Following on from recent announcements of hydrogen projects in China and Portugal, a group of Danish firms has said it will launch another, as the Financial Times has reported. Shipping container giant AP Moller-Mærsk, airline SAS, Copenhagen Airports, logistics company DSV Panalpina, ferry line DFDS, and renewable energy company Ørsted aim to open a hydrogen generation plant in 2023 using offshore wind energy to electrolyse water, ramping up gradually to full capacity by 2030. (These timelines are similar to that of the Portuguese project.) Ørsted chief executive Henrik Poulsen outlined the benefits of hydrogen as a fuel, pointing out that batteries are fine for cars, but did not work for heavier forms of transport or for heavy industry such as cement and steel making. The group’s intention with this project is to make methanol from the hydrogen for subsequent use in aviation and shipping; by 2030, the plant would have a 1.3 GW electrolyser operating, being supplied by a 3 GW wind farm. The project will help Mærsk achieve its goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, as from 2030 onwards it will need to order ships fuelled by low/zero carbon fuel to meet that target. Mærsk chief executive Søren Skou has said that the company considers three fuels – alcohol (methanol), ammonia and bio-methane – as the most likely to provide solutions, and foresees that the International Maritime Organisation, which regulates shipping worldwide, may introduce zero-carbon regulations in the future.