Episode 'U' for Upolu: Decarbonising Global Shipping with Jenny Ruffell Smith

That's correct.

And I think maritime decarbonization has lots of different lenses to it.

I mean, it can be, say, simple, but it's not simple as operational efficiency.

So having the data to understand, you know, what is your usual decarbonization? you know, trade route look like? How much fuel are you burning? Is there any way to be more efficient when you do burn it? Is it possible that there's a faster route that you could be taking? There's all sorts of little things that you could be doing.

Then it sort of moves to more what kind of hull paint could you put on your ship, you know, to make it more efficient so that she glides through the water easier and therefore has less drag.

You could put sails on ships as, you know, we've been seeing wind propulsion is Coming back, there's already over 100 vessels out there that have sails back on them.

And then, of course, we look longer term from there.

So at GMF, with the team that I work in, we were very much working with the first movers around the clean fuels.

So there's all the operational efficiencies, as I mentioned, that you can look at initially.

But then where does that take you to? It takes you part of the journey to reducing emissions and getting to net zero by 2050.

But it doesn't take you the whole way.

And this is where alternative fuels play a role.

So you can have drop in fuels, um, biofuels initially as well, that sort of, you know, to continue to take that on that, take you on that journey without too much change, you know, to your vessels.

And then you can look at, um, alternative fuels that like LNG.

Um, I know this is sometimes, uh, um, A topic that both sides don't always agree on, but at the end of the day, it is a fuel that does reduce emissions.

But really, the fuels that are going to reduce emissions are going to be the ones like ammonia or methanol.

There are lots of different fuels out there, which is why I think this is so complex, is because we don't have one silver bullet fuel for the future for shipping.

We have lots of different options.

And so for us at GMF and with the team, as I mentioned, that we work and we're very much working with the first movers on sort of that long term thinking where what fuel do we need to use and in what vessel and what trade route that makes the most sense.

And this is why you're never going to hear about just one of them either is because not everyone.

all of these fuels work for the trade lanes or the vessels that we're looking at as well.

This is why it's been such a mix.

So it's very complex, but it's also very interesting at the same time as to sort of, yeah, looking forward.

So I remember last year at COP30 in Belém in Brazil, the Australian mining company Fortescue actually brought a vessel to that COP and as a sort of an exhibition of what, and I think it was called the Green Pioneer.

Can you just tell us what was that all about? What were they displaying? What was the fuel source that they were using for that vessel?

That's correct.

And I think maritime decarbonization has lots of different lenses to it.

I mean, it can be, say, simple, but it's not simple as operational efficiency.

So having the data to understand, you know, what is your usual decarbonization? you know, trade route look like? How much fuel are you burning? Is there any way to be more efficient when you do burn it? Is it possible that there's a faster route that you could be taking? There's all sorts of little things that you could be doing.

Then it sort of moves to more what kind of hull paint could you put on your ship, you know, to make it more efficient so that she glides through the water easier and therefore has less drag.

You could put sails on ships as, you know, we've been seeing wind propulsion is Coming back, there's already over 100 vessels out there that have sails back on them.

And then, of course, we look longer term from there.

So at GMF, with the team that I work in, we were very much working with the first movers around the clean fuels.

So there's all the operational efficiencies, as I mentioned, that you can look at initially.

But then where does that take you to? It takes you part of the journey to reducing emissions and getting to net zero by 2050.

But it doesn't take you the whole way.

And this is where alternative fuels play a role.

So you can have drop in fuels, um, biofuels initially as well, that sort of, you know, to continue to take that on that, take you on that journey without too much change, you know, to your vessels.

And then you can look at, um, alternative fuels that like LNG.

Um, I know this is sometimes, uh, um, A topic that both sides don't always agree on, but at the end of the day, it is a fuel that does reduce emissions.

But really, the fuels that are going to reduce emissions are going to be the ones like ammonia or methanol.

There are lots of different fuels out there, which is why I think this is so complex, is because we don't have one silver bullet fuel for the future for shipping.

We have lots of different options.

And so for us at GMF and with the team, as I mentioned, that we work and we're very much working with the first movers on sort of that long term thinking where what fuel do we need to use and in what vessel and what trade route that makes the most sense.

And this is why you're never going to hear about just one of them either is because not everyone.

all of these fuels work for the trade lanes or the vessels that we're looking at as well.

This is why it's been such a mix.

So it's very complex, but it's also very interesting at the same time as to sort of, yeah, looking forward.

So I remember last year at COP30 in Belém in Brazil, the Australian mining company Fortescue actually brought a vessel to that COP and as a sort of an exhibition of what, and I think it was called the Green Pioneer.

Can you just tell us what was that all about? What were they displaying? What was the fuel source that they were using for that vessel?