Green maritime consortium to use blockchain in biofuel pilot – Ledger Insights

Last week, the Global Center for Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD) announced that it is leading a consortium of 18 companies in a pilot project to trial biofuels for marine fuel. Blockchain startup and traceability BunkerTrace is responsible for the tracking. The maritime industry is currently a bigger contributor to global carbon emissions than the aviation sector.

“By facilitating and creating an optimized drop-in green fuel supply chain, this pilot will help shape national and international standards for biofuel bunkering and lower the barrier to wider use to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions,” says Professor Lynn Loo, CEO of GCMD.

The latest statistics show that the maritime sector accounts for 2.9% of carbon emissions compared to 2.4% for the aviation sector. However, the streaks left in the sky by aircraft – contrails – have a far more dramatic impact on global warming than CO2 emissions. It is estimated that contrails’ current warming impact is greater than the impact of all the CO2 ever emitted by aircraft. Both the aviation and maritime sectors are predicted to expand significantly in the coming decades, so something needs to be done about the fuel used.

Biofuels are seen as a short-term solution because they can be put into use by ships with minimal changes and impact. During the tests, 12 ships will use mixed fuel at the ports of Singapore, Rotterdam and Houston. Up to 30% of the blended fuel will be biofuels such as hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) and fatty acid methyl esters (FAME).

But there is a need for some measurement and tracking of quantity, quality and impact on greenhouse gas emissions. The GCMD pilot aims to come up with an insurance framework.

“A number of biofuels and biofuel blends have already been successfully tested, but this comprehensive pilot can help address remaining uncertainties about how these fuels work in practice by gaining extensive end-user operational experience with products involving FAME and HVO, and hopefully also raw algae oil,” said Unni Einemo, director of the International Bunker Industry Association (IBIA).

BunkerTrace’s solution uses synthetic DNA tracing to trace marine fuels, combined with blockchain. Synthetic DNA is added to marine fuels at various stages in the supply chain. The blockchain ledger records every transaction in the supply chain and tracks the fuel’s journey as it changes hands along with quality tests.

“Blockchain and DNA-powered fuel tracking and tracing is a far more accurate and transparent way to monitor fuel than we’ve seen before, and sets the bar for future fuel tracking and tracing,” said Deanna MacDonald, co-founder and CEO, BunkerTrace.

While there may be a consortium for this project, it is more of a marine biofuels collaboration than a blockchain consortium.

London-based BunkerTrace first trialled its solution as a joint venture in 2018, became an independent company in 2019 and launched the solution that year. Recently, FuelTrust has launched a blockchain solution for tracking and calculating greenhouse gas emissions over the lifetime of a ship.