Sustainable Fuel Chicken and Egg Redux. Maybe Some Ports Can Fix It.

In a recent sustainable fuel panel discussion, I once again found my self sucked into the sustainable fuel chicken and egg conundrum.

I have discussed it before; shipowners will not buy ships that use a fuel for which no viable supply chain exists and fuel suppliers will not develop supply chains for which no buyers exist.

In general, it is very difficult to break a chicken and egg conundrum, except through a direct directive or through, often very large, subsidies.
Often direct directives leave the problem solution to the market. As such, when IMO tells shipowners thou shalt achieve such and such maximum CO2 emissions by such time, there may be many solution approaches and depending on how the ships fall (pun intended) there could be one or more dominant solutions. However, there is no guarantee that these solutions are optimal.

One of those solutions may be a very dangerous fuel that happens to be most economical to a specific ship owner, but places unfair burdens on crews. Another fuel may be useful in one specific segment, but does not interact with other segments and thereby develops inherent inefficiencies with the suppliers who need to supply multiple fuels.

The public