EMINENT shipping economist Martin Stopford, non-executive president of London's Clarkson Research, has high hopes that global decarbonisation will be made far less painful through innovation, reports Singapore's Splash 247.
'I'm very confident we're going to find a few Elon Musks kicking around somewhere,' Dr Stopford told the Asian Logistics, Maritime and Aviation Conference.
On a panel during Hong Kong Maritime Week, Dr Stopford, pointed out how previous big shifts in shipping technology had come about thanks to pioneering leaders such as Alfred Holt who transformed the industry from sail to steam, or the East Asiatic Line president who moved shipping from steam to diesel 110 years ago and Malcom McLean's invention of the shipping container in the 1950s.
The crucial difference today with decarbonisation compared to the previous changes is that they were all driven by economics while today's challenge is driven by bureaucratic activism.
With constraints driven by tech R&D and shipyard output, shipping will need to focus heavily on retrofits in the coming decade, Dr Stopford said.
The dynamics of supply and demand will be a massive problem and there has to be some sort of retrofitting.
Ships ordered today still use 'fairly conventional technology' he said, saying LNG propulsion is 'just scraping the surface'.
It will take through until the end of the decade before owners can have confidence to use hydrogen and ammonia technology in deepsea trades, he said.
The problem with this time lag, r Stopford said, is that there will be enormous pent up demand for these new ship types as replacement tonnage by 2030 and yet shipyards can only deliver a few per cent of the extant fleet a year, he said.
'The dynamics of supply and demand will be a massive problem and there has to be some sort of retrofitting,' Dr Stopford said. 'When we build a ship today we need to build it to be retrofitted.'
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'I'm very confident we're going to find a few Elon Musks kicking around somewhere,' Dr Stopford told the Asian Logistics, Maritime and Aviation Conference.
On a panel during Hong Kong Maritime Week, Dr Stopford, pointed out how previous big shifts in shipping technology had come about thanks to pioneering leaders such as Alfred Holt who transformed the industry from sail to steam, or the East Asiatic Line president who moved shipping from steam to diesel 110 years ago and Malcom McLean's invention of the shipping container in the 1950s.
The crucial difference today with decarbonisation compared to the previous changes is that they were all driven by economics while today's challenge is driven by bureaucratic activism.
With constraints driven by tech R&D and shipyard output, shipping will need to focus heavily on retrofits in the coming decade, Dr Stopford said.
The dynamics of supply and demand will be a massive problem and there has to be some sort of retrofitting.
Ships ordered today still use 'fairly conventional technology' he said, saying LNG propulsion is 'just scraping the surface'.
It will take through until the end of the decade before owners can have confidence to use hydrogen and ammonia technology in deepsea trades, he said.
The problem with this time lag, r Stopford said, is that there will be enormous pent up demand for these new ship types as replacement tonnage by 2030 and yet shipyards can only deliver a few per cent of the extant fleet a year, he said.
'The dynamics of supply and demand will be a massive problem and there has to be some sort of retrofitting,' Dr Stopford said. 'When we build a ship today we need to build it to be retrofitted.'
SeaNews Turkey
