PUBLISHED SEP 20, 2021 6:02 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

The world could commence large scale production of green hydrogen sooner than expected after researchers in Australia discovered what they described as a “gamechanger” catalyst in hydrogen production.

Researchers at Curtin University said they have identified a new, cheaper and more efficient electrocatalyst that can facilitate the making of green hydrogen from water. If confirmed, this breakthrough could open new avenues for large-scale production of the clean energy.

Green hydrogen is being touted as the fuel of the future for the maritime industry, which faces intense pressure to decarbonize in the coming decades. The industry accounts for approximately one-quarter of all emissions from the global transportation sector, emitting nearly one billion tons of CO2 annually.

According to Curtin researchers, scientists have typically been using precious metal catalysts such as platinum to accelerate the reaction to break water into hydrogen and oxygen.

However, they have found out that adding nickel and cobalt to cheaper, previously ineffective catalysts enhances their performance, which lowers the energy required to split the water and increases the yield of hydrogen.

“Our research essentially saw us take two-dimensional iron-sulfur nanocrystals, which don’t usually work as catalysts for the electricity-driven reaction that gets hydrogen from water, and add small amounts of nickel and cobalt ions. When we did this it completely transformed the poor-performing iron-sulfur into a viable and efficient catalyst,” said Dr Guohua Jia, lead researcher from Curtin’s School of Molecular and Life Sciences.

He added the discovery could have far-reaching implications for sustainable green fuel generation in the future. Utilizing more abundant materials wpuld be cheaper and more efficient than the current benchmark material, ruthenium oxide, which is derived from the  ruthenium element.

“Our findings not only broaden the existing “palette” of possible particle combinations, but also introduce a new, efficient catalyst that may be useful in other applications. It also opens new avenues for future research in the energy sector, putting Australia at the forefront of renewable and clean energy research and applications,” he noted.

Dr Jia said the next steps would be to expand and test the team’s work on a larger scale to test its commercial viability.

Green hydrogen is one of the three available production paths for this fuel. Conventional gray hydrogen is produced from steam reformation of natural gas or syngas, and it is highly carbon-intensive. Blue hydrogen is produced in the same process, but with the addition of carbon capture, utilization and storage technology to remove most of the CO2 from the exhaust stream.

Despite the cost challenges of making green hydrogen at scale, many researchers believe that green hydrogen is the most promising clean fuel option for the global shipping industry, which has been given targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2050.

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PUBLISHED SEP 20, 2021 6:17 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

Cruising resumed from New Orleans this weekend as the ports of southern Louisiana continue to work to recover from Hurricane Ida that left a part of damage across the region less than a month ago. The resumption of cruising, which was the first since the onset of the pandemic in 2020, is seen as another step forward for the regional economy and recovery for the region.

Carnival Cruise Line had scheduled the resumption of cruising for the beginning of the month but delayed two weeks due to the impact of the hurricane. The Carnival Glory cruise ship rode out the storm in the Gulf of Mexico and then was used to provide emergency housing for recovery workers. The 110,000 gross ton cruise ship began its first revenue 7-day cruise from New Orleans to the Bahamas on September 19.

“Carnival Cruise Line has been a part of the New Orleans community for more than 25 years and we’re absolutely thrilled to provide our guests an opportunity to get ‘Back to Fun,’ while supporting the local economy in one of our most popular homeports,” said Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line.

The Carnival Glory returned to cruising as an extensive refit carried out in Europe, which included the addition of the company’s new red, white and blue livery for its ships. She became the company’s eleventh cruise ship to return to service. Half of Carnival’s cruise ships have returned to service with the phased-in returns scheduled to continue into early 2022. On November 1, the Carnival Valor will join the Carnival Glory in New Orleans resuming short cruises and combined Carnival Cruise Line expects to carry 400,000 passengers annually from New Orleans.

While the return of the first cruise ship was seen as a positive development, several south Louisiana ports also partnered to request federal assistance to aid in the recovery from the impacts of Hurricane Ida on their infrastructure, waterways, and communities. The Ports of New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Fourchon, Morgan City, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, South Louisiana, and Terrebonne formally submitted a request to President Biden to ensure ports are included in bills for urgent funding from Congress.

According to the ports, critical impacts to maritime facilities and infrastructure include damage and extended closures of grain terminals and ongoing extended closure of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway between Morgan City and New Orleans, resulting in four- to five-day delays for barge tows and shallow-water traffic. There was also damage sustained to maritime communication systems and pilot stations on the Lower Mississippi River, extended outages of four of nine oil refineries on the Lower Mississippi River, power grid failures resulting in ongoing delays for restarting critical operations, and an increasing resulting need for sufficient back-up power generating systems for maritime infrastructure.

“The Port of New Orleans and New Orleans Public Belt Railroad are resilient and strong. Our wharves are busy post storm and trains are moving, but we still have challenges to overcome in order to get back to previous levels,” said Brandy D. Christian, President and CEO of Port NOLA and CEO of NOPB. “To restore this economic engine fully and preserve the thousands of jobs that depend on it, we respectfully ask that the White House urgently request funding from Congress to address these issues as soon as possible to help us collectively move forward from these significant impacts.”

The Lower Mississippi River from Baton Rouge to the Gulf is one of the busiest port complexes in the world, with approximately 6,000 oceangoing ships annually transiting the river and handling 60 percent of the nation’s export grain and 20 percent of its energy.

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Australia may need to fill a capability gap in the 2030s-40s, and its domestic supply chain may have trouble gearing up

PUBLISHED SEP 20, 2021 6:47 PM BY THE STRATEGIST

[By Andrew Davies]

I’ll admit to being surprised when Australia announced the termination of the deal with Naval Group to build the Attack-class submarines. Not because I thought that shouldn’t happen—I’m on the record as saying that it looked like a seriously risky project from the start—but because it’s so rare for Defence and governments to resist the sunk-cost fallacy. But if the Attack class couldn’t be made to work, then it would be scandalous to add to the estimated several billion dollars already spent on the program.

The Attack program timeline was also a concern, because the clock is ticking on the Collins class. Given the proposed level of complexity of the Attack class, further schedule overruns were likely. The Collins life-of-type extension—which is not without its own technical challenges—was proposed to buy time, but a disastrous capability gap between classes was a real prospect. There was a clear potential for a collapse in Australia’s submarine capability. We had already gone through that when transitioning from the Oberon to the Collins, and spent the next 15 years recovering.

Last week’s announcement does nothing to improve the prospective capability gap—and potentially makes it much worse. The design of a new class of nuclear attack submarine (SSN) isn’t an exercise that can be rushed, and there’s no established ability of Australian shipyards to build one, or of local industry to support one. No timeline has been specified as yet, other than the prime minister’s ‘hope’ that it will be before the end of the 2030s. But a delivery date somewhere on the other side of 2040 would seem more likely if we try to produce a bespoke Australian boat.

Given that the stated reason for the change of direction is our deteriorating strategic circumstances today, the disconnect is astonishing. If we’re serious about the role of a robust submarine capability in defending Australia’s interests, we need to find another way. I’ve had a couple of cracks at pitching a way ahead for the acquisition of the future submarines, with Sean Costello in 2009, and with Mark Thomson in 2014. Sean and I attracted some criticism for our ‘inflated’ estimate of a $36 billion price tag back then; now we look charmingly naive.

Those two papers—both titled ‘How to buy a submarine’—identified many of the challenges of risk identification and management in complex programs and pointed out the difficulties likely to ensue from the creation of a shipyard monopoly. Alas, the advice we proffered was trumped by the conspiracy of optimism that pervades the Department of Defence and by the politics of local shipyards.

In practice, Australia’s defence acquisition process has repeatedly shown itself to be very poor at recognising technical risk—see the technical and design issues surrounding the Hunter-class frigates and LAND 400 vehicles for the most recent examples. And successive governments have convinced themselves that supporting in-country naval shipbuilding makes it acceptable to slow down the delivery of defence capability, while paying more for it in the process. As a result, we have now lost a decade on the replacement for the Collins class and have the prospect of underemployed shipyards for the next several years.

But they say that the third time’s a charm, so let me suggest a couple of complementary approaches that might help sustain a national submarine capability and avoid the repeating of recent misadventures.

First, we need to accept now that the timelines mean that there’s no graceful transition from the Collins to a fleet of nuclear submarines. If Australia’s first SSN is launched in 2040, HMAS Collins will be 47 years old at the time, and already past a 10-year extension. Arriving at 2040 with few—or even no—operational submarines becomes a serious possibility.

So we are going to need a bridging capability. One option is leased nuclear submarines from the US or UK, though our dependence on the supplier for support and operation would reduce our ability to conduct independent operations. The other option is yet another acquisition, in the form of either an off-the-shelf boat or a Collins II design that draws on the engineering work done for the life-of-type extension. That would add more expense and consume more of Defence’s scarce engineering and project-management resources, but it would also allow the designing and building of the nuclear boats to be done in a measured fashion, and for the necessary Australian support infrastructure and skills base to be developed and matured.

Second, we need to take a hard-headed approach to the nuclear boats. We’re trying to become the first country in the world to operate SSNs without a domestic nuclear industry. That may be possible, but it suggests that we would be prudent to limit our ambitions for both innovation in design and industrial independence. It will make sense to maximise our leverage of the support capabilities of our UK and US partners in the enterprise and aim to acquire the most turn-key solution we can find, even if that results in less work for local industry.

If we learn nothing else from the Attack-class fiasco, we should accept that our collective ability to identify and manage project risk is poor. We’re about to embark on something that’s even more challenging in almost every respect and the risk of failure is high, so we should check our optimism at the door.

Andrew Davies is a senior fellow at ASPI and former director of ASPI’s defence and strategy program.

This article appears courtesy of ASPI’s The Strategist blog, and it may be found in its original form here. 

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PUBLISHED SEP 20, 2021 1:52 AM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

Last week, NGO Shipbreaking Platform warned of the need for enhanced safety measures in the ship recycling industry due to rising numbers of fatal accidents and injuries. With seven workers dying while dismantling vessels in Bangladesh and Turkey in less than two months, the industry must prioritize the safety of workers and the protection of the environment, according to the organization.

In Bangladesh, five workers were killed and three severely injured in seven separate accidents on the shipbreaking beaches of Chattogram. The fatalities were caused by explosions, falls from height, falling steel plates and exposure to toxic fumes.

NGO Shipbreaking Platform Project Officer Sara Rita da Costa said the series of accidents in Chattogram shows a lack of responsibility by shipping companies, as they continue to sell their end-of-life vessels to be broken under well-known dangerous conditions. It also shows the limited ability of the Bangladeshi government to regulate the industry.

“Bangladeshi authorities need to face their responsibility to protect their citizens’ rights and ensure the effective enforcement of the law. Business profits can no longer be privileged at the expense of human lives,” said da Costa.

In Turkey, two workers are reported to have lost their lives when a rope broke during dismantling operations last weekend. The accident occurred at Metas ship recycling yard, where two workers were killed in another accident less than two months ago.

“The death of now four workers at Metas ship recycling yard raises serious concerns that vital occupational safety measures have been neglected,” said Ingvild Jenssen, NGO Shipbreaking Platform’s Executive Director.

Since 2009, a total of 7,073 shipped have been beached for breaking, primarily in South Asia countries, causing 410 deaths and 320 injuries. Bangladesh, alongside India and Pakistan, remains the leading destination for end-of-life vessel sales. In 2020, nearly 90 percent of the world’s scrapped tonnage was dismantled on the beach in these three countries. Last year, at least 10 workers lost their lives when breaking apart vessels in Bangladesh alone, with another 14 severely injured.

To address longstanding concerns about work practices in South Asia, NGO Shipbreaking Platform advocates for an end to beaching, a transition to dry-dock operations, compliance with health and safety standards and proper management of hazardous wastes from end-of-life ships.

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Seven months ago, Maersk CEO Soren Skou touted Q4 2020 as “the best quarter ever.” Announcing the initial outlook for this year on Feb. 10, he said the best-case scenario “would basically mean for us to do four times what we did in the fourth quarter.”

That outlook has long since been left in the dust. On Thursday, Maersk revised its numbers skyward yet again.

The second half is now looking even more profitable for ocean carriers — and more ominous for cargo shippers — than the first. But the second half may not be the peak: A new forecast from Deutsche Bank argues that container shipping has entered a “super cycle” and ocean carriers will actually rake in more money in 2022 than they will this year.

According to Stifel analyst Ben Nolan, “Container craziness should abate, although we expect not until sometime later next year or perhaps even in 2023.”

Maersk upgrades guidance — again

In February, Maersk announced full-year guidance for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $8.5 billion-$10.5 billion. The high end of the range was roughly quadruple Q4 2020 EBITDA of $2.7 billion.

After the first quarter came in better than the fourth, Maersk upgraded its 2021 guidance to $13 billion-$15 billion. By early August, it was clear that the third quarter would be better than the second, thus another upgrade, to $18 billion-$19.5 billion.

Maersk said Thursday that it expects 2021 EBITDA of $22 billion-$23 billion. The new midpoint is 137% higher than the February midpoint.

Maersk’s first-half EBITDA was $9.1 billion. It now foresees second-half EBITDA of $12.9 billion-$13.9 billion.

Record monthly revenues for Evergreen

Another signal on second-half strength comes from Taiwan-based ocean carrier Evergreen, which publicly reports monthly operating revenues.

Evergreen’s operating revenues hit all-time highs during the past two months: 45.88 billion New Taiwan dollars (NT$), the equivalent of $1.65 billion, in July, and NT$50.02 billion last month ($1.8 billion).

Evergreen took in almost as much in the first two months of the third quarter as it did in the entire second quarter.

Deutsche Bank makes ‘super cycle’ call

On Monday, U.K.-based Deutsche Bank Andy Chu published an exceptionally bullish report on container shipping.

“We are moving to the view that earnings will peak in 2022, not this year,” wrote Chu. “We feel that there is a material positive surprise to 2022 and 2023 forecasts [for carriers] that is yet to be factored into consensus forecasts.”

In May, Chu had expected that “supply chain disruption and port disruption trends would begin to improve … which would drive down spot rates.”

“However, since that time, what has become apparent to us is that not only do we now see container demand being stronger for a longer period of time, but the supply chain issues and port congestion issues are deteriorating and not improving,” said Chu. “Given the high amount of port congestion and lingering nature of COVID-19, we think that these issues will not be quickly resolved.”

Deutsche Bank hiked its 2021 EBITDA outlook for Maersk to $22.18 billion (prior to the carrier’s latest upward revision) and now believes Maersk will make even more money next year: $23.77 billion.

Deutsche Bank sees the same pattern of rising profits for Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd, which has an internal outlook (as of late July) for 2021 EBITDA of $9.2 billion-$11.2 billion. It forecasts Hapag-Lloyd will earn $11.54 billion this year and even more — $11.88 billion — next year.

Click for more articles by Greg Miller

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How high can container shipping profits go? Will 2022 top 2021?