Whether it’s the Paris Climate Accords, or the Green New Deal, there is a great focus on the environment. Subsequently, there is the expectation of an increase in the use of green fuels in travel and transportation. The world is moving beyond the adage of “take only pictures, and leave only footprints”. Tourists are beginning to include the assessment of the carbon footprint of the trips they take.
While governments are pushing electric vehicles (EV’s) as the future of transportation, they are not ready for prime time. They are expensive to purchase. Furthermore, the network of power generation and charging stations that will be necessary to support a wide distribution is not fully developed, and won’t be for several years. While EV’s may not be a viable solution today, companies in the travel and transportation industries are making investments to meet environmental targets and government regulations through the investment in more environmentally friendly fuels.
Governmental agencies are providing incentives to help the advance the development of green fuels in travel and transportation. These efforts are being facilitated in the form of credits, tax breaks, etc. The US Department of energy explains the current portfolio of incentives on their website.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/renewable-sources/incentives.php
Air travel
Over the past several years, the airline industry had been increasing in the use of renewable distillate products. In 2014, the US Department of Energy started efforts to develop renewables for use in military and commercial airlines. Within a year, many airlines, and logistics providers, committed to purchase, or even made investment in producers of renewable fuels.
Over the road
Tourists travelling in Europe are already experiencing a bit of progress in carbon reduction. Fuel companies in Europe and the US are currently being blending standard diesel with renewable diesel products. While its not perfect, it is a step towards offsetting the carbon footprint for tour busses or rental cars.
The EU Renewable Energy Directive of 2009 established aggressive goals for renewables in the fuel used for vehicular transport. Despite their efforts, only twelve countries have achieved the target of 10% renewables in their fuels by 2020. The next threshold is to meet 14% by 2030. The Nordic countries are leading the way in meeting the targets. Finland has achieved ~15% in 2020, and both Norway and Sweden exceeding 30%. While the remaining EU countries haven’t achieved the 2020 objective, they have all made progress from their 2005 levels.
As in the US, the EU has pushed to increase the use of EV’s. However, EV’s have yet to make a material splash in the broader portfolio of green fuels in travel and transportation. The generation of electricity is still dependent upon existing technologies. According to the EEA website; “renewable electricity only constituted just over 3% of total energy used in transport in Norway in 2020”1. The distribution of e-Vehicles and hybrids will increase over the next decade. Norway, and the other EU countries, will continue making investments in renewable electricity generation and distribution technology in the coming years to meet future demand.
As we sit here in 2022, the big unknown will be the impact of the war in Ukraine. The geopolitical upheaval could up impact how green the generation of electricity will be. Many EU countries are revaluating the use coal power plants just for the sustainment of society. The current infrastructure for the production and distribution of electricity is insufficient to support society’s current requirements. Countries in the EU and the US are facing a similar challenge. The existing infrastructure will have difficulties supporting the forecasted growth in EV’s until Countries make investment to enhancements the electrical grid
In the US, you have an increased presence of Ethanol in our gasoline as well. The flex-fuel blends have a range of 51 – 85% ethanol. Some providers offering an unleaded blend at 15% ethanol that works in the standard engine of vehicles built after 2001.
There is an increased use of renewable diesel product used in fuels for over-the road trucks and bus applications. State and federal government entities are heavily subsidizing renewable fuels, without which, the cost of these renewable diesel products would be almost double that of standard diesel.
Cities in the US have also embraced the pursuit of alternative fuels in vehicles used for municipal services and transportation. For example, many city bus fleets, and even garbage trucks, have implemented Natural Gas for their primary fuel.
Cruise and ocean shipping
Many view the maritime industries as being a major contributors to pollution. However, the cruise and broader maritime industries have been making substantial investment over the last decade to mitigate their emissions, and meet the International Maritime Organization (IMO) regulations under their pollution treaty MARPOL.
Many vessel owners installed scrubbers to their exhaust systems to reduce Sulphur-dioxide and other contaminants to meet the MARPOL 2020 standards. You can liken this technology to the post combustion systems on your cars, similar to a catalytic converter, or diesel particulate filter. The scrubbers allowed the continued use of lower cost heavy fuel oil. Other fleet owners approached the problem on the front end, by selecting fuels that contained fewer contaminants, such as marine diesel. Marine diesel contains substantially lower impurities and satisfied the 2020 standards without the need of adding and after treatment, though at higher cost than the heavy fuel oil.
In the vein of continuous improvement, the maritime industry, to include cruise lines, freight shipping, and ferries, are looking to identify new fuels that will meet even more stringent environmental targets. The IMO states:
“The initial GHG strategy envisages, in particular, a reduction in carbon intensity of international shipping (to reduce CO2 emissions per transport work, as an average across international shipping, by at least 40% by 2030, pursuing efforts towards 70% by 2050, compared to 2008); and that total annual GHG emissions from international shipping should be reduced by at least 50% by 2050 compared to 2008”2
In setting objectives for these targets, the IMO MEPC76 meeting established the Carbon Intensity Index (CII) for the industry. This index is a complex algorithm that measures how efficiently a vessel moves its cargo. It applies to all cargo ships, ferries, and cruise ships over 5000 gross tons. The definition of “cargo” is dependent on the type of vessel, so this definition ranges from bulk steel to families on a wedding destination cruise.
Every other year, the maritime industry holds the Shipbuilding, Machinery and Marine Technology (SMM) trade fair in Hamburg, Germany. The trade fair includes a day of panel discussions hosted by the global maritime environmental congress, or gmec. “gmec” has been an ongoing entity at SMM for more than a decade focused on environmental initiatives across the industry. The agenda for this year addresses the following topics:
- The outlooks of NGOs and the shipping industry on decarbonization progress and ambition
- The potential uses for nuclear energy in the maritime industry
- Hydrogen and shipping’s future energy mix
- Commercial challenges in navigating the zero-carbon transition
- Nurturing green shipping innovation
GREENER FUELS IN USE AND DEVELOPMENT
The travel and transportation industries are implementing, and investigating a portfolio of fuels to help mitigate their impact on the environment, a few of which I discuss in the following sections.
Green Diesel Alternatives:
The over the road trucking industry has been implementing renewable diesel and/or bio-diesel fuel products as a fuel in countries around the world.
In the maritime industry, there will be near term investment to migrate from the existing fuels to renewable, or bio-, diesels as an interim step. These alternative will enable the vessel operators to make progress towards environmental goals without having to incur the significant expense of changing the vessel’s propulsion infrastructure. The vessel operators will continue to investigate other fuels as the renewable diesel products won’t meet the longer term targets.
I found a great explanation of the difference between bio and renewable diesel fuels on the Veolia North America Blog:
“By utilizing agricultural byproducts, producers create a circular system whereby the waste from one process is put to productive use in another. Although they’re both derived from the same or similar feedstocks, these two fuels have two different production processes that produce two very different types of end products.
- Biodiesel – Also known as fatty acid methyl ester or FAME, biodiesel is created through a method called transesterification. This process purifies the oils and fats which are then blended with petroleum diesel at a 5% to 20% ratio.
- Renewable diesel or green diesel – Also known as hydrotreated vegetable oil or HVO, is produced using a method called hydrotreating, which involves hydrogenating triglycerides (fats) to remove metals and compounds containing nitrogen and oxygen.
Let’s use automobiles as an example to compare the difference to what this means. If you used biodiesel as automotive fuel, it would have both a short shelf life and could cause engine issues. If you used renewable diesel, however, you’d have a cleaner, higher quality fuel that runs more efficiently.”3
It is also important to note that just because you are using a renewable diesel, it doesn’t necessarily mean it is good for the environment. In the maritime industry, the CII index takes into consideration the feedstock used in a fuel to calculate its net impact. The company that burns the renewable diesel has to research and ensure that the harvesting of the feedstock for the fuel isn’t carbon intensive or facilitates deforestation.
Natural gas:
Natural gas has been a fuel that has been expanding in its use for over-the-road transportation in recent years due to how cleanly it burns. Large vehicle fleet operators of buses, garbage trucks, etc. have made investments for new vehicles designed for natural gas operations, as well as making investment to retrofit existing vehicles.
Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG):
Cruise line operators have added several new LNG powered cruise ships to their fleet, with more planned for deployment in the future. While LNG is substantially cleaner than the petroleum-based products, it is not the perfect solution. Companies continue to invest in research to discover and develop upstream green sources of natural gas. Cruise lines are assessing their fuel impact on a “well to wake” basis. This approach takes the entire value chain of fuel production into consideration. The assessment encompasses the generation, transportation and on board utilization of the fuel. For example, a greener method of generation would be the methane capture from landfills. The industry continues to pursue studies for other means of generation such as e-LNG…or producing LNG from an electrolysis process.
The maritime industry continues to work with its supply base to develop greener sources of natural gas production. Interestingly, there is no way to guarantee that a vessel would actually burn these molecules on their vessel. The natural gas industry leverages a network of pipelines to transport the product across the country from multiple injection points. Its distribution is to facilitate the use of natural gas in power generation, be that by industry or for use in our homes. As the product blends during its transportation, any “green” gas products injected in the network would mix in. As such, a company that buys the renewable or eLNG, may not directly burn the fuel. This product would supplant natural gas produced through fracking, or other extraction processes.
There is a concern about availability to grow natural gas as a fuel source in this space as current regulatory policies are curtailing investment in this space
Methanol:
Methanol is a long-established product with many applications. Much like LNG, there are efforts to develop green and e-Methanol sources to “decarbonize” the generation of Methanol fur use as a maritime fuel. While my focus is more around travel, the leading company driving the methanol evaluation is Maersk. Maersk is a global shipper of cargo and is responsible for 17% of the world’s global container shipping. If you check out the Sustainability link on the Maersk website, there are many stories articulating their corporate strategy to aggressively pursue renewable and e-methanol as their fuel of choice in order to achieve their goal of being a carbon neutral operator.
The upstream manufacturers of vessels are also taking steps to support these goals. Ship builders and engine manufacturers are building engine systems and retrofit packages, to accommodate Methanol as a standalone propulsion fuel and in dual fuel solutions with Marine Diesel.
Much like any industry, providers in the travel and transportation industries will assess options to meet regulations, as well as to satisfy the demands of their customer base. Any decision associated with a technological change will depend on many factors, including: product price, product availability, cost of change, etc. Given the breadth and number of players in the maritime space, it will be interesting to see which product, or group of products, will become the standard to meet the industry’s environmental goals.
In the short term, there are serious geopolitical issues that are impacting the implementation of greener fuels. The war in Ukraine is driving European countries to reconsider their fuel usage. Countries in Europe are reconsidering their use of coal and petroleum distillates to generate energy for every day uses, such as warming their homes. This obviously impacts the ability of countries, particularly in the EU, to invest in developmental fuels at the expense of their current infrastructure.
The world’s sensibilities around the environment continue to evolve. The global market will continue to develop newer green fuels for use in travel and transportation. We should always travel this world with respect and consideration. But should also take comfort that today’s fuels allow us to travel by the most environmentally friendly means in recent history.
Naturally, we should continue to be considerate of, and work to mitigate, our impact on the world. But we should also not let environmental concerns fully dissuade our decision to travel. There is too much to learn from each other through experiencing the wonders of the world around us and understanding the histories and cultures of our international family.
Travel well. Pursue adventure.
O.M.I.A.H.
Citations
1https://www.eea.europa.eu/ims/use-of-renewable-energy-for
2https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/HotTopics/Pages/Reducing-greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-ships.aspx
3https://blog.veolianorthamerica.com/biodiesel-vs.-renewable-diesel-are-they-the-same