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"FFI’s Green Fleet Team is moving quickly to convert the 75 metre vessel, the “MMA Leveque”, in collaboration with MMA Offshore Limited, over the next 12 months so it can run almost totally on green ammonia.

This brings the shipping industry much closer to becoming carbon neutral well before 2040 with only entrenched industry practices slowing global progress of carbon neutral shipping."

Thanks @basilio, that is very interesting. Good to see MRM finally travelling above the 200dsma, let's hope it can keep its head above water this time!

Twiggy won't be worried about the cost at this stage, it still seems experimental and makes a good story (sorry I am old and cynical) and maybe more a 'show boat' so to speak.

I was more interested in the practical logistics, cost and feasibility of converting the current fleet of working ships to hydro.
 
Ann said:
I was more interested in the practical logistics, cost and feasibility of converting the current fleet of working ships to hydro
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Converting engines itself is very doable and not overly difficult.

For example a small team of people in Tasmania from the university backed with support from the electricity industry successfully converted "standard" engines to hydrogen and that was ~15 years ago now. At one point a converted Toyota Corolla was entered in an actual car race to prove the point - there was never any expectation of winning, it's a Corolla not a Ferrari, but it drew attention to the idea and proved that it can be done.

For shipping, a lot's going to come down to the age of any given ship and whether the owners see any value in "green credentials" or not. That'll vary between companies. Nobody's going to convert a ship that's near the end of its life anyway. Etc.

Also will depend on where it goes. One that operates a fixed route only needs to be able to refuel at one or both ends of that route. Versus one that sails to lots of ports which becomes more problematic if they don't have hydrogen available.

LNG is already used in shipping to some extent and we do have experience with that in Australia to some extent.

There's one on the Victoria - Tasmania freight run operated by SeaRoad using a ship built overseas http://gasenergyaustralia.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Media-Release-SeaRoad-launch_120716.pdf

Also Incat in Hobart have successfully built from scratch an LNG powered catamaran for an overseas customer. https://incat.com.au/lng-expertise/

So using gas as a fuel for ships is already a thing, albeit natural gas, but it does show that running ships with gas as such is practical so long as there's a supply of it where the ship operates.
 
Ann said:
Looking at GEV today gave me pause to wonder how hard it would be to convert shipping from petro to hydro @Smurf1976 or anyone?
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Well Ann that is a good question, from what I know ( I do have marine qualifications, but have never worked on ships), they can be driven by a lot of methods e.g diesel low/medium speed direct drive, diesel electric where a diesel drives a generator which drives the propellers.

LNG tankers use dual fuel reciprocating similar to diesel.

Gas turbine these are used in warships and a few cruise ships, one that comes to mind is Radiance of the Seas.

Steam boiler/ generator supplying electric drives.

So getting onto hydrogen, IMO it would depend on the value of the hydrogen as to which primary drive you would use for the ship, it would have to be a cost vs emissions equation IMO. No point in burning your cargo, if it is worth a lot more to sell at market.
For example, if the hydrogen is going to Japan, so they don't burn coal, you wouldn't use it to drive the ship, if a small amount of low sulphur diesel could be used to drive the ship. The net gain in emission reduction would justify using the diesel IMO.

Just another one of those issues you mentioned, that will need to be resolved on the road to nirvana and another one of the issues that has to looked at in a holistic way rather than through the narrow tunnel of small minds.
 
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Very well explained @Smurf1976 and @sptrawler, thank you. Of course the availability of Hydrogen at ports I hadn't considered. Won't be available until needed, won't be needed until available. I can see a slight problem there! Burning your cargo, interesting! Provided your cargo is hydrogen and not cars.
I didn't realize shipping could run on LNG, that is interesting (showing my appaling ignorance here, meh). One of the companies I listed (SRJ) was working on hydrogen compatible piping as I believe Hydrogen is harder to pump. If the ships were fitted with the kind of piping that could run Hydrogen, they could also run gas for the interim, if I am right? Quite do-able really.

So my takeaway is, no big deal to convert the ships but simply the logistics of refuelling and the availability of hydrogen. Got it!
 
Yeah it wouldn't be smart (or likely..) to burn your cargo just to get to a destination. I'd be confident that the change to a hydrogen (or ammonia) as a fuel will be simply replacing the fuel components of the vessel.

As has been noted the technical side of engine capacity is doable. The trick, I believe, will be using (green) ammonia as the hydrogen carrier and sorting out the practical logistics of supply, storage etc.

FMG has decided to sort out these issues for it's own fleet and I imagine will offer open source support to any other shipping companies to enable them to move as cost effectively and quickly as practical. It is in their interest as drivers of (green) hydrogen based shipping to demonstrate it's capacity as they ramp up production of the fuel.
 
basilio said:
Yeah it wouldn't be smart (or likely..) to burn your cargo just to get to a destination.
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Actually on the LNG carriers, they do burn their cargo, to get to the destination.
Like I said, it all will go back to a cost vs emissions equation.
In an holistic equation, the end result has to be lower emissions, otherwise it is all a waste of time and money.
 
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Ann said:
So my takeaway is, no big deal to convert the ships but simply the logistics of refuelling and the availability of hydrogen.
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Conventional shipping fuels, that is fuel oil and marine diesel, are one of those things that's available anywhere you'd need it to be available.

Versus very few shipping ports would have any hydrogen available at all, and certainly not be set up to fuel a ship with it.

So point to point shipping runs are likely to be the first to change since the ship(s) and refuelling infrastructure can be done as a single project. Then as that becomes more common, it becomes practical for other ships to use it.

Eg the use of LNG to run ships across Bass Strait creates infrastructure that enables any other LNG powered ship to be refuelled too. Same concept with hydrogen once it gets going.
 
Touche Makes perfect sense doesn't it ?

Smurf summed it up well. The technical changeover is straightforward. The need for refueling infrastructure and a hydrogen fuel supply or equivalent at the right price then becomes the issue.

It will be interesting to see if Ammonia gets used as the hydrogen carrier. It's far easier to transport than hydrogen and has many other industrial uses as well.

A Key To The ‘Hydrogen Economy’ Is Carbon-Free Ammonia

In truth, though, many challenges remain to building out a hydrogen economy, including processes related to producing carbon-free hydrogen in the first place.
www.forbes.com
 
basilio said:
Touche Makes perfect sense doesn't it ?

Smurf summed it up well. The technical changeover is straightforward. The need for refueling infrastructure and a hydrogen fuel supply or equivalent at the right price then becomes the issue.
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Not really, we were talking about the shipping of hydrogen and using it as a fuel for the ship.

But whatever rows your boat, we can move the goal posts, to suit. ?
 
sptrawler said:
But whatever rows your boat, we can move the goal posts, to suit.
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I didn't realise we were playing games SP.

It does make sense for an LNG carrier to be powered by LNG. So it would make equal sense for a hydrogen tanker to be powered by hydrogen ? Or perhaps an Ammonia tanker to be powered by Ammonia ? Perhaps an oil tanker to be powered by fuel oil ? Whatever . We can set up goal posts all around the ground ..
 
Well you started it, in post #85, don't get weird about it, what was the roll eyes about? I thought I had made a valid comment.

Why would it make sense for a hydrogen tanker to run on hydrogen, if it ends up using more hydrogen in the voyage that could have been used at the destination, to mitigate more greenhouse gas than it mitigated in the voyage.
That doesn't make sense.
Eventually it would make sense, when hydrogen production is such that it is abundant, but in the early stages that may not be so.

Like I said if the hydrogen is going to Japan and it is replacing coal generation, say the hydrogen the ship used on the voyage saved 20 tons of CO2 as opposed to diesel, but the same amount of hydrogen being delivered saved 30 tons of CO2 because of reduced coal burning.
What was the point of using the hydrogen to run the ship?

I don't know where you are coming from, I'm trying to be objective and sensible, games aren't my bag but I don't tolerate someone trying to take the pizz out of me.

 
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Eg the use of LNG to run ships across Bass Strait creates infrastructure that enables any other LNG powered ship to be refuelled too. Same concept with hydrogen once it gets going.

Initially and maybe still, the LNG to power the ships is loaded into cryogenic containers and trucked to the ship. The containers are used as the fuel tank and then taken off and refilled. There were (are) no LNG facilities at the docks.

I can't see why this system would not be suitable for other fuels in the early stages. The main problem would be the amount of containers required for voyagers longer than the 1000km Tassie to Melb round trip.
 
W.A Government, to develop hydrogen hubs in Karratha and Geraldton.

WA pledges $117m to stay in the global hydrogen race

The WA government is looking for federal support for two hydrogen hubs near Karratha and Geraldton to help WA grab market share for the future clean fuel, with Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue Future Industries a likely early tenant.
www.watoday.com.au

The WA government will spend $117 million to build infrastructure at proposed industrial estates at Maitland, near Karratha, and Oakajee, north of Geraldton, if bids for federal government funds submitted this week are successful.

In September, the federal government launched a competitive bid process for $464 million of matching funding for clean hydrogen hubs around Australia

WA, that is a third of the continent, is seeking 25 per cent of the available funds.

If the Maitland bid is successful a hydrogen or ammonia pipeline from the estate 40 kilometres south of Dampier Port would be built to the Burrup Peninsula.

Ms MacTiernan said gas company Woodside and Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue Future Industries both had “great interest” in Maitland. The government would wait for a company to commit to a project at Maitland before building the pipeline.

If successful both estates would eventually house hydrogen and ammonia production plants, but the power required would have to come from wind and solar farms in surrounding regions.
 
Reactions: Ann
Assuming it comes off, Sinopec will be the proving ground for grid scale green hydrogen.
Elsewhere new electrolyser technologies are in the proving mix.
While BEVs might be the flavour of the month, green hydrogen will imho become the flavour of the decade as a rush to decarbonisation materialises.
Not sure which parties are pushing the hydrogen barrow in the coming election, but if they knew how much energy the northern hemisphere will need, especially those poor in natural resources, they might work out why we need to steal a march on other nations blessed with similar capacity to knock it out cheaply.
 
This Hyzon website brings together much of the industrial development around hydrogen.

Well worth a scout IMV.

Interviews | Hydrogen News | H2 View

Explore in-depth interviews with industry experts on the latest hydrogen news with H2 View. Breaking updates, insights, and trends in the hydrogen industry
www.h2-view.com
 
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