EMEA News
Alt Bunker Fuel Supply in Better Shape Than Demand: Report
The latest assessment of how far shipping has gone down the decarbonisation pathway finds more reason to be upbeat on bunkering and the supply of alternative bunker fuels to the sector than on potential demand for those fuels.
The report, Climate Action in Shipping, Progress towards Shipping's 2030 Breakthrough, which was launched at the Global Maritime Forum in Athens today, looks at the sector's ability to deliver a 5% target of scalable zero-emission fuels (SZEF) use as a proportion of total bunker use.
The 5% threshold is what is required to rapidly scale the uptake of such fuels, according to the report.
Although current zero-emission fuel production could end up covering just a quarter of the fuel needed to deliver the breakthrough, with more successful projects that production could be up to "twice as much as is needed, even when accounting for other sectors' fuel needs", a press statement on the report said.
"The technology to facilitate production, distribution and bunkering of SZEF is progressing well," James Stewart, consultant at UMAS, and the report's co-author, said. But he cautioned: "The extent of its scale-up throughout the rest of the decade is not guaranteed."
On the demand side of the equation, the report's view was more negative.
"Continuing the current trajectory of orders might only deliver one-fifth of the vessels needed to achieve the breakthrough target," the statement said.
UMAS, Getting to Zero Coalition, and Race to Zero are behind the report.
UMAS is a maritime consultancy linked to University College London.
