Overcoming Challenges in the Alternative Fuels Transition

The maritime industry is at crossroads as we are facing the transition from traditional heavy fuel oils to alternative fuels like LNG, methanol, ammonia and hydrogen.  Very strict environmental regulations and efforts to control greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions make this transition obligatory.  Yet it has a host of challenges, both technical, economic, regulatory as well as human.

This paper aims at examining the barriers through analysis of current literature and empirical studies in order to propose ways forward.

At the center of our discussion is the question:  What are some of the effective ways that can be used by maritime industry to overcome these constraints?  Our analysis shows that even though the maritime industry has made strides over the past years in adapting to new regulations, there are numerous difficulties concerning adoption of alternative fuels due to their complexity related to activities of the maritime industry.  In contrast to prior works only concentrated on potential cost and GHG benefits, this study will take a wider outlook by including both approaches from a technical perspective as well as views from a general perspective.

View full academic article here.