While the focus of the
discussion focused on how best to bridge the price gap between conventional and
greener fuels, when quizzed by Splash, the two liner bosses were happy to give
their take on one of the outliers in the future fuels debate.
Habben Jensen’s counterpart at ONE, Nixon, said he
reckoned that green hydrogen would ultimately work out as shipping’s key fuel.
For its creation, vast amounts of electricity would be required, something that
nuclear power could help achieve, he said.
CORE POWER, a UK-based
marine atomic propulsion developer, last year unveiled a concept design for a
nuclear-powered, 2,800 teu boxship using molten salt reactors.
Among CORE POWER’s
more than 60 shipping-related investors is X-Press Feeders, one of the world’s
largest feeder operators.
Floating new nuclear
energy can power the production of the green fuels at either ends of green
corridors and offshore major port areas, Bøe argued.
Nixon and Habben
Jensen were speaking at the unveiling of the WSC’s Green Balance Mechanism
(GBM), a proposal, submitted to IMO ahead of next month’s gathering of the
Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC), designed to address the
industry’s challenge to bridge the price gap between the cleanest fuels and
fossil fuels.
Through the GBM fees
are taken from fossil fuels and allocated to green fuels used, so that the
average cost of fuel is equal.
Habben Jensen warned
that current supplies of greener fuels fall “far short” of what the shipping
industry requires. John Butler, the president of the WSC, said green fuel
suppliers needed to be sent a strong signal, and that the proposed new
mechanism could work as a “rifle shot” to bridge the price gap among
alternative fuels.
Tags: Hapag-Lloyd, IMO, MEPC, ONE