The Danish television programme 21 Søndag focused on the production of green fuels for shipping in its broadcast on DR on 11 February 2024, based on calculations we provided. The main finding: building up the production of green fuels and the supply lines to support green shipping is a huge undertaking.
DR used Ane Mærsk, a brand new container ship that can run on green methanol, as its example. Our calculations show that producing enough green methanol to keep Ane Mærsk sailing for a year needs the electricity output of a solar park the size of the one at Kassø in southern Jutland, the largest in northern Europe. Maersk aims to have 25 percent of its fleet sailing on green fuels by 2030, which, if the power came from solar parks in Denmark, would need around 120 parks the size of Kassø.
Using the Danish Energy Agency’s technology catalogue as the basis for our calculations, we worked out the area needed for six different green fuel production routes: first generation biofuel, second generation biofuel, a mix of the two, solar power in Denmark, solar power in Morocco, and offshore wind in the North Sea. We expressed the results as a share of areas including Denmark, Falster, Langeland, Horns Rev 3, Morocco, Denmark’s agricultural land, the Bhadla Solar Park in India and the Amazon, for fuelling Ane Mærsk alone, 25 percent of Maersk’s fleet, its entire fleet, and all of international shipping.
Because large scale green methanol production on solar power is unlikely to be built in Denmark, where solar is less efficient than further south, we also calculated the land a facility in Morocco would need: a 254 hectare solar park there would produce as much power as Kassø’s 326 hectares. Fuelling 25 percent of Maersk’s fleet from Moroccan solar would need parks covering 60 percent of Falster, rising to two and a half times Falster’s area for the whole fleet by 2040, or, measured against the Bhadla Solar Park in India, 22 parks that size for the fleet and almost 740 for all international shipping.
Supplying all international shipping with green methanol from offshore wind would need around 3,290 wind farms the size of Horns Rev 3, one of the world’s most efficient. On first generation biofuel from soybeans, international shipping would need an area over half the size of the Amazon harvested every year; on second generation biofuel from soy straw, Maersk’s fleet alone would need an area more than twice the size of Denmark, and the world’s fleet almost 74 times Denmark’s area.
The full calculations, covering all six production routes and area comparisons, are available as an open Excel workbook, and the results were featured in DR’s television and online coverage of the green shipping transition.
Client: Not applicable (media collaboration with DR)
Reference: Featured on DR’s 21 Søndag, 11 February 2024
Collaborators: Not stated on the existing page
EML team: Kenneth Karlsson, Ida Græsted Jensen
Budget: Not stated on the existing page
Duration: February 2024
Model: Danish Energy Agency technology catalogue