Methanol as fuel for shipping gets support from COSCO and Bill Gates

Chinese giants COSCO and China Merchants are looking at Methanol as fuel for shipping, while Bill Gates has also invested in tech to support the switch.

The Danish startup Blue World Technologies has just raised €37m ($36.9m) from investors including Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which is backed by Bill Gates, to help it scale up production of a new fuel cell. Blue World has developed a high-temperature fuel cell that makes methanol with no emissions.

Microsoft co-founder Gates has taken a strong interest in decarbonising shipping, and is also backing nuclear propulsion as a way for shipping to slash emissions.

Meanwhile, in China it has emerged the country’s two largest maritime conglomerates, state-backed COSCO and China Merchants are both looking at methanol as a primary area of research in the future.

China Merchants Energy Shipping chairman Xie Chunlin and Gu Jinsong, chairman of COSCO Shipping Bulk, made the comments in a meeting held in late August, during which the two reviewed the co-operation between their companies and exchanged views on the shipping industry’s low-carbon transformation.

In February this year, COSCO Shipping Energy Transportation unveiled a methanol-fuelled VLCC design developed with CSSC’s Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Co with approval in principle granted by class societies DNV and CCS.