The Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation’s Trial Shows Shipboard Carbon Capture Is a Dead End, But Refuses to Say So - CleanTechnica

The Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation’s (GCMD) recent Project CAPTURED trial provides a comprehensive, data-driven evaluation of onboard carbon capture and storage (CCS) for ships, revealing the technology to be largely ineffective in its current form. The pilot involved fitting a vessel burning very low sulfur fuel oil with a carbon capture system that liquefied and stored CO2 onboard, which was then transferred and processed into precipitated calcium carbonate for steel sintering. Despite following the entire CO2 lifecycle—including energy penalties, losses, venting, transport, and processing emissions—the system achieved only a 10.7% gross capture rate and a net lifecycle greenhouse gas reduction of about 7.9%. This marginal reduction includes downstream credits; without them, the process does not break even, and under regulatory accounting, it may even increase emissions. The study highlights fundamental physical and logistical constraints that make onboard CCS impractical. The volume and mass of CO2 produced from burning fossil fuels are substantial