The future of Ocean Energy and Shipping


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ARIN’s head of Ships Guilhem Gaillarde and Olaf Waals, head of Offshore, interview each other


about how prepared their sector is for the energy transition.


Guilhem, what do you see as the most promising techniques to achieve the objective of zero-emission shipping?


“What is interesting is that the answer is very different than it would have been only five years ago. The urgency of the climate situation is driving a continuous upgrade of the ambitions, creating new ideas and a new mindset. As an illustration of this disruptive process, several years ago the industry came to a broad consensus that LNG was the most promising solution for the coming 30 years. Although it is true that, among all relevant fossil fuels, LNG produces the lowest CO2 emissions, it still releases emissions, which can no longer match the new ambitions. Additionally, the release of unburned methane (methane slip) reduces its benefit or could even increase its impact. This is naturally an issue for all who have invested in this technology, but, when confirmed, it must be accepted by all stakeholders that use of LNG could possibly jeopardise our 2050 ambitions.


In many actual scenarios that can bring us to zero-emission shipping, there is a large consensus that fossil-based marine fuels have to be phased out. Having said that, the good news is that scientists and industries have already developed several mature and many promising solutions. For any solutions it is important to distinguish the sustainable energy carriers on one side (the medium that will store a given renewable energy and be ‘bunkered’ on board ships) and the power systems on the other side (transforming energy in powering a ship).


Traditional feedstock such as coal, oil or natural gas contain energy at a high density level, on which an efficient infrastructure was


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"Wind will provide light engine assistance up to full propulsion"


created, from production to storage and bunkering. The new energy carriers are storing electricity produced from renewable resources such as wind, solar, waves, ocean currents, hydraulic and to a certain extent biomass. Hydrogen, methanol or ammoniac are examples of existing energy carriers, as well as batteries. A global development of those carriers requires a rapid adaptation of the corresponding infrastructure, from production sites to bunkering. In terms of powering systems, one may distinguish the internal combustion engine (ICE) used as prime movers, the hybrid combination of ICE producing electricity for


e-motors and the fuel cells producing electricity for e-motors. The fact that many combinations of the above solutions are possible makes it even more of a puzzle. But surely, each vessel type with its given characteristics and range requirement will have a suitable solution.


Last but not least, wind is simply the most direct source of power for ships. Depending on the ship design and service, and the selected dimension of the gear, wind will provide light engine assistance up to full propulsion. Inherently variable, its interdependency with the engine and hydrodynamic hull characteristics must be carefully considered during the design process. This is especially true when the installed wind power potential is large in combination with the installed engine power.


Sailing with zero emissions is then possible, but the actual challenge is to make choices to enforce or support the ones that will have the


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