Maersk Green Methanol Plans Won’t Decarbonize Methanol Much
Maerk’s dual-fuel ships, when they run on methanol at all, will be very unlikely to be burning green methanol directly, at least not for a long time.
Maerk’s dual-fuel ships, when they run on methanol at all, will be very unlikely to be burning green methanol directly, at least not for a long time.
If anything in your value stream uses fossil fuels, and you are competing with organizations which don’t have fossil fuels in their value streams, you are going to be losing business fast in the coming years.
The Asian Games started earlier this week, on the 23rd of September in Hangzhou. These large events bring together thousands of people from several countries and it takes a massive logistical exercise to move people around and keep things flowing nicely. This means there will be hundreds or thousands of … [continued]
In sales pitches for methanol and ammonia for maritime fuels, the numbers don’t add up, and the omissions are glaring.
Methanol is like hydrogen. Job one is to decarbonize existing uses before inventing new ones. As a marine fuel, it’s not the best choice.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve reached the end of my first set of scenarios for marine decarbonization through 2100. My bets are on batteries for all inland and two-thirds of short-sea shipping, and biofuels for the rest. It took me years to work through the aspects of synthetic … [continued]
The Renewable Energy Standard that mandates the use of ethanol in fuels is up for review this year. Should it be abolished?
Is corn-based ethanol worse for the environment than gasoline? Reuters reports that according to a new study, the answer is yes. In fact, the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, pointed out that corn-based ethanol mixed in with gasoline is most likely a much larger contributor … [continued]
Long-haul shipping remains a hard problem for decarbonization. Maersk’s purchase isn’t going to address it. The roughly $150 million extra that it paid for the 8 ships is about 0.4% of Maersk’s annual revenues, or about 1.5% of its expected 2021 profits.
Long-haul aviation is a hard global warming nut to crack, and assessing methanol as a potential nutcracker shows why.