Lifecycle Emissions of Fossil Fuels and Biofuels for Maritime Transportation: A Requirement Analysis

Climate change and global warming are among the most important problems that today's world is struggling with. Greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere make these problems even more intractable. The leading organization of the maritime industry, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), is taking increasingly restrictive and stricter rules and regulations on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere originate from commercial ships. Therefore, researchers focused on alternative marine fuels. Although there are many types of alternative marine fuels, biofuels are the most promising fuel for a smooth transition to zero-carbon alternative fuels. This is because biofuels can be burned in existing diesel-powered ships without any modifications or with minor modifications. Existing rules that seek to control emissions mainly monitor emissions from combustion of the fuel at the end user but are likely to take into account the entire lifecycle emissions of the fuel in the coming years. For this reason, in this paper, information about the stages and processes of lifecycle assessment is given. Then, the lifecycle emissions of fossil fuels, which are widely used today, and biofuels, which have an important position both in the decarbonization of maritime transportation and in the transition to zero-carbon alternative fuels, are examined. The aim of this study is to emphasize the importance of the lifecycle assessment model in the steps to be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to overcome the problems on a global scale and then to compare fossil fuels and biofuels for the maritime industry within the scope of lifecycle emissions.