Webinar: 'The Journey to Net Zero - Improved Vessel Efficiency & Sustainability' Future Fuels: Viability of low carbon Fuels and green technologies for shipping by Mercator Media

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About This Webinar

The theme of Webinar 1 is Future Fuels: Viability of low carbon fuels and green technologies for shipping.

The Net-Zero challenge needs a global effort across all sectors to achieve its objectives. Although energy saving technologies can help us to reduce emissions the hot topic and single greatest impact can be made through the introduction of future zero/low carbon fuels. Unfortunately, there is no clear silver bullet or single replacement for fossil fuels, instead there is a complex matrix of compromises from any replacement fuel solution.

New energy solutions create a myriad of challenges and risks to ship designers that all need to be considered and mitigated. In this talk we will outline a range of different future fuels being considered by the maritime industry, we will hear from some of the latest cutting-edge academic research and hear how engine manufacturers are looking at near term solutions as well as long term developments. Please join us to explore the complex but promising world of future maritime fuels.

Agenda

Tim Currass - Welcome and introduction
Dr. Thomas Beard - High level overview of the alternative fuels & their implications
Prof. Agustin Valera Medina - Global research to understand the features of ammonia blends.
Rachel Bridges - Hydrogen combustion engine and hydrogen fuel cell technology.
Panel discussion and Q&A

Presenters

Tim Currass - Moderator

Programme Director, SMI

Tim Currass is the Programme Director at the Society of Maritime Industries. He is also Director of the Maritime Defence and Security Group Council and Digital Technology Group Council. He joined SMI in November 2019.
Prior to joining SMI Tim enjoyed a 33-year career as an Engineer Officer in the Royal Navy. His last job in the Service was as a Captain in Navy Command responsible for Above Water capability development and was the Royal Navy lead for the National Shipbuilding Strategy.
Since joining SMI he has been closely involved in the further development of the National Shipbuilding Strategy, over-seeing its broadening beyond its initial focus on naval shipbuilding to encompass the commercial, workboats and leisure sectors also.

Dr. Thomas Beard

Senior Analysis Engineer, BMT

Dr. Thomas Beard is a chartered engineer and the clean maritime/alternative fuels lead for Defence at BMT. He has a PhD in Hydrogen Safety from Loughborough University, following this he has spent several years in industry working on a variety of aspects of ship and submarine design and build. He is a member of the two UK maritime hydrogen working groups and is on the steering group for a research program on ammonia in maritime. He has published and presented numerous papers on the topic of alternative fuels for maritime and naval platforms.

Prof. Agustin Valera-Medina

Director Net Zero Innovation Institute, Cardiff University

Agustin Valera-Medina is a Professor at Cardiff School of Engineering, U.K. He has participated as PI/Co-I in 31 industrial projects with multinationals including PEMEX, Rolls-Royce, Siemens, Ricardo, Airbus, and BP, attracting approximately £13M in research.
He has published 215 papers (h-index 31), 75 of these specifically concerning ammonia power. He has supervised 27 PhD students, 9 on ammonia-related topics. Prof. Valera-Medina led Cardiff’s contribution to the Innovate-UK “Decoupled Green Energy” Project (2015–2018) led by Siemens and in partnership with STFC and the University of Oxford, which aimed to demonstrate the use of green ammonia produced from wind energy.
He is currently PI of the project SAFE-AGT (EP/T009314/1, £1.9M) to demonstrate the use of ammonia as an efficient gas turbine fuel. He leads the combustion work package of the H2020 project FLEXnCONFU (884157), a €12.7M project conceived to demonstrate ammonia power in large turbine engines. He is co-leader of MariNH3 (£6M) UKRI program grant to develop and demonstrate ammonia fuelling marine engines.
He is also PI and co-I of projects related to ammonia for transportation, propulsion, and heat/cooling. He has been part of various scientific boards, chairing sessions in international conferences and moderating large industrial panels on the topic of “Ammonia for Direct Use.” Prof Valera-Medina Prof has supported the preparation of the Royal Society Policy Briefings “Green Ammonia” on the use of ammonia as energy vector. He is main author of the book 'Techno-economic challenges of ammonia as energy vector' (Elsevier) and is currently Director of the Net Zero Innovation Institute at Cardiff University.

Rachel L Bridges, Director & General Manager

Global Marine, Cummins

Rachel Bridges has been the Global Marine Director at Cummins Inc. since 2019. She has spent her entire 22-year career at Cummins in the Marine segment in a variety of roles involving sales, marketing, product development and planning. She has an undergraduate degree in Marketing & Economics from Charleston Southern University and an MBA from Indiana University Kelley School of Business. An American citizen by birth, she currently resides in the UK, based in the Southwest. Rachel’s vision and leadership has contributed to making significant company investments in product research and development towards a more sustainable future. Rachel has sponsored key product developments to reduce GHG emissions bringing IMO Tier III, EPA Tier 4, and Stage V aftertreatment solutions to the Cummins marine product range and is currently working with on projects to identify and commercialise the right technology for low and zero carbon power system solutions.