Bill Gates-led fund backs methanol as green fuel

Green fuels and new engines to burn them could help limit climate-warming emissions from the giant ships that keep the world economy moving.

The shipping industry emitted a record 936 million metric tons of dioxide of carbon in 2021, according to data from BloombergNEF. That’s less than 3% of global CO2 emissions, but still more than Germany, Europe’s largest industrial economy, produces in a year.

Shipbuilders have tried to tackle the problem by making larger and more efficient ships, but the sector’s carbon footprint has continued to rise as global trade grows.

While some companies are now considering imaginative fixes, such as setting up giant kites to catch the wind and power their cargo ships, another possible solution on the horizon is a cleaner-burning fuel called methanol, which can be produced from natural gas. or biomass, or even by combining carbon dioxide with hydrogen. Danish startup Blue World Technologies has just raised €37 million ($36.9 million) from investors including Bill Gates-backed Breakthrough Energy Ventures to help scale up production of a new system that could power large boats with methanol.

It’s possible to simply burn methanol in an engine like petroleum-based fuels, and some cars do just that. But it is more efficient to extract the hydrogen molecules from methanol and run them through a fuel cell. Blue World estimates that using a fuel cell can save up to 30% on fuel compared to a combustion engine.

“The methanol that will be used on those ships in the future will be, at least initially, more expensive, so it will come at an ecological premium,” said Anders Korsgaard, CEO of Blue World. “Our place in the world is to reduce that green premium.”

Using methanol in this way typically means passing it through a device known as a reformer to extract the hydrogen, which is then consumed through the fuel cell.

Blue World has developed a high-temperature fuel cell that can take a mixture of gases directly from the reformer, including trace amounts of carbon monoxide that would spoil a normal commercial cell. Blue World’s process only produces water and carbon dioxide, which can then be compressed, stored, and then combined with hydrogen again to produce more methanol.

Overall, the process could prove to be a cheaper and cleaner way to distribute methanol.

The technology is still at a fairly early stage, with the new investment Blue World will soon be ready to take on large orders. The first stage of its mass-manufacturing site in Aalborg, Denmark, could produce enough fuel cells in a year to power five large container ships. The next step would be to scale up to 10 times that level by 2024, according to Korsgaard.

That scale and the technology itself could make Blue World an interesting opportunity for AP Moller – Maersk A/S. The Danish shipping giant has already earmarked up to $2.1 billion for a dozen methanol-capable ships to be delivered from 2024.

“The reason we chose methanol is that it won’t be too different from what we’re doing today,” Berit Hinnemann, Maersk’s head of green fueling, said in an interview. “We needed to have an impact already in this decade and we found that green methanol is a solution.”

While the first ships will have methanol-burning engines, the company is looking at fuel cells for possible future orders, Hinnemann said. Maersk is interested in the technology because it uses fuel more efficiently. As green sources of methanol are much more expensive than fossil fuels, any efficiencies will be valuable as the industry expands. The company is also looking at the potential of green ammonia, among several new technologies that could play a role in its decarbonization.

The first batch of methanol-burning ships will help Maersk reduce emissions by up to 1.5 million tonnes annually, which is equivalent to about 4% of its total carbon emissions last year. But the company has pledged that all future new-build ships under its ownership will be equipped to use carbon-neutral fuels, as it aims to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. To get there and stay in business, you’ll need much more. carbon boats

“Fuel cells are a technology that we are looking into,” Hinnemann said. “In this space, we will see a lot of innovation.”