Shipping greenhouse gas emission reduction model and fuel path analysis

To address global climate change and achieve the greenhouse gas reduction targets set by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the global fleet faces complex challenges in balancing emission reduction effectiveness and economic feasibility during energy transition and fuel pathway selection, necessitating more systematic assessment and optimization of fleet-level emission reduction pathways. Existing research still lacks comprehensive comparative analysis of multi-fuel pathways, particularly systematic comparisons that balance carbon reduction effects and cost-effectiveness, making it difficult to support scientific decision-making for fleet decarbonization routes. To address these issues, a technology-economic assessment method for evaluating and optimizing shipping greenhouse gas reduction pathways is proposed. First, taking the global fleet as the research object, quantitative modeling and feature extraction of carbon reduction amounts and costs are conducted for each of the 18 preset fuel pathways. Second, a comprehensive evaluation index is established to account for both carbon reduction effects and economic feasibility, enabling coupled comparisons of multiple fuel pathways in terms of emission reduction potential and cost constraints. Combined with scenario analysis and pathway optimization mechanisms, a complete technical assessment framework is formed. The results indicate that pathways primarily based on methanol have the lowest carbon reduction costs, followed by ammonia pathways, while green methanol pathways outperform Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG)-based pathways. Green methanol and ammonia fuel pathways demonstrate the best carbon reduction performance. Considering medium-to long-term perspectives, green methanol and green ammonia can serve as optimal fuel choices, providing a feasible technical pathway for global fleet greenhouse gas reduction route planning and fuel transition decision-making.