Towards Low-Carbon Maritime Shipping: Environmental and Social Sustainability Trade-offs of Multi-Fuel Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Propulsion

Main Presenter:    René Itten 

Co-Authors:   Alena Frehner     Matthias Stucki                                          

Maritime shipping contributes approximately 2–3% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and relies predominantly on heavy fuel oil–based propulsion, leading to significant climate and air-pollution impacts. As a hard-to-decarbonise sector, it faces increasing regulatory pressure at both European and global levels to achieve ambitious emission reductions while maintaining operational performance.
The Horizon Europe project FuelSOME addresses this challenge by developing a multi-fuel solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC)–based propulsion system for long-distance maritime shipping, capable of operating on ammonia, methanol, or hydrogen. In the context of the project, a Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) was carried out, to assess the environmental and social impacts associated with the developed propulsion system. The focus was put on synthetic e-fuels based on different electricity sources including grid mix, PV power and wind power. For the prospective environmental assessment, the PREMISE background database was used, which reflects future policy scenarios based on the ecoinvent database. For the social assessment, the PSILCA database was used as background database.
Between the three alternative fuels, hydrogen showed the strongest reduction in environmental impacts. The decarbonisation goal of a 50% reduction in GHG emissions by 2050 can be reached for all scenarios of e-ammonia and e-hydrogen, as well as for e-methanol produced from PV or wind power. In line with the outcome of the environmental assessment, the e-fuels produced from renewable electricity showed reduced social impacts for a majority of indicators analysed, compared to the fossil-based reference. Between the three alternative fuels, no option consistently showed lower social risks than the other, but rather they varied between the indicators.
Trade-offs were identified in both the environmental and social assessments. Regarding the environmental performance of the synthetic e-fuels, the main trade-offs are found regarding the resource use of minerals and metals as well as biodiversity impacts. Regarding social impacts, a trade-off was identified regarding e-fuels from renewables in terms of fair salary, which showed significantly higher risks of non-compliance with living wage standards, compared to the fossil-based reference.
From a general perspective, marine vessels fuelled with e-ammonia, e-hydrogen and e-methanol produced from renewable energy sources can reduce both environmental as well as social impacts compared to marine vessels fuelled with fossil fuels. However, there are certain trade-offs where these fuels increase the impacts in terms of specific environmental and social indicators.

©2026 Forum for Sustainability through Life Cycle Innovation e.V. | Contact Us | Legal Info

CONTACT US

If you would like to get in touch with us, please feel free to send us a message. Thank you very much in advance.

Sending

Log in with your credentials

or    

Forgot your details?

Create Account