Millions of new jobs could be created in the 2030s as shipping transitions towards using clean hydrogen-based fuels, according to a report published by industry association the Global Maritime Forum.
The vast majority of these jobs are predicted to come from the construction and installation of upstream renewables for green hydrogen production.
The Global Maritime Forum says that there will probably be a mix of clean fuels — including those produced with biomass or blue H2 rather than green.
However, it cites projections by non-profit the Rocky Mountain Institute that shipping’s demand for net-zero-carbon fuels made with renewable hydrogen could reach more than 500 million tonnes by 2040 and around 600 million tonnes by 2050.
This high-case scenario would require 2,000GW of new wind and solar assets installed to power 1,000GW of electrolysis capacity by 2050, which the report notes would require a land area the size of Greece and $4trn in investment.
“The development and operation of renewables and infrastructure to produce e-fuels for shipping could, according to our projections, create between one and four million green jobs worldwide in the 2030s,” the Global Maritime Forum adds.
However, the vast majority of these jobs will be to manufacture and install renewables — with a drop-off in employment from the 2040s once these facilities are built, as fewer people are needed for operations and maintenance.
While the Global Maritime Forum predicts an upper limit of three million jobs in the 2030s, with more than 2.5 million for manufacturing, construction and installation, this is projected to fall to one million — half of which are in operations and maintenance — in the 2040s.
The report also notes that the number of new jobs created in the 2030s for upstream renewables could be closer to its lower limit of 1.5 million, as building these assets could require less labour next decade compared to today.
It also notes that quantifying jobs associated with electrolysers, as well as ammonia and methanol processing, is a more difficult prospect, given the relative lack of published data.
However, drawing on data from analyst Navigant (now Guidehouse), Hydrogen Workforce Australia, and Arup, the report assumes that 5,650 jobs are created for every million tonnes of hydrogen-based shipping fuels produced per year during the initial investment, while 2,700 are created during the ongoing operations.
As such, this would mean jobs for electrolyser installation “could reach from mid-[100,000s] to over a million” in the 2030s, before falling to the low hundreds of thousands in the 2040s.
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