The Norwegian designers of the MM130 call it a “revolutionary” vessel. The first of 14 hydrogen-powered cruise ships – 130 metres long, 22 metres wide, six decks high and with the ability to carry 300 passengers and 100 crew – is due to hit the water in 2025.
It would be a significant engineering milestone for an industry that contributes an unknown but not trivial amount to the 940m tonnes of CO2 generated by marine transport each year, or roughly 2.5% of global emissions.
The chief executive of Northern Xplorer, Rolf Sandvik, says the vessel will be entirely sustainable and emissions-free on the day it leaves the dock.
“We fully intended to use green hydrogen from our first day of operation,” Sandvik says. “We did not consider the use of any other kind of cleaner fuel derived from fossil fuels, such as LNG.
“Huge steps are being taken in the formation of a hydrogen supply chain ecosystem in Norway. The build-up of both hydrogen and marine battery production is robustly backed by the goodwill of the Norwegian authorities.”
The Norwegian government has limited the number of calls that can be made to world heritage-protected fjords and imposed zero-emissions requirements on vessels that do so from 2026.
That stands in stark contrast to Australia, where the industry is expected to come roaring back to life after a two-year pause prompted by what the Australian Cruise Association described as an “ultra-conservative approach to the pandemic and desire to eliminate the virus from our country”.
International cruise ships are allowed to return from Sunday, and Australian authorities have thrown the doors open even wider than before, with plans to open up destinations such as Eden on the New South Wales south coast to some of the world’s largest vessels, capable of carrying up to 6,700 passengers.
Under the Port Authority of NSW’s expansion plans, a curfew on ships docking at Eden between 10pm and 7am would be lifted, and there would be no restrictions on how many ships could visit.
Meanwhile in Queensland, the new Brisbane International Cruise Terminal, dubbed the “ghost terminal” after it was abandoned in 2020 without having accepted a single ship, will open in June as part of plans for 140 visits a year at Queensland ports.
The scale of this return has raised questions about sustainability and whether an opportunity has been missed to transition to a zero-carbon industry.
The return of the industry
During the downtime, authorities in some places have worked to resolve pressing environmental problems.
In March, the Port Authority of NSW announced it would install a $60m ship-to-shore power system at the White Bay terminal in Sydney Harbour, after a 10-year campaign by residents against the fumes created by idling ships.
Hooking cruise ships up to a power source on land while they are docked means they do not have to run auxiliary engines to keep their electrical systems running.
The system will be operational by 2024 and is expected to be powered entirely by renewable energy, which the Port Authority predicts will stop 14,000 tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere every year.
The local state MP, Jamie Parker of the Greens, told the Inner West Review that having cruise ships running their engines 24/7 was “like having 2,000 cars pumping out toxic exhaust straight into homes”.
“Sydney has been a dumping ground for the cruising industry’s oldest and dirtiest cruise ships – vessels that wouldn’t even be allowed to enter most ports in the northern hemisphere,” Parker says.
The announcement, he said, had “catapulted Sydney from being the laggard of the international cruising industry to being a world leader exhibiting environmental best practice”.
But other communities are not as sanguine about the return of the industry.
Penny Davidson, from the Jervis Bay Community Cruiseship Coalition on the NSW south coast, says residents are still waiting to find out whether the pristine bay will be added as a destination.
“The last two years would have been an ideal time to have sorted this out and to have thought thoroughly about how we can protect our marine parks and support any additional tourism if the marine park can sustain that,” Davidson says.
“When it starts back up, the momentum will have started and the industry will obviously be lobbying hard to maximise its opportunities.”
The end of cheap cruising?
With thousands of ships mothballed or retired around the world, the pandemic pause was a rare opportunity for change, says Prof Susanne Becken, who researches sustainable tourism at Griffith University.
“The question is: are they willing?” Becken says. “Sustainable cruising would be the end of cheap cruising, and then you’d need to change the business model, because would you get 3,000 people on a boat?”
The combination of cheap fuel and large passenger capacities has allowed companies to offer relatively low ticket prices, but Becken says the need to decarbonise will alter the underlying economics.
“It’s not cheap,” Becken says. “This is what makes this controversial. It’s a bit like coal – a political hot potato.
“For companies who have invested in these boats, they’re about to become stranded assets.”
The managing director for Australasia of the Cruise Lines International Association (Clia), Joel Katz, says operators are already taking steps to end the use of low-grade bunker fuel.
“Cruise lines are investing many billions of dollars in ships that offer greater efficiency and achieve significant emissions reductions as part of the industry’s pursuit of net carbon-neutral cruising by 2050,” Katz says.
Clia members have joined a shipping industry proposal for a $5bn International Maritime Organization research fund to develop fuels such as “biofuel, methanol, ammonia, hydrogen and electric batteries”.
In the meantime, Katz says, there has been “huge investment” in vessels that rely on liquid natural gas as a “transitional fuel”.
“LNG ships are already sailing in parts of the world and another five are due for introduction this year,” he says. “More than half of the new-build ships on order internationally will use LNG for their primary propulsion.”
As LNG is still a fossil fuel, Becken says even these vessels are at risk of becoming stranded assets as green hydrogen technology improves and the world introduces stricter emissions requirements.
She says the industry should following the example of airports and airlines that voluntarily disclose CO2 emissions.
Without this data it is impossible to know the industry’s impact, Becken says, even as it faces other challenges such as setting up renewable energy power supplies at ports and production facilities such as green hydrogen plants.
“There’s no reason the cruise industry couldn’t do this, to develop a hydrogen plant you can use to make the fuel you need in 10 years. Then it’s just an additional cost built into the price of a ticket,” Becken says.
“There’s a lot of anti-cruise-ship resentment out there. If the industry came out and said we understand, we know have to do something, and we’re setting up schemes like this, it would be good for their image.”
