Structure of the paper:
After an initial introduction, in the first part of your paper, which you should caption as Part I, you should discuss the drivers of the renewable energy investment story that we have reviewed in class, and any others that you think are significant. We have discussed, or will discuss, in class the following drivers. Each must be discussed under an individual subheading, in bold:
–global warming (also called climate change). You must use, at a minimum, the IPCC as the reference for this—without this reference, the maximum grade on the paper is C;
–comparative costs of renewable and fossil fuel technologies;
–the amount of money likely to be in play;
–energy independence in the name of national defense.
–pollution, obviously one of the main drivers for green ships, and its role in pushing investment into renewable energy in general;
–government regulations—Biden’s inflation Reduction Act; state/regional, or municipal laws; international agreements, such as that of Cop 21–including taxes and subsidies which may favor (or disadvantage) investment in renewable energy;
–the element of belief, sometimes called dreams, in major investment shifts;
–the potential role of millions of electric car owners as a lobbying force to shift the world into renewable energy.
In the next part of your paper, which you must label as Part II, you should explain the reason for the transition into green ships—including yachts that sleep at least six persons. Why yachts too? The transition into electric cars started with expensive cars for the rich; maybe the transition for ships will follow a similar path. For ships, this is the transition out of bunker oil to power the ship into an energy system which is viewed as materially less polluting. Among the systems discussed in class are: ships running on methanol; liquefied or compressed natural gas; wind (including wind turbines); solar; hydrogen; electricity; nuclear; and hybrid systems that combine two or more of the above. You should discuss the comparative costs, the maturity of these technologies, and the practicality of converting current ships to these technologies. This raises the question of the size of the industry and the number of fueling places that would have to be considered. You should discuss a specific, actual, company or project which advances one or several of these technologies.
You may focus on any aspect of the topic that interests you: technologies used in green ships; the possibilities of combining the technologies; the possibilities of using different technologies for different types of ships. For example, inland shipping may change in a different manner than deep water shipping; cruise ships may use different technologies than container ships. You should look at current major companies or minor ones, including start-ups, devoted to green ships. One interesting angle is the potential number of oil and natural gas tankers that may suddenly be available for other uses, because of the energy transition itself. If these ships are not scrapped, they would have to be converted to green ships.
Your paper must be fully documented using footnotes, with citations for specific claims. Papers without full documentation, using footnotes, will receive a very low grade.
Also, if you simply add footnotes to a paper that uses some other system of references, the paper will receive a very low grade.
