By: Dr. Franyi Sarmiento, Ph.D., Inspenet, April 13, 2022
Transport & Environment (T&E) has demonstrated, using infrared imaging, how Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) ships “release clouds of unburned methane, a potent greenhouse gas.” According to T&E, European politicians “are playing with fire” by promoting the use of LNG, since “methane has an 80 times greater warming effect on the climate than carbon dioxide” (CO2) over a 20-year period. .
Delphine Gozillon, Head of T&E’s Shipping Department: “Europe hides a dark secret at sea. By promoting LNG ships, Europe’s leaders are irrevocably leading us into a future with a high dependence on this fossil fuel. As green as they are Whatever paints them, most of the LNG-powered ships available on the market today are much more damaging to the climate than the fossil fuel ships they are supposed to replace.”
It is true – reports T&E – that leaks and leaks occur throughout the entire natural gas supply chain, but the case of the use of fossil LNG as maritime fuel is “particularly problematic”, since such losses occur in ship engines. According to these data provided by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), it is estimated that, depending on the type of engine, between 0.2% and more than 3% of fossil gas escapes in the combustion process and is released directly to the atmosphere. For this reason, today “almost 80% of LNG is burned in engines” with worse results in terms of total greenhouse gas emissions than traditional engines that use fuel oil. Proof of this are the columns of gas that are emitted into the sky and remain there for a long time.
The T&E investigation was carried out on a clear November day in the port of Rotterdam – the largest in Europe – using a state-of-the-art infrared camera that has a special filter for the detection of hydrocarbons. Since LNG is typically 90% methane, any unburned fuel that seeps through the engine will be made up mostly of this gas, which contributes to global warming. T&E reports that it has been able to “clearly observe methane emissions in significant amounts from two ships.”
The first of these is the Louvre, a container ship of the French shipping company CMA-CGM powered by LNG. The images that were taken, and that were reviewed by TCHD Consulting —an optical gas imaging consultancy—, “are proof that considerable emissions of unburned hydrocarbons were being released into the atmosphere through its three exhaust stacks, above the boat and even outside the frame of the video”.
The second LNG ship that T&E has been able to track is the Eco-Delta, a dredger that digs and removes sand from the seabed to clear shipping lanes. Again, “unburned and partially burned emissions have been recorded along with the release of methane from two hot exhaust stacks in the forward part of the ship.”
Last year, the European Union proposed carbon intensity targets for marine fuels that would force shipowners to abandon heavy fuel oil, the most widely used marine fuel today. However, as T&E has already warned, “if there are no guarantees of sustainability, this proposal will only contribute to the consolidation of the fossil fuel LNG as the most economical alternative.” Due to this regulatory proposal, a recent T&E analysis has been able to show that “more than two thirds of new vessels could run on LNG from 2025”, which would mean an increase in the share of fossil LNG, “which would go from 6% today to more than a fifth” of all marine fuels in Europe by 2030, thus perpetuating the use of fossil fuels well into the 2040s.
Delphine Gozillon, Head of T&E’s Shipping Department: “We are in the middle of a climate crisis, we cannot afford to put more methane into the atmosphere. Our research is only a small sample, but it should serve as a warning to policy makers: favor the LNG is betting on a losing horse. Instead, we should prioritize 100% green solutions based entirely on green hydrogen.”
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