Startup climate-tech company, Seabound, is gearing up to help decarbonise the shipping industry, according to Crestchic's release.
The global shipping industry hauls around 1.8 billion metric tons of goods around the world – more than 80% of global trade by volume. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has mandated that starting in 2023, most commercial vessels will have to document their CO2 emissions and demonstrate progress towards reaching the IMO objective of an industry-wide 40% reduction in emissions by 2030.
Start-up company Seabound has developed a unique carbon capture device that traps and stores CO2 from fuel exhaust – allowing a significant reduction in emissions. The CO2 can then be brought to port where it can be sold for utilisation or sequestration. As well as enabling the industry to meet stringent targets, the revenue stream made from selling the captured CO2 will be shared with the ship owner, helping to cover implementation costs.
Walker Kehoe, Founding Engineer at Seabound, explains “Building new ships is extremely capital intensive, and the production of sustainable fuels at scale is 10-20 years away. Carbon capture can help to decarbonize shipping quickly and at scale, and it can be retrofitted onto existing ships.”
To test the technology on dry land, the company needed to create and capture CO2. To do this without the need for a marine engine, they hooked the technology up to a diesel generator. A load bank was used to apply a full load to the generator – in turn allowing the generator to run at full capacity and fully test the carbon capture technology.
Usually used to test generators to ensure they are fit for purpose as a backup power source, load banks work by applying an electrical load to a generator, allowing it to run as it would in normal operational conditions. By using the generator and loadbank combination, the team at Seabound was able to simulate a marine engine – enabling full testing of the carbon capture technology.