Page 8 - Annual Review 2021 full

Indian National Shipowners’ Association

Life Cycle emission of fuels Naturally, the level of GHG emissions varies
The current regulatory framework of IMO is focused according to the fuel source, the cleaning and
on vessel emissions (tank-to-wake) rather than the refining processes and the transportation methods.
overall life-cycle emissions of a given fuel (well- Based on these parameters, the industry has
to-wake). Also, currently only CO2 emission is introduced a color-coding scheme to describe the
considered and no other GHG emissions e.g. different fuels.
methane. However, it is recognized throughout
the industry that the life-cycle carbon footprint of • Grey — refers to the fuels produced from fossil
fuels provides the most complete description of sources without the use of renewable energy or
their environmental impact. It is a high importance carbon emissions-control technologies.
agenda item for MEPC currently since it is required
to establish norm for measuring and establishing • Blue — refers to fuels produced from fossil
life cycle emission of all marine fuels by 2023. sources using carbon emissions-control
technologies, such as carbon capture and
storage / sequestration (CCS).
It is expected that many of the proposals (well-to-
wake life cycle emission of fuel) submitted in MEPC
will become regulations. • Green — refers to fuels produced with
renewable feedstock and renewable energy,
such as wind or solar.
It is important to understand how a fuel is made
with attendant life cycle GHG emission – grey, blue
and green. • Orange — refers to a blend of blue, grey or
green fuels. Such blends can reduce the overall
CO2 emissions without excessive cost.
An accurate calculation of well-to-tank emissions
needs to account for the source of each fuel. Most
of the fuels used currently are derived from fossil This color-coding scheme is expounded in Figures
sources with varying levels of processing and 1 - 3 that show the differences in the production
refinement, whereas a small fraction of the fuels is and supply chains used for grey, green and blue
produced from renewable sources with or without fuels.
the contribution of renewable energy.

Fig. 1 Life cycle of a conventional grey fuel

Figure 1 illustrates the parts of the value chain accounted for in the well-to-tank and tank-to-wake emissions
calculations for grey marine fuels. It represents standard cases of fuel produced from fossil sources using
established cleaning, refining and transportation practices.

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