“Green methanol can point the way for shipping to a climate-friendly future,” Greenpeace spokeswoman Clara Thompson told dpa ahead of a meeting of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in London on Monday.
The IMO, a UN agency made up of 176 countries, aims to discuss measures for implementing its greenhouse gas strategy with a view to making shipping carbon-neutral by 2050.
The study by the DLR’s maritime energy unit found methanol easily manageable, by contrast with hydrogen or ammonia, and technically ready for use. It can be produced using renewable forms of energy, and marine engines can easily be converted to burning it.
Shipping is thought to generate around 3% of all greenhouse gases, as well as large amounts of the oxides of sulphur and nitrogen. These pollutants would be almost entirely absent with the use of methanol.
The study notes however that producing methanol is still expensive “in particular the operation and acquisition of electrolysers.” The fuel also needs tanks that are twice as large as current fossil fuel tanks.
Little green methanol is currently available on the market. For comparison, German shipping would need up to 5.73 million metric tons per year, against 2.94 million tons of diesel.
Thompson said the IMO needed to implement binding targets to speed up conversion to alternative fuels. Greenpeace backed a CO2 price that reflected the benefits for the climate of methanol over fossil fuels, she said.
GNA
PDC