The shipping industry faces a climate crisis reckoning – will it decarbonize?

World's largest shipping company Maersk plans to power new container ships on carbon-neutral methanol but very little of it is produced today

In August, Maersk, the world's largest shipping company, announced that it would add eight new container ships to its fleet that would be unlike any merchant vessels operating on the high seas today. Instead of running on bunker" fuel - the gunky, tar-like substance left behind after oil is refined - Maersk plans to power these ships on carbon-neutral methanol, a colorless liquid made from biomass such as agricultural waste or by combining renewably generated hydrogen with carbon dioxide.

Globally, very little of this green" methanol is produced today and compared with the oil industry waste product most ships run on, the cost is high. Maersk hasn't yet announced a fuel supply for its new fleet but the company hopes that standing up the world's first green methanol-powered fleet will spur the energy sector to significantly ramp up production of clean fuels.