to speed reduction using detailed modeling of ship performance. Three container ships, two bulk carriers, and one tanker, representative of the shipping fleet, have been designed. Voyages have been simulated by modeling calm water resistance, wave resistance, propulsion efficiency, and engine limits. Six ships have been simulated in various weather conditions at different speeds. Potential fuel savings have been estimated for a range of speed reductions in realistic weather.
It is concluded that the common assumption of cubic speed-power relation can cause a significant error in the estimation of bunker consumption. Simulations in different seasons have revealed that fuel savings due to speed reduction are highly weather dependent. Therefore, a simple way to include the effect of weather in shipping transport models has been proposed.
Speed reduction can lead to an increase in the number of ships to fulfill the transport demand. Therefore, the emission reduction potential of speed reduction strategy, after accounting for the additional ships, has been studied. Surprisingly, when the speed is reduced by 30%, fuel savings vary from 2% to 45% depending on ship type, size and weather conditions. Fuel savings further reduce when the auxiliary engines are considered.
As the emission legislation becomes further constraining, all manufacturers started to fulfill the future regulations about the prime movers in the market. Lean-burn gas engines operating under marine applications are also obligated to enhance the performance with a low emission level. Lean-burn gas engines are expressed as a cleaner source of power in steady loading than diesel engines, while in transient conditions of sea state, the unsteadiness compels the engine to respond differently than in the steady-state. This response leads to higher fuel consumption and an increase in emission formation. In order to improve the stability of the engine in transient conditions, this study presents a concept implementing a hybrid configuration in the propulsion system. An engine model is developed and validated in a range of load and speed by comparing it with the available measured data. The imposed torque into the developed engine model is smoothed out by implementing the hybrid concept, and its influence on emission reduction is discussed. It is shown that with the hybrid propulsion system, the NOX reduces up to 40% because of the maximum load reduction. Moreover, eliminating the low load operation by a Power Take In during incomplete propeller immersion, the methane slip declines significantly due to combustion efficiency enhancement.