With 90% of global trade transported by ship, the environmental performance of the industry is closely tied to future global environmental and economic sustainability. While the use of biofuels has been considered for several years to reduce emissions and provide a cost-effective alternative energy source for vessels, it\u2019s yet to take off.<\/p>\n
The two-year programme is the joint work of Boskalis, W\u00e4rtsil\u00e4 and GoodFuels Marine and is supported by Carbon War Room, Zero and both the ports of Amsterdam and Rotterdam.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the launch of the initiative today, Dirk Kronemeijer, CEO, GoodFuels, said: \u201cA lot of biofuels out there do not improve the world, but we\u2019re here to raise the sustainability bar with those that do.\u201d <\/p>\n
Working together, they will carry out extensive testing of three types of next generation biofuels \u2013 chemical testing will be carried out by GoodFuels, while W\u00e4rtsil\u00e4 will carry out the testing with its engines. Following this, \u2018sea trials\u2019 will be carried out on various vessels within Boskalis\u2019 global fleet.<\/p>\n
Initially, the focus is on \u2018drop in\u2019 marine biofuels. The consortium says it considers these integral to, but currently missing in, the long-term marine fuel mix made up of other viable options such as (bio) LNG. The group says these \u2018drop in\u2019 fuels should be suited to blend with MGO, as it will do research and testing of pure biofuels, as a possible replacement of HFO in SECA areas.<\/p>\n
The consortium believes that these biofuels will play a viable role in reducing emissions that no other fuel can currently achieve, without a capital-intensive fleet renewal or retrofitting.<\/p>\n
It will then push for industry certification and tangible opportunities for scaling supply to the world\u2019s commercial shipping fleet.<\/p>\n
A representative from the Port of Amsterdam, added: \u201cAs ports with environmental excellence at our core, we embrace the vision of next generation biofuels supporting a more sustainable future for global marine transport. In addition we see marine biofuels as a potential building block to boost the bio-based production and economy in our respective ports, but its success depends on issues and topics that are beyond our own control as ports.\u201d<\/p>\n
Next to testing, the consortium will initiate a global scalability study involving leading marine customers, universities, NGOs, Ports, (Bio)Fuel companies, IMO and other leading players and institutes, which should identify tangible opportunities for scaling supply in the near future.<\/p>\n
The Port of Zeeland is also said to be looking at working with other partners in the initiative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A new European initiative is being launched with the aim of encouraging and promoting the use of biofuels as a sustainable, reliable, low-emissions alternative for the marine sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-4283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-projects-initiatives-greenport"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4283"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=4283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}