A new study published in Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability has found that green ammonia could be used to fulfill the fuel demands of over 60% of global shipping by targeting just the top 10 regional fuel ports.
Researchers at the Environmental Change Institute (ECI) at the University of Oxford looked at the production costs of ammonia which are similar to very low sulphur fuels, and concluded that the fuel could be a viable option to help decarbonise international shipping by 2050.
As explained, 90% of world’s physical goods trade is transported by ships which burn heavy fuel oil and emit toxic pollutants. This accounts for nearly 3% of the global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As a result of this, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) committed to decarbonising international shipping in 2018, aiming to halve GHG emissions by 2050. These targets have been recently revised to net zero emissions by 2050.
Green ammonia, made by electrolysing water with renewable electricity, is proposed as an alternative fuel source to quickly decarbonise the shipping industry. However, historically there has been great uncertainty as to how and where to invest to create the necessary infrastructure to deliver an efficient, viable fuel supply chain.
Our results provide a fresh view how a future green ammonia supply-chain could look like to provide enough fuel for shipping. Compared to the existing supply network of shipping fuel based from oil, the future ammonia fuel supply is more regional, with large producers being those with good solar resources and close to major shipping hubs.
…Dr Jasper Verschuur, Global Infrastructure and Supply Chains Analyst and lead author said.
René Bañares-Alcántara, Professor of Chemical Engineering in the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford, says: “Shipping is one of the most challenging sectors to decarbonize because of the need for fuel with high energy density and the difficulty of coordinating different groups to produce, utilize and finance alternative (green) fuel supplies.”
Furthermore, to guide investors, the team at the University of Oxford developed a modelling framework to create viable scenarios for how to establish a global green ammonia fuel supply chain. The framework combines a fuel demand model, future trade scenarios and a spatial optimisation model for green ammonia production, storage, and transport, to find the best locations to meet future demand for shipping fuel.
The information in the article is wrong and doesn’t reflect the results of the study. Regarding to the article, targeting the top 10 % of the regional ports could fulfill the fuel demands of over 60% of global shipping.
Regarding to the study the top 10 countries “demand 57.0% (HIGH-AMB) and 58.2% (MOD-AMB) of the global green ammonia fuel.” “targeting the top 10, 50, and 100 ports globally in terms of fuel demand (horizontal lines in figure 1(c)) would meet 21.3% (21.8%), 45.7% (46.7%), and 62.0% (62.6%) of the cumulative green ammonia fuel demand, respectively”
Targeting the top 10 regional fuel ports would therefore “only” fulfill the fuel demands of 21.3 % of global shipping. Tu fulfill above 60 % of the need, it would be required to target the top 100 ports.