Forward Ships Raises Concern Over Potential Nitrous Oxide Emissions From Ammonia Bunkers

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Wednesday June 17, 2020

The use of ammonia as a bunker fuel may result in emissions of nitrous oxide (NO2) that could have an impact on global warming, according to Forward Ships.

A selective catalytic reduction process would need to be applied to reduce the NOX emissions from using ammonia bunkers, and this would be likely to result in increased NO2 emissions that would have a heavy warming effect, Antonis Trakakis, chief technology at Forward, said in a LinkedIn post this week.

"Although N2O is produced at very small quantities from diesel combustion, it is a very strong greenhouse gas, much stronger than methane," Trakakis said.

"It is possible that the total GHG footprint from the combustion of the "Green" ammonia, to be even higher than from methane."

Forward has been a strong advocate of LNG bunkering as a way for the shipping industry to reduce its carbon footprint.