Work in progress: making the energy transition safe

We know that the industry is embarked on a long voyage towards lower carbon operations and any remaining doubters at the recent Singapore Maritime Week would have swiftly been converted. But there are big questions around this apparently simple premise: what will it cost, how long will it take and is it safe?

With the exceptions of LNG and increasingly Methanol, there is no large scale experience with using alternative fuels onboard. The toxicity of ammonia, the explosive risk of hydrogen, as well as the potential of ‘new nuclear’ to transform shipping mean all alternatives come freighted with risk.

This realisation is behind the formation of the Maritime Technologies Forum, a collaborative group of class societies and flag states whose mission is to figure out the gaps in current regulation and what needs to change in order to protect crew and the environment as new fuels come onboard ship.

The MTF is exactly what people mean when they call for collaboration and the scale of the challenge was clear from a panel convened in Singapore drawing together owners, class and industry associations to debate the findings of MTF’s latest report. Read the full article here.