Background

Over the last few years all of the Nordic countries have been promoting increased use of environmentally friendly fuels, mainly focusing on land transport. Norway, for example, is the world leader in using battery electric cars and other Nordic nations have promoted increased use of bio-fuels, hydrogen and electricity directly. All of the Nordic nations have set forward policy goals regarding emission reductions from transport and there is a good cooperation between industries in that field as well as established networks.

This level of cooperation and shared policy goals currently does not exist for marine applications. Oil consumption can be very high. In some cases more than ½ kilogram of oil is burned to catch 1 kilogram of fish! Technical developments in land transport have occurred in the last few years but there are many challenges in adopting those developments for marine applications and in some cases alternative solutions need to be found. The Nordic countries have taken steps towards increasing the use of domestic resources to substitute for fossil fuels. Strides have been made to increase the use of bio-fuels and renewable electricity. The marine sector can be an ideal platform for utilization of such resources but little progress has been made.

.Strönd