Report highlights new tool for green maritime transition

A NEW digital tool aims to help the maritime sector adopt methanol, ammonia, and hydrogen as fuel sources.

This is in the context of the maritime sector experience a shift towards greener, less carbon-intensive future.

But the transition is only expected to happen if alternative fuels can be implemented in a way that is safe and compliant.

A new report from DBI (a Danish specialist in fire and security and work targeted to protect lives and properties), the METAFUEL project has mapped the hazards of methanol, ammonia and hydrogen across the full fuel-handling chain.

“The green transition will be impossible without safety. You want to be able to load your cargo or passengers without thinking twice if it is a methanol-powered ship,” said DBI METAFUEL project leader Leonard Sang Tuei.

Central to METAFUEL is a digital decision-support concept linking fuel properties, ship zones, regulatory requirements and known knowledge gaps.

According to DBI, users add who they are (for example shipyard, equipment maker, insurer or authority), choose a fuel and select a fuel-handling zone such as bunkering, storage, fuel preparation or engine room.

The tool then outputs safety considerations, risk-reduction ‘safety functions, relevant IMO and class rules, and the gaps that still need evidence or regulation.

“Let's say you are a shipowner wanting to retrofit a cargo vessel into using methanol,” Mr Sang Tuei.

“Once you've given that input, the tool generates a list of regulatory gaps concerning the engine room and the fuel preparation room. But the really smart part is that the tool also identifies recommended or suggested actions for all the identified gaps."

Alternative fuels have different properties than conventional fuels, as well as different challenges.

Ammonia is toxic, methanol fires with invisible flames can be hard to detect and extinguish, and pressurized hydrogen storage tanks can explode or produce long jet flames.

DBI analysis reports methanol is closest to commercial maturity, ammonia sits mid-development and hydrogen is an early prototype for ship combustion systems.

"DBI has simulated ammonia leaks in the Port of Rønne, we have experimented with the optimal water mist configuration for methanol pool fires, and we have done research into hydrogen jet flames,” Mr Sang Tuei said.

“We can't say we have bridged all the gaps, but the report brings the industry a lot closer to a safer implementation of these fuels.”