Report shows marine renewables unlikely to scale in absence of cost competitiveness
In Denmark, the Maersk McKinsey Moller Center for Zero Marine Shipping issued a report showing how owner-emissions energy carriers for hard-to-abate sectors like shipping are available but unlikely to scale in the absence of regulations that make them cost-competitive. This has led to some criticism of potential greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations for shipping on the grounds that insufficient lower-emissions energy will be available.
This analysis tests whether global supply of biomethane, a well-established energy carrier that is technologically mature and compatible with existing infrastructure, could credibly scale up to meet regulated demand.
They specifically test this using the draft International Maritime Organization Net-Zero Framework (IMO NZF) as a benchmark. While the NZF remains under discussion, it proxies many plausible and increasingly likely regulatory pathways for shipping and other hard-to-abate sectors.
Biomethane could provide a sizable share of the shipping sector’s early compliance response if the right regulatory conditions are in place. The MMMCZMS estimates total NZF-induced unconstrained demand for low-emissions fuel in 2030 is equivalent to around 30 billion cubic meters (bcm) of biomethane. (Note that this number refers to the volume that would be needed if biomethane met the entire NZF-induced unconstrained demand. Realized uptake will be lower, bounded by the methane-capable fleet, bunkering infrastructure, and cross-sector competition.)
It estimates that global biomethane supply could reach around 21 bcm in a ‘base’ case and 52 bcm in a policy-driven ‘max’ case by 2030. Both figures remain far below the global technical potential reported by the International Energy Agency (IEA), which suggests the main constraints are infrastructure, certification, regulation, and access to gas and LNG value chains rather than underlying biomass feedstock scarcity.
Certification requirements have a crucial role to play. Without globally recognized mass balancing, shipping would likely have to rely on physically segregated biomethane supply chains, which are difficult and costly to scale. At present, however, mass-balance accounting remains a key hurdle and would require further regulatory clarity.
Conditional on these enabling factors, the analysis shows the scale of energy available under plausible assumptions from this energy carrier is substantial and can support abatement. However, shipping will likely be in competition with other sectors for the same molecules. Greater willingness to pay from other sectors could undermine shipping’s access to this source of abatement.
Grid-adjacent feedstock availability is not the binding constraint before 2030. Instead, the key question is whether shipping can access this broader gas-based system through a certified mass-balancing framework.
Category: Fuels
