“This is the fourth energy revolution in shipping — from rowing our boats to sails to the steam engine to diesel engine and we have to change it once more,” said Alex Saverys, CMB chief executive and scion of one of Belgium’s oldest shipping families. Shipping produces about 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and without action, its contribution is likely to rise for decades as global trade grows. The International Maritime Organization, the UN agency that regulates the global industry, wants to at least halve its impact by 2050.
Many industry figures are pinning their hopes on blue or green hydrogen — produced using natural gas with carbon capture or renewable electricity and whose only byproduct when combusted is water — to help steer away from polluting bunker fuel.
“There is no question whether hydrogen will be the energy carrier of shipping in 2050,” said Lasse Kristoffersen, chief executive of Norway’s Torvald Klaveness. “The question is, how do you produce it and which form do you use it as a carrier?”
But other executives operating the huge hulks that criss-cross the planet transporting everything from raw materials to consumer goods are skeptical hydrogen can play more than a bit part in the fuel transition.