IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jcltec/v2y2020i1p4-52d312024.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Environmental and Economic Evaluation of Fuel Choices for Short Sea Shipping

Author

Listed:
  • Kirsi Spoof-Tuomi

    (School of Technology and Innovations, University of Vaasa, P.O. Box 700, 65101 Vaasa, Finland)

  • Seppo Niemi

    (School of Technology and Innovations, University of Vaasa, P.O. Box 700, 65101 Vaasa, Finland)

Abstract

The shipping industry is looking for strategies to comply with increasingly stringent emission regulations. Fuel has a significant impact on emissions, so a switch to alternative fuels needs to be evaluated. This study investigated the emission performances of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and liquefied biogas (LBG) in shipping and compared them to conventional marine diesel oil (MDO) combined with selective catalytic reduction (SCR). For assessing the complete global warming potential of these fuels, the life-cycle approach was used. In addition, the study evaluated the local environmental impacts of combustion of these fuels, which is of particular importance for short sea shipping operations near coastal marine environment and residential areas. All three options examined are in compliance with the most stringent emission control area (ECA) regulations currently in force or entering into force from 2021. In terms of local environmental impacts, the two gaseous fuels had clear advantages over the MDO + SCR combination. However, the use of LNG as marine fuel achieved no significant CO 2 -equivalent reduction, thus making little progress towards the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO’s) visions of decarbonizing shipping. Major life cycle GHG emission benefits were identified by replacing fossil fuels with LBG. The most significant challenge facing LBG today is fuel availability in volumes needed for shipping. Without taxation or subsidies, LBG may also find it difficult to compete with the prices of fossil fuels.

Suggested Citation

  • Kirsi Spoof-Tuomi & Seppo Niemi, 2020. "Environmental and Economic Evaluation of Fuel Choices for Short Sea Shipping," Clean Technol., MDPI, vol. 2(1), pages 1-19, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jcltec:v:2:y:2020:i:1:p:4-52:d:312024
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2571-8797/2/1/4/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2571-8797/2/1/4/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bengtsson, Selma & Fridell, Erik & Andersson, Karin, 2012. "Environmental assessment of two pathways towards the use of biofuels in shipping," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 451-463.
    2. Thomson, Heather & Corbett, James J. & Winebrake, James J., 2015. "Natural gas as a marine fuel," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 153-167.
    3. Burel, Fabio & Taccani, Rodolfo & Zuliani, Nicola, 2013. "Improving sustainability of maritime transport through utilization of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) for propulsion," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 412-420.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bilgili, Levent, 2023. "A systematic review on the acceptance of alternative marine fuels," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    2. Yujie Yuan & Yantao Wang & Xiushan Jiang & Chun Sing Lai, 2024. "An Innovative Multi-Objective Rescheduling System for Mitigating Pandemic Spread in Aviation Networks," Clean Technol., MDPI, vol. 6(1), pages 1-16, January.
    3. Cezary Behrendt & Oleh Klyus & Marcin Szczepanek, 2023. "Reductions in Energy Consumption and Emission of Harmful Exhaust Gases by Fishing Vessels," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(20), pages 1-13, October.
    4. Alam Md Moshiul & Roslina Mohammad & Fariha Anjum Hira, 2023. "Alternative Fuel Selection Framework toward Decarbonizing Maritime Deep-Sea Shipping," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-37, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Xing, Hui & Spence, Stephen & Chen, Hua, 2020. "A comprehensive review on countermeasures for CO2 emissions from ships," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    2. Kian-Guan Lim & Michelle Lim, 2020. "Financial performance of shipping firms that increase LNG carriers and the support of eco-innovation," Journal of Shipping and Trade, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 1-25, December.
    3. Grusche J. Seithe & Alexandra Bonou & Dimitrios Giannopoulos & Chariklia A. Georgopoulou & Maria Founti, 2020. "Maritime Transport in a Life Cycle Perspective: How Fuels, Vessel Types, and Operational Profiles Influence Energy Demand and Greenhouse Gas Emissions," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-20, May.
    4. Ahmed, Shoaib & Li, Tie & Yi, Ping & Chen, Run, 2023. "Environmental impact assessment of green ammonia-powered very large tanker ship for decarbonized future shipping operations," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    5. Halff, Antoine & Younes, Lara & Boersma, Tim, 2019. "The likely implications of the new IMO standards on the shipping industry," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 277-286.
    6. Duan, Zhongdi & Zhu, Yifeng & Wang, Chenbiao & Yuan, Yuchao & Xue, Hongxiang & Tang, Wenyong, 2023. "Numerical and theoretical prediction of the thermodynamic response in marine LNG fuel tanks under sloshing conditions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 270(C).
    7. Al Baroudi, Hisham & Awoyomi, Adeola & Patchigolla, Kumar & Jonnalagadda, Kranthi & Anthony, E.J., 2021. "A review of large-scale CO2 shipping and marine emissions management for carbon capture, utilisation and storage," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 287(C).
    8. Yifan Wang & Laurence A. Wright, 2021. "A Comparative Review of Alternative Fuels for the Maritime Sector: Economic, Technology, and Policy Challenges for Clean Energy Implementation," World, MDPI, vol. 2(4), pages 1-26, October.
    9. Wang, Tingsong & Cheng, Peiyue & Zhen, Lu, 2023. "Green development of the maritime industry: Overview, perspectives, and future research opportunities," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    10. Kalikatzarakis, Miltiadis & Theotokatos, Gerasimos & Coraddu, Andrea & Sayan, Paul & Wong, Seng Yew, 2022. "Model based analysis of the boil-off gas management and control for LNG fuelled vessels," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    11. ben Brahim, Till & Wiese, Frauke & Münster, Marie, 2019. "Pathways to climate-neutral shipping: A Danish case study," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    12. Hoang, Anh Tuan & Pandey, Ashok & Martinez De Osés, Francisco Javier & Chen, Wei-Hsin & Said, Zafar & Ng, Kim Hoong & Ağbulut, Ümit & Tarełko, Wiesław & Ölçer, Aykut I. & Nguyen, Xuan Phuong, 2023. "Technological solutions for boosting hydrogen role in decarbonization strategies and net-zero goals of world shipping: Challenges and perspectives," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    13. James J. Winebrake & James J. Corbett & Fatima Umar & Daniel Yuska, 2019. "Pollution Tradeoffs for Conventional and Natural Gas-Based Marine Fuels," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-19, April.
    14. Bilgili, Levent, 2023. "A systematic review on the acceptance of alternative marine fuels," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    15. Elizabeth Lindstad & Henning Borgen & Gunnar S. Eskeland & Christopher Paalson & Harilaos Psaraftis & Osman Turan, 2019. "The Need to Amend IMO’s EEDI to Include a Threshold for Performance in Waves (Realistic Sea Conditions) to Achieve the Desired GHG Reductions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(13), pages 1-17, July.
    16. Balcombe, Paul & Staffell, Iain & Kerdan, Ivan Garcia & Speirs, Jamie F. & Brandon, Nigel P. & Hawkes, Adam D., 2021. "How can LNG-fuelled ships meet decarbonisation targets? An environmental and economic analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    17. Luo, Xiaobo & Wang, Meihong, 2017. "Study of solvent-based carbon capture for cargo ships through process modelling and simulation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 402-413.
    18. Jang, Hayoung & Jeong, Byongug & Zhou, Peilin & Ha, Seungman & Nam, Dong, 2021. "Demystifying the lifecycle environmental benefits and harms of LNG as marine fuel," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 292(C).
    19. Park, Hyunjun & Lee, Sanghuk & Jeong, Jinyeong & Chang, Daejun, 2018. "Design of the compressor-assisted LNG fuel gas supply system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 1017-1027.
    20. Van Chien Pham & Jae-Hyuk Choi & Beom-Seok Rho & Jun-Soo Kim & Kyunam Park & Sang-Kyun Park & Van Vang Le & Won-Ju Lee, 2021. "A Numerical Study on the Combustion Process and Emission Characteristics of a Natural Gas-Diesel Dual-Fuel Marine Engine at Full Load," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-28, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jcltec:v:2:y:2020:i:1:p:4-52:d:312024. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.