Boskalis, Papendrecht, Netherlands, a global dredging and marine company, and GoodFuels Marine, with North American headquarters in Afton, Minnesota, a provider of sustainable marine biofuels to the global commercial shipping fleet, announced the successful performance of live tests on a sustainable wood-based drop-in biofuel called UPM BioVerno.
The fuel supplied by UPM Biofuels, Helsinki, Finland, is the first ever biofuel derived from wood residue used in a marine fleet, GoodFuels Marine says.
Boskalis vessel “EDAX,” a 1,696 deadweight ton (DWT) cutter suction dredger, has successfully used the fuel in bio/fossil blends going up to 50 percent as it worked on phase one in the first half of 2016. This resulted in a carbon dioxide (CO2) saving of 600 metric tons over the operating period.
The testing of this fuel marks yet another landmark development for the marine biofuels consortium that was announced in October last year by GoodFuels Marine, Boskalis and Wärtsilä, Helsinki, Finland, a supplier of engines and power systems to the marine industry. The consortium was launched with the mission to spearhead a two-year pilot program to accelerate the development of truly sustainable, scalable and affordable marine biofuels. All fuels being ‘live” tested on board of Boskalis vessels—including UPM BioVerno—were first extensively ground tested at the Wärtsilä lab in Vaasa, Finland.
Sustainable marine biofuels offer ship operators a way to reduce a vessel’s CO2 emissions by 80 to 90 percent. They are designed to eliminate sulfur oxide (Sox) emissions, cut nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions by up to 10 percent and reduce particulate matter (PM) expelled in a ship’s exhaust plume by 50 percent. Current forecasts predict that marine biofuels could make up 5 to 10 percent of the marine fuel mix by 2030.
