Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Ammonia as an alternative marine fuel

Published: 19 December 2023

BIMCO has collaborated with a group of master’s students at the Technical University of Denmark. Their report presents the outcome of a comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study of Brown Ammonia, Grey Ammonia, Blue Ammonia, Green Ammonia, Very-Low Sulphur Fuel Oil (VLSFO) and Marine Gas Oil (MGO).

The report was authored by four master’s students as part of a five European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) point special course at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) in the Department of Technology, Management and Economics (DTU Management).

Ammonia can be produced using different production pathways for hydrogen. Four different production pathways for hydrogen were investigated in this report:

Brown Ammonia using coal gasification

Grey Ammonia using methane steam reforming

Blue Ammonia using methane steam reforming and industrial carbon capture and storage technologies to mitigate the release of CO₂

Green Ammonia using electrolysis and renewable energy

The LCA study was carried out in 2022, prior to the adoption of the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Guidelines on Life Cycle GHG Intensity of Marine Fuels (LCA Guidelines) (MEPC.376(80)). Therefore, it was carried out in accordance with the ISO standard on Environmental Management – Life Cycle Assessment (ISO 14044:2006).

While climate change impact, ie GHG emissions, may be a good proxy for other environmental impacts, it is crucial to understand a broad range of environmental impacts, such as stratospheric ozone depletion, terrestrial acidification, water eutrophication, ecotoxicity, land use, mineral resource scarcity and water consumption.

Review

Four domain experts reviewed the report and provided their comments as a service to BIMCO.

The review is not a formal critical review in accordance with ISO 14040. The reviewers have provided their comments pro bono and did not have access to inventory data.

The comments can be downloaded at the bottom of the page and are intended as a supplement to the report.

Disclaimer

The report is authored by master’s students, not LCA practitioners. The LCA is based on a limited number of iterations due to the restrictions of the length of the academic course. It has not been critically reviewed according to ISO 14040.

The report may serve as inspiration for the reader. Especially the limitations in section 6.2 and recommendations in section 6.3 may be of interest. Therefore, we have decided to share the report with the public. However, the report should not be taken as a justified comparative LCA and should not be used as a valid LCA by the reader. Therefore, BIMCO has no intention of submitting this to the IMO or for similar purposes.

BIMCO provides no assurance on robustness, precision, completeness and representativeness of the LCA.

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