Greta Thunberg made headlines globally when she refused to go to school and instead sat outside the Swedish parliament building in Stockholm in protest, demanding politicians reduce carbon emissions in accordance with the Paris Agreement.
But if the agreement’s goal of limiting global average temperature rises to well below two degrees is to be met, alternative fuels such as LNG will be vital.
Dutch firm LIQAL is a young and ambitious company aiming to provide technology that helps the decarbonisation of transport fuels.
According to the European Environment Agency, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transport have been increasing since 2014. Preliminary estimates from EU Member States show that GHG emissions from transport were 28% above 1990 levels in 2017.
“If we really want to reach emission reduction and decarbonisation, we need to consider all the alternatives, and fast,” LIQAL’s CEO Jorg Raven (pictured below) says.
“We are currently mainly dependent on oil-based fuels like diesel for transportation. In 99.9% of cases, diesel and petrol are the fuels being used.”
“When we consider alternatives, the choice should not between LNG or hydrogen or electricity but using all solutions side by side. This is the future of energy.”
Source: LIQAL
Based in Breda, in the Netherlands, LIQAL designs and supplies technology for LNG fuelling, hydrogen fuelling and liquefaction.
“On the way to decarbonisation, we see LNG as an important step forward,” Raven explains in an exclusive interview with gasworld.
“It is already a profitable fuel for all involved in the supply chain, which is a requirement for any serious alternative to diesel. Although LNG still contains carbon, it makes an important contribution to sustainability.”
Although the LNG industry is still in its infancy, Raven expects LNG use in the transport and the maritime sectors to grow very strongly in the coming years.
“Given the fact that the distribution infrastructure to support that growth is still largely lacking, we expect the next decade to be very exciting and full of opportunities and innovations,” he says.
“All solutions are needed to replace the vast amount of oil-based fuels we use for transportation nowadays.”
“We want to make diesel a thing of the past and LIQAL can accelerate this with its LNG and hydrogen stations and its micro liquefaction units.”
gasworld will publish the full feature, titled ‘Decarbonising transport: An interview with LIQAL’, in gasworld Global’s upcoming 8th issue of 2019.