Free Practitioner
Onboard Carbon Capture
What it takes to capture CO2 from a ship's own exhaust: the technologies, the energy penalty, the tanks, the missing shore infrastructure, and the regulatory question that decides whether any of it pays.
- Lessons
- 5
- Quiz questions
- 40
- Time
- about 33 minutes
- Who it's for
- Technical managers, superintendents, newbuilding and retrofit teams, and chartering or compliance staff who need to judge onboard capture proposals on their merits.
- Assumed knowledge
- None. Our free course Maritime Regulations Explained is useful background for the final lesson, which leans on EU ETS and FuelEU mechanics.
Part of the Maritime Decarbonisation & Compliance specialisation.
Onboard carbon capture makes an unusual promise: keep the engine, keep the fuel, and remove the CO2 from the exhaust instead. For a world fleet built around conventional fuel, that is either the most pragmatic idea in decarbonisation or an expensive way to postpone the real decision, and serious people hold both views.
This course works through the question in the order an owner would. Why capture at sea at all, and what post-combustion capture involves. What the technology actually is: amine absorption, the membrane alternative, and the energy penalty that separates the capture rate on the datasheet from the capture rate the climate sees. What the plant demands from the ship: space, weight, steam, power, liquefaction, and tanks, plus what class requires and what the capex studies say. Then the half of the chain the ship cannot control, port reception, LCO2 carriers, and onward storage, and finally the decisive question: where captured CO2 is and is not credited under EU ETS, FuelEU and the IMO instruments, and when the economics close.
Every number quoted comes from an open study you can read yourself; the links are woven into the lessons.