Looking forward to the net zero future of dredging vessels
Type:
Presented during:
CEDA Dredging Days 2024
Authors:
P.M. Vercruijsse and J. Gabriel
Abstract
The ambition to reach net-zero Green House Gas emissions by 2050 demands a huge conversion of the dredging fleet. Given the long lifetime of dredging equipment, the time available for this conversion is relatively short. For illustration, dredging equipment designed today needs to be able to operate on a net zero fuel by 2050. Significant challenge for these newbuilds is the uncertainty around future fuels; not certain is what net zero fuel will be widely available, and competitive in price, and suitable for our applications. A perspective of the energy use and resulting GHG emissions of the global industry, international shipping and world dredging fleet identify a few ship types as dominant source of the international shipping's total of GHG emissions. The contribution of the world dredging fleet to this total is relatively small. The group of ship types dominating the fuel consumption of international shipping regards deep sea traffic with an autonomy of > 1 week. Likely future fuels for these ship types are e-Methanol and e-Ammonia. As the wanted fuel characteristics for deep sea traffic compare well with what is wanted for a significant part of the dredging fleet, we need to take the likely future fuels for international shipping into consideration. The introduction and upscaling of e-Ammonia and e-Methanol will require major investments in the production capacity as well as the subsequent part of the value chain; transport, storage, distribution infrastructure and vessels. These investments will follow only if supply and demand meet. The demand from international shipping is significant, but potentially even international shipping will need to follow the pathway of larger (in terms of energy consumption) industrial sectors to establish the wanted balance between supply and demand.
Keywords: Decarbonisation, dredging technologies and processes, energy efficiency, alternative fuels