Shipping giant Maersk unveiled the first green methanol-powered vessel in the world. The container ship is the first step for the heavily polluting shipping industry.
Shipping is one of the biggest polluting industries in the world, but Maersk is looking to change that.
The world’s second-largest shipping firm presented the first containership powered with green methanol – an alternative fuel that allows these ships to emit less CO2 compared to traditional vessels.
Vincent Clerc, CEO of Maersk, said: “The ship was ordered only in 2021, and she was really the first of its kind.
“Today, just a couple of years later, we have 125 ships that have been ordered by different companies to actually work on the same technology and the same energy transition,” he added.
Maersk is looking to become carbon neutral by 2040, and methanol-powered vessels will be pivotal to achieving that.
However, green methanol is costly and scarce. Analysts are concerned whether Maersk and other shipping firms will struggle to secure enough supply to achieve their carbon ambitions.
Ulrik Bak, equity research analyst at SEB, said: “What I can hear from the industry and from market participants is that [the production of green methanol] hasn’t ramped up very fast.”
Is powering ships with green methanol the solution to one of the world’s heaviest polluting industries? We head down to Copenhagen to find out.