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The Energy Institute News

24 Mar 2024

IMO Progresses MARPOL GHG Chapter

Source: IMO

The IMO’s MEPC 81 meeting, concluded on March 22 with progress made on several fronts but the door left open to a number of risks, including that of architecture, timing, scope of emissions, compliance and enforcement, says consultancy UMAS.A new draft for a chapter in the Annex VI of MARPOL has been initiated titled “Regulations on the IMO net-zero framework”.Whilst, this new chapter is just a framework of subheadings for now, it includes all the elements needed to adopt any of the GHG policy options currently under consideration.

18 Oct 2023

Shipping Industry Off Track to Meet 5% Zero-emission Fuel Target by 2030

Credit: Yellow Boat/AdobeStock

The world is not on track for zero-emission fuels to account for 5% of international shipping fuels by 2030, a new analysis has found, jeopardizing the shipping industry's 2050 decarbonization goal.Launched at the Global Maritime Forum's annual summit in Athens on Wednesday, the assessment finds that current scalable zero-emissions fuel (SZEF) production in the pipeline would cover just a quarter of the fuel needed by 2030. And the delivery of zero-emission vessels is also faltering. At the end of 2022, there were 24 ships capable of running on SZEF, mostly methanol, with another 144 on order.

13 Sep 2023

Effectiveness and Equity Boost Needed for IMO Targets

Source: UMAS

In a rare occurrence in the challenging politics of climate change, the IMO’s Revised GHG Strategy, adopted at MEPC 80 in July, represents a significant leap forward in ambition. New analysis by UMAS shows the IMO’s targets correspond to a path between 1.55oC and 1.6oC according to the GHG budget defined by the IPCC.Dr Tristan Smith, Reader at UCL Energy Institute, Director of UMAS, said: “The IMO’s revised strategy sets the scene for the large majority of shipping to have maximised efficiency by 2030 and transitioned away from fossil fuels by 2040.

30 Mar 2023

Headwinds Hamper the Poseidon Principles

Copyright Bojan/AdobeStock

The Poseidon Principles provide a platform for financing shipping’s sustainable future, but the technical guidance underpinning the initiative remains under scrutiny.In July 2023, the International Maritime Organization’s Maritime Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) will consider revising the UN agency’s strategy on greenhouse gas emissions from ships. Moving on from a current target to reduce CO2 emissions from ships by at least 50% by 2050, based on 2008 levels,  influential administrations seek to accelerate towards net-zero or even zero by 2050.

22 Mar 2023

Headwinds for the Poseidon Principles

Copyright zwiebackesser/AdobeStock

The Poseidon Principles provide a platform for financing shipping’s sustainable future, but the technical guidance underpinning the initiative remains under scrutiny.In July 2023, the International Maritime Organization’s Maritime Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) will consider revising the UN agency’s strategy on greenhouse gas emissions from ships. Moving on from a current target to reduce CO2 emissions from ships by at least 50% by 2050, based on 2008 levels, influential


31 Aug 2022

Cuba Seeks More Electricity Supply from Turkish Powerships

©IzzetNoyan/AdobeStock

Cuba, mired in an energy crisis that has brought frequent blackouts, is negotiating with a Turkish company to have it double the megawatts it currently produces for the country from shipboard generators just offshore, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.Cuban officials are in talks with Karpowership, one of the world’s largest operators of floating power plants and part of the Turkey-based Karadeniz Holding, the sources said. The company already has five


24 Nov 2020

EU Green Finance Rules Leaky for Ships

© Lina / Adobe Stock

Months of EU deliberation to decide which business activities can be marketed as green investments have produced a set of draft standards some finance officials and NGOs say are lax for the polluting shipping sector and challenging for buildings.In other cases, they strike a fair balance, they say.As the European Union pursues regulation to try to deliver the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, a powerful tool in channeling funding over the coming decades will be its financial taxonomy - in other words


02 Jul 2020

Grant Awards Target Safer Shipbreaking

© saintmichel85 / Adobe Stock

Engineering X – an international collaboration founded by the Royal Academy of Engineering and Lloyd’s Register Foundation – has awarded nearly £1 million ($1.2 million) in grants to six projects in the U.K. and overseas aimed at tackling the complex social, environmental and engineering challenges of decommissioning ships and offshore structures.From training to improve worker safety in ship recycling facilities in Bangladesh, to assessing the risks of structural failure of decommissioned offshore structures


03 Jun 2020

UK Startup to Apply Aviation Fuel Tracker for Shipping

Photo by Kinsey on Unsplash

A U.K. startup tracking fuel-use performance in aviation will look to apply its product in the maritime sector in an effort to improve the environmental record of the shipping industry.One of 10 winners of MarRI-UK funding, Signol and its academic partners at University College London’s Energy Institute have been awarded a total of £130,000 ($162,200) for STEAM (Sustainability Through Efficient Actions in Maritime), a project looking to directly change the behavior of ships’ crews


02 Feb 2020

Poseidon Readies $140Bn Shipping Loan

With the signing by the France-based international lender to global shipping BNP Paribas and the Swiss multinational investment bank Credit Suisse, Signatories of the Poseidon Principles represent around $140 billion in loans to international shipping – about 30% of the total global ship finance portfolio.Poseidon Principles is a global framework for responsible ship finance which helps incentivize shipping’s decarbonization.They establish a common framework to quantitatively assess and disclose whether financial institutions’ lending portfolios are in line with climate goals set by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a specialized


20 Jan 2020

IMO's 2050 Decarbonization Target Has $1 Trillion Pricetag

© Martin Lueke / Adobe Stock

At least $1 trillion of investment in new fuel technology is needed to enable the shipping industry to meet U.N. targets for cuts in carbon emissions by 2050, a study published on Monday showed.The global shipping fleet, which accounts for 2.2% of the world's CO2 emissions, is under pressure to reduce those emissions and other pollution. About 90% of world trade is transported by sea.U.N. shipping agency, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), aims to reduce the industry's greenhouse gas emissions by 50% from 2008 levels by 2050


11 Nov 2019

Tracking Ship Emissions from Space

A new ground-breaking study by University College London (UCL) Energy Institute, Imperial College and the University of Oxford shows how satellite tracking could be used to monitor compliance with the upcoming IMO 0.5% sulfur emission regulations and Emission Control Areas (ECA).Research conducted by their own researchers, UCL Energy and the University of Oxford and published today in Geophysical Research Letters, has unveiled discoveries that appear important on many levels for they describe the impact of shipping emissions on the climate: because fossil fuel emission particles from ships affect the air including by releasing sulfur


20 Oct 2019

Green Shipping Fuels of the Future

Ammonia and hydrogen are promising potential fuels of the future in a de-carbonized shipping industry, which has to switch to alternative, zero carbon fuels in order to meet the targets set out in the initial  International Maritime Organization (IMO) strategy on reduction of GHG emissions from ships, an IMO symposium on sulfur 2020 and alternative fuels heard on Friday (18 October).Setting the scene, IMO's Edmund Hughes said the initial GHG strategy, adopted in 2018, had sent a clear signal that shipping will need to adapt. "We have to change to address global climate change," he said."We have to find new technologies and new fuels if we are to achieve at least 50% reduction in annual GHG emissions from international shipping by 2050


17 Sep 2019

The Poseidon Principles: De-carbonizing Global Shipping

The Poseidon Principles have been established by the Global Maritime Forum and major financial institutions as a framework within which maritime industry stakeholders will work to reduce carbon emissions.

(Photo © Adobe Stock / Paul Vinten)

The Global Maritime Forum, banking institutions and other maritime industry stakeholders have developed the Poseidon Principles, a global agreement among financial institutions with the aim of decarbonizing shipping. Named after the Greek God of the sea, the Poseidon Principles aim to reduce carbon emissions by aligning financial institutions’ shipping portfolios with (IMO target of a 50 percent reduction in emissions by 2050. The global framework will establish a common way of assessing and disclosing whether a bank’s lending portfolio is compatible with broader climate goals.Søren Toft


18 Jun 2019

Being Green: Banks Consider CO2 Emissions in Shipping Loans

© Elnur/AdobeStock

A group of leading banks will for the first time include efforts to cut carbon dioxide emissions in their decision making when providing shipping company loans, executives said on Tuesday.International shipping accounts for 2.2% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and the U.N.'s International Maritime Organization (IMO), has a long-term goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50% from 2008 levels by 2050.Working with non-profit organisations the Global Maritime Forum, the Rocky Mountain Institute and London University's UCL Energy Institute


17 Jun 2019

Banks Impose Emissions Rule in Ship-Finance

Eleven banks with a combined shipping finance portfolio of $100bn will for the first time integrate climate considerations into lending decisions to incentivize maritime shipping's decarbonization.Named 'the Poseidon Principles', the new rules are a global framework for assessing and disclosing the climate alignment of financial institutions' shipping portfolios, said joint press release from Rocky Mountain Institute, Global Maritime Forum and UCL Energy Institute.Founding Signatories include Citi, Societe Generale, DNB, ABN Amro, Amsterdam Trade Bank, Credit Agricole CIB, Danish Ship Finance, Danske Bank, DVB, ING and Nordea, and represent around 20% of the global ship finance portfolio."As banks


27 Oct 2018

Maritime's Push Toward "Net Zero Carbon"

IMO’s 2050 deadline to reduce GHG emissions 50% from 2008 levels has set off a gold rush to develop Zero Emissions SolutionsClimate change is the biggest issue facing [all aspects of] the maritime industry, said Kitak Lim, IMO secretary general, in an interview earlier this year with Maritime Reporter & Engineering News. He predicted that shipping could experience as much change in the next 10 to 20 years as it has in the last 100 years, as the industry races to meet a number of challenges


14 Jul 2016

Finalists of Wind Propulsion Innovations Awards

The International Windship Association (IWSA) has announced the shortlist, selected by shipping industry experts, for the inaugural Wind Propulsion Innovation Awards 2016 and voting is now open to everyone to select the winners in three categories – Innovation, Technology User and Research. The Lifetime Achievement Award is a closed vote for IWSA members. The Awards will be presented at a ceremony at the SMM2016 on 8th September 2016 in Hamburg. The Wind Propulsion Innovation Awards were launched by IWSA to recognise pioneering projects and technological innovation in the development of wind propulsion for technically and commercially viable solutions for different vessels across the maritime industry.

24 Apr 2016

CO2 Emissions for Every Ship for Every Hour!

Researchers at UCL Energy Institute use the methodology they developed for the Third IMO GHG Study 2014 and AIS data to estimate emissions from five different ship types and display this in a new interactive map that plots 250 million data points to show the movements of the world’s commercial shipping fleet over the course of the year 2012. The interactive shipping map has been developed by the UCL Energy Institute and London-based data visualisation and digital journalism studio Kiln, and was funded by the European Climate Foundation. It is based on hundreds of millions of individually recorded ship positions; plotting all of these at once shows the extraordinary extent of modern shipping’s reach.

11 Mar 2016

Intertrac Vision Incorporates Cruise Vessels

Intertrac Vision (Photo: AkzoNobel)

AkzoNobel’s marine coatings business has announced the addition of cruise vessels to Intertrac Vision, its ‘big data’ tool that provides accurate and transparent predictions on the fuel and CO2 savings potential of fouling control coatings, prior to application. The new version of Intertrac Vision brings an increased level of transparency and choice to the cruise sector, enabling AkzoNobel to work consultatively with customers to ensure the most effective and appropriate coatings solution is selected for each vessel within a fleet.

05 Mar 2016

School Students Win Offshore Challenge Prize at UH

Today, a team of eight students from West Side High School in Houston emerged victorious from the first annual High School Offshore and Technology Stars Challenge, which was co-hosted by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) and the Ocean Energy Safety Institute (OESI) at the University of Houston. Other participating schools include Energy Institute High School, Charles H. Milby High School and Young Women’s Preparatory Academy. BSEE Director Brian Salerno welcomed the students to the Technology Challenge, with a strong message of encouragement for the young competitors. “Experts have projected that there will be a workforce need of one million additional science, math and engineering graduates by 2022,” said Salerno.

23 Feb 2016

Carbon War Room Launches Shipping Efficiency Advisory Board

Six leaders and influencers from across the shipping industry will join global NGO Carbon War Room’s (CWR’s) Shipping Operation Advisory Board. Their backgrounds span the shipowning, chartering, technical analysis, finance, and academic worlds. The board will lend extensive industry insight and support CWR’s mission to profitably decarbonise the international shipping industry. Galen Hon, Manager, Shipping Operation, Carbon War Room, commented: "Following UNFCCC in Paris, the industry has an obligation to find new and innovative ways to reduce carbon while remaining competitive. With expertise spanning finance, ship operation, classification, data analysis, technology, and software, these individuals are perfectly positioned to identify and evaluate opportunities for innovation and growth.

23 Feb 2016

CWR Launches Shipping Efficiency Advisory Board

Six leaders and influencers from across the shipping industry will join global NGO Carbon War Room’s (CWR’s) Shipping Operation Advisory Board. Their backgrounds span the shipowning, chartering, technical analysis, finance, and academic worlds. The board will lend extensive industry insight and support CWR’s mission to profitably decarbonise the international shipping industry. Galen Hon, Manager, Shipping Operation, Carbon War Room, commented: "We are thrilled to have gathered a group with so much knowledge and experience in shipping. Following UNFCCC in Paris, the industry has an obligation to find new and innovative ways to reduce carbon while remaining competitive.