Decarbonizing the Shipping Industry- An Ambitious Pollution-Prevention Initiative
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The shipping industry, with a focus on the maritime-shipping industry, is a major contributor to pollution of the planet. Nuclear powered ships, including ships powered by Thorium reactors and other ambitious green and clean-energy technology will need to be deployed to meet the ambitious and timely initiative that is cleaning the shipping industry. Amazingly, one containership uses 200 tons of fuel per day, which leads to oceanic and atmospheric pollution we can reduce or eliminate through green and clean-energy sources including alternative fuels and nuclear powered engines.
California has taken the first step towards a timeline and initiative for reducing emissions from the shipping industry. Long Beach is a major port location in California, and in June of 2022 the city council voted to reduce emissions from the shipping industry to zero by 2030. This is incredibly ambitious, and requires buy-in from industry, strategic planning and investment.
To summarize the massive impact shipping has on the planet, there are approximately 50,000 ships moving 90% of traded goods on Earth that contribute 3% of the global climate pollution made by man. Ships that carry our goods rely upon fossil fuels that release pollution and this is cause for concern. No matter your stance on man-created climate change, the pollution released is enough to consider the use of clean-energy source for these ships.
Biofuels, hydrogen fuel, ammonia and other cleaner-burning fuels have been suggested as clean energy sources for cargo ships. Nuclear powered ships may be our best bet for achieving lower pollution targets. Core Power is working to create Thorium-based molten salt reactors to replace the fossil-fuel burning engines currently used on cargo ships. A big positive about MSR fuel is that it is a molten liquid that solidifies in the case of an accident, and the amount of waste generated is miniscule compared to current pollution released from fossil-fuel combustion. My money is on MSR technology as time goes on. Since there are an estimated 50,000 container ships on the oceans today, we will need to invest deeply into MSR builds. In the meantime, we can convert and modify existing containership engines to accept hydrogen fuel, ammonia and biodiesel fuels.
Technologies including solar power, batteries and tidal power may serve a purpose in the future of green-energy cargo ships, but they are not adequate to power a ship through their entire voyage due to their weight and overall inefficiencies.
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