At the Yacht Club de Monaco alternative fuels take center stage
July 05 2024 - 7:59AM
At the Yacht Club de Monaco alternative fuels take center stage
‘Alternative fuels and advanced yachting technology’. It is the
title of one of the conferences held at the Yacht Club de Monaco
during the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge week, aiming to build the
yachting sector of the future. Sharing the goal of the Monaco
Capital of Advanced Yachting approach, the conference addressed the
questions of technology awareness for the maritime and yachting
industries regarding alternative fuels and advanced state of the
art technologies.
Methanol and its role towards the net zero goal was among the
topics covered from the yachting industry perspective. “At Lürssen
we’ve been looking at alternative fuels for many years and we’ve
looked into different kinds. There are several criteria that are
relevant for alternative fuels such as energy density, safety,
handling and so on. Methanol is the most promising fuel regarding
energy density. It’s very easy in handling and it can be easily
stored in the bottom of the boat. Whereas if you look at hydrogen
it has a reduced energy density and you have to store it in a
cylindrical tank which has to be stored not on the bottom of the
ship so that takes valuable space within the yacht. That is why
we’re going on methanol. Now there’s more or less an understanding
in yachting industry looking at the different engine manufacturers
that are developing engines for methanol”, said Bernhard Urban,
head of development& innovation at Lürssen. “We need to work
together. We need yards, technical partners, but also for yacht
owners and crews to be confident, fuels to be available in ports
and authorities to be fast in defining the regulations”, added
Paolo Bertetti, vice president Technical and R&D at
Sanlorenzo.
Moving forward, the role of nuclear energy in the yachting
sector was also discussed. “It is possible to have a nuclear
reactor on board of a yacht. A different thing is how effective it
is. We started doing research around 10 years ago but for small
reactors we still have to wait. We’ve seen that is possible to
build it in the yacht, which will then be a little bit bigger and a
little bit heavier but, as most of our yachts sail in a limited
time of the year, we think it’s less effective to have a nuclear
reactor on board. The reactor in fact can actually provide 100% of
the time 100% of the power but only a few percent of the time of
the year we use the full power. The rest of the time is for anchor.
So, we think is actually more effective to have a nuclear reactor
on shore or somewhere floating. We would see that coming earlier
and maybe later on if there’s more production of nuclear reactors,
if costs will go down, if safety issues are solved and is accepted
by the general public, maybe in 20-30 years time there’ll be room
for nuclear reactors on board”, said Ronno Schouten, senior
specialist Feadship.
While navigating sustainability, it is important to measure
emissions and to define life cycles. “We’re continuing the
development of the Sea Index and today we launched a collaboration
with the maritime class society ‘RINA’. It is a new
methodology to calculate Co2 emissions based on the bunkering of
the fuel, the choice of the fuel. It's also a future proof
methodology because it can take into consideration biofuels and
different concentrations of those biofuels with a well to wake
approach. We’re really hoping that this methodology, that will
be accessible on our website very soon, will be used by people and
also to see the impact depending on the type of fuel that has been
chosen”, said Natalie Quévert, Sea Index head of project.
For more information:Press Office LaPresse -
ufficio.stampa@lapresse.it
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at
https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/84106899-705d-40eb-b191-b228bc7a9b87
A video accompanying this announcement is available
at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f07941c2-a4c6-4f09-a978-4e33dac8ffda