Presented by Bryan Comer, ICCT senior marine researcher, and Nikita Pavlenko, ICCT senior fuels researcher, the video focuses on the climate implications of using LNG as a marine fuel.
As explained, natural gas appears to be cleaner burning than conventional marine fuels, but that’s not the full story. In fact, LNG is primarily consisted of methane, which is a powerful green house gas (GHG).
“LNG is mostly methane, a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) that traps 86 times more heat in the atmosphere than the same amount of CO2 over a 20-year time period”.
What is more, speakers at the video highlighted the life-cycle of GHG emissions from LNG, including upstream emissions from leakage during extraction, processing, and transport and downstream emissions from combustion and unburned methane, to those of heavy fuel oil, very low sulfur fuel oil, and marine gas oil (MGO).
Concluding, as noted in the figure above, the most popular LNG marine engine, low-pressure dual fuel (LPDF), medium-speed, four-stroke—is also the leakiest. Using LNG, this technology emitted 70% to 82% more life-cycle GHGs than MGO.
