But these new and alternative fuels possess properties that pose new, specific safety challenges when compared with conventional ones, which means that a new understanding and different safety systems and operations are necessary. Ammonia is an exciting alternative, but it is highly toxic and flammable and requires low temperatures. Hydrogen demands extremely low temperatures (–253°C) if stored as a liquefied gas and high pressure (250– 700 bar) if stored as a compressed gas. It also has the smallest of all molecules, making it challenging to contain, as well as a wide flammability range and easy ignition.
Safety hurdles during decarbonization
Closing the Safety Gap in an Era of Transformation identifies three main safety hurdles associated with the development of alternative fuels and modes of operation. Firstly, stakeholders may be working in functional silos focused on subsystems. DNV therefore recommends system integration to enable collaboration and transparency.
“DNV leads industry projects that
manage the risks associated with specific fuels,” van de Merwe points out. “MarHySafe is one example of where we are working together with industry stakeholders in a joint development project (JDP) to develop a common understanding of hydrogen safety and provide a basis for outlining a road map to hydrogen safety for the maritime industry.”
Missing regulations need joint efforts to close knowledge gaps
Secondly, regulatory frameworks cannot keep up with technological development. “This is why we recommend collective commitment to contribute with knowledge and experience to supplement missing regulations,” van de Merwe explains. “Our classification rules for the use of LNG, fuel cells, methanol, ethanol and LPG are crucial steps towards ensuring safe design to protect vessels against fire and the release of toxic gases through segregation, double barriers, leakage detection and automatic isolation of leakages.”
In a Battery Safety JDP, DNV took the lead in generating knowledge about risks related to batteries in vessels. To further foster the
safe operation of ships running on ammonia and hydrogen, DNV is currently developing rules for these fuel options, while working with industry partners to remove hurdles against their uptake, as a partner of the Green Shipping Programme for example.
Thirdly, suppliers and end users may lack maritime and fuel-specific competence. DNV believes the answer here is to develop these competences and a culture of continuous improvement.
Road maps for reducing the safety risks on the way to a safer and cleaner future in maritime
”Our research showed that we need to continue to focus on the people on our way to a safer, cleaner future in maritime,” van de Merwe concludes: “Through breaking down silos we can generate a holistic picture of safety risk and collaborate towards identifying and implementing mitigating measures.” This will help us to be proactive in understanding, defining and meeting the challenges that we need to overcome in order to achieve greater digitalization and decarbonization in shipping.
The Alternative Fuel Barrier Dashboard, reproduced from DNV’s Maritime Forecast to 2050 (2020 edition). Safety is one of the key challenges. Image credit: DNV
The Report • June 2021 • Issue 96 | 117
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