Gretta Pecl (IMAS/CMS), Justin Bellanger (ACWA), Thomas Cosentino (Margo Consulting), Martin Exel (SeaBOS), Beth Fulton (CSIRO), Jess Melboune-Thomas (CSIRO), Julia Santana-Garcon (IMAS/CMS)

Image from: https://seafoodindustryaustralia.com.au/fishing-for-alternative-fuels-seafood-industry-australia-launches-research-project/

Australia’s seafood sector is already living at the intersection of fuel dependence and climate change. Shifting species distributions, tighter weather windows and longer steaming and freighting distances for remote aquaculture farms mean fuel is increasingly tied to adaptation, not just mitigation. For many operators, fuel use is no longer simply an operating cost to be managed month‑to‑month, but a factor shaping safety, flexibility and long‑term viability.

What is changing now is not whether fuel matters – the sector has always known that – but the context in which fuel decisions are made. Fuel is showing up more clearly in financial risk assessments, insurance conversations, buyer expectations and infrastructure planning. That broader shift matters because it changes who is paying attention, and how.

Recent work by CSIRO on Australia’s alternative fuel opportunities mostly focuses on aviation, shipping and heavy industry. Yet its core message resonates strongly with fisheries and aquaculture: there is no single fuel solution waiting in the wings, and electrification alone will not meet the needs of mobile, remote, marine sectors. Instead, progress will be incremental, pieced together over time through efficiency gains, drop‑in lower‑carbon fuels, and selective innovation where it genuinely fits.

Starting from seafood realities

Any credible conversation about fuel transition in seafood has to start from how the sector actually operates – vessel lifespans are long, capital is tightly held, and regional ports face uneven access to infrastructure. Many businesses understandably carry little tolerance for experimental risk, because margins are narrow and operating environments are already volatile.

Climate change compounds these constraints. As species distributions shift, on-farm production dynamics change, and variability increases, operators have to face more extreme environmental conditions, whether heatwaves, or stronger sea states. This all means that fuel use and the cost of the enterprise fuel budget per unit of catch or harvest often rises rather than falls. In that context, asking operators to take on additional fuel risk without a clear pathway is unrealistic. The task then is not to force rapid transformation, but to build strategies that reduce exposure over time while keeping options open.

What is already happening in Australia

Australia’s seafood fuel transition is not starting from zero. While there is no single national program, important elements are already underway through research, demonstration and awareness of innovation that is becoming available in Australia and overseas.

Industry‑led work through Seafood Industry Australia and FRDC has focused on understanding fuel use, emissions profiles and realistic transition pathways for both wild‑catch and aquaculture fleets. This effort has expanded beyond assessment into practical implementation – through FRDC, Seafood Industry Australia and the Blue Economy CRC, the Decarbonising Australian Aquaculture Industry initiative has developed industry resources, case studies and decision-support tools that help aquaculture businesses identify realistic opportunities to reduce emissions while maintaining commercial viability. The initiative highlights that decarbonisation is not solely about changing fuel sources, but also about improving efficiency and operational performance across farming systems. This work has deliberately translated climate and energy discussions into operational and economic terms that make sense on the water and on farms.

Researchers at the Australian Maritime College and through the Blue Economy CRC have carried out detailed vessel‑level feasibility studies, particularly around hydrogen and hybrid options. Beyond feasibility studies, Australian companies are now developing and testing new propulsion systems. Through the federal Business Research and Innovation Initiative (BRII), Stebercraft is demonstrating hybrid diesel-electric propulsion systems for commercial fishing vessels, helping test whether lower-emissions technologies can meet the operational requirements of working fleets. Another BRII-supported project led by Hy‑Boost is investigating the use of low-pressure hydrogen supplementation to improve diesel engine efficiency and reduce fuel consumption in commercial fishing vessels. Such approaches may offer practical near-term emissions reductions without requiring complete engine replacement. These studies are valuable not because they promise quick fixes, but because they are clear about current limits. Their conclusion is consistent: full fuel switching is not yet viable for most vessels, but targeted applications and staged approaches are feasible in specific contexts.

Importantly, there are now real‑world trials. Renewable diesel has been tested in commercial fishing vessels in New South Wales without engine modification or loss of performance, offering credible evidence that drop‑in lower‑carbon fuels can work in practice, not just on paper. For the aquaculture sector, Carnegie Clean Energy and the Blue Economy CRC completed a successful demonstration of the MoorPower system for operating feeding barges. These trials matter because they reduce uncertainty for the rest of the sector.

At the same time, port authorities and energy bodies are planning for clean marine fuels and implementing early trials. In September 2024, the world’s first ship-to-ship ammonia transfer was successfully carried out at the Port of Dampier anchorage. This 2,700 tonnes transfer has garnered international recognition as an important advancement in the push to decarbonise shipping fuel. The initiative, led in partnership by Pilbara Ports, the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD), and Yara Clean Ammonia, marked a major milestone in proving that ammonia can be safely bunkered at port anchorages. While much of this is driven by large‑scale shipping, the infrastructure decisions made now will shape what is available to fisheries and aquaculture in the future.

Taken together, these efforts do not add up to a single solution – but they do form the beginnings of a pathway.

Where action makes sense now

For most small‑scale and owner‑operator fisheries or aquaculture producers, wholesale vessel or engine replacement is not a near‑term option. The most effective actions remain practical and incremental: improving efficiency and reducing unnecessary fuel burn. Small changes to gear, hull condition or trip and harvest planning  can have outsized benefits when fuel prices spike or trips lengthen.

Drop‑in lower‑carbon fuels, particularly biogenic fuels made from waste streams, are emerging as a realistic option precisely because they do not require capital replacement. For smaller operators, this matters – it offers a way to reduce exposure without introducing new financial risk. There can be issues with warranty requirements in newer engines, but for those with engines outside warranty periods, this becomes a realistic option as prices for lower-carbon fuels either drop, or remain stable as prices for high-carbon fuels increase.  As demand increases, likely so will the changes to warranty requirements that may allow for alternative fuels to be used, without impairing engine manufacturers’ warranties. 

Larger fleets owned by corporations, and integrated aquaculture companies, typically have more scope to experiment. With longer planning horizons and greater access to capital, they are better placed to trial fuel blends, participate in pilot projects, and work with ports or suppliers on future infrastructure. These early‑mover efforts are rarely cheap, but they generate the evidence and confidence others need later.

Fuels and greenhouse gas emissions are not only a result of vessel propulsion out at sea or on waterways. A considerable contribution to the fuel budget in fishing and aquaculture comes from gensets and on-shore power generation for power, lighting and refrigeration. Where possible and practical, there are now readily available solutions to convert or supplement fuel driven power with renewable power and battery storage. Extensive solar arrays and battery storage for fishing and farming are readily available and financing capital loans at zero or low interest are available through government grants, especially for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Refrigeration units are another focus area for power efficiency and reduction of greenhouse gases such as hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) as refrigerant gases.

Across the sector, efficiency remains the most reliable place to act (for now, anyway!). Whether through enhanced seafood resources management to increase the available stocks (thus reducing the amount of fuel required to catch quotas or limits), vessel design, gear modifications, energy use on farms, or logistics and cold‑chain management, every litre saved today reduces vulnerability tomorrow. Efficiency is not a dead‑end strategy; it buys time and flexibility for whatever fuel options emerge next.

A changing financial backdrop

One of the more significant shifts for seafood is happening beyond the wharf.

Since January 2025, Australia’s financial system has been operating under mandatory climate‑related financial reporting for large companies and financial institutions. While most fishing and aquaculture businesses do not report directly, the implications are already flowing through supply chains.

Banks and insurers are paying closer attention to fuel exposure and climate risk. Processors and retailers are required to report their Scope 3 emissions¹, including those embedded in the fishing and farming operations that they source from. As a result, fuel use and emissions are beginning to influence contract terms, insurance conditions and access to finance. In response, industry organisations have been developing tools to simplify emissions accounting. The Environmental Accounting Platform, developed through Agriculture Innovation Australia with support from FRDC and other research and development corporations, provides fishing and aquaculture businesses with a practical way to estimate emissions across operations, including fuel use, electricity, refrigeration, freight and feed inputs. This takes the spreadsheet calculator developed by Blueshift Consulting (Project 2021-089) further and the “blackbox” of emissions factors will automatically be updated as the science progresses. Such tools help businesses engage with emerging reporting expectations without needing specialist expertise. Emissions calculators are available through FRDC for free and provide an opportunity to assess individual enterprises and prioritise changes that lower emissions and operating costs.

This does not mean every seafood business needs to become a reporting expert. It does mean that being able to demonstrate awareness of fuel risk, and credible steps to manage it, is becoming commercially valuable. This is less about reputation (although it can certainly help with that too!), and more about how risk is understood and priced.

What cooperation makes possible

There are hard limits to how quickly fuel systems can change in seafood, and pretending otherwise helps no one. But there are also genuine opportunities if the sector moves strategically rather than reactively.

A realistic positive future is not one where every vessel runs on a new fuel by a fixed date. It is one where fuel use per unit of seafood steadily declines through smarter operations; where drop‑in fuels are adopted first in places they make sense; where small operators are not left to shoulder costs the system creates; and where learning moves quickly across fleets, regions and subsectors.

That kind of transition depends less on breakthrough technology than on coordination. Early movers play an important role in reducing risk for the broader sector, provided they are supported rather than penalised. Research that remains grounded in operational reality is more likely to generate usable innovation, while early consideration of seafood in infrastructure planning can help preserve and expand future fuel options.

Australia’s seafood sector has navigated structural change before – from quota systems to biosecurity, and from market shifts to climate impacts already underway. Fuel transition is another such change. Handled poorly, it adds pressure but with deliberate cooperation and creativity, it can strengthen resilience rather than erode it.

The task now is not to chase a single answer, but to build the conditions where multiple workable answers can emerge, be tested, and improved – together.

Footnote:

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol, which provides the most widely recognised internationally accounting standards for greenhouse gas emissions, categorises GHG emissions into three ‘scopes’.

Scope 1 covers direct emissions from owned or controlled sources. Scope 2 covers indirect emissions from the purchase and use of electricity, steam, heating and cooling. By using the energy, an organisation is indirectly responsible for the release of these GHG emissions. Scope 3 includes all other indirect emissions that occur in the upstream and downstream activities of an organisation (eg Purchased goods and services, Business travel, Employee commuting, Waste disposal, Use of sold products, Transportation and distribution (up- and downstream), Investments, Leased assets and franchises). https://www.carbontrust.com/our-work-and-impact/guides-reports-and-tools/what-are-scope-3-emissions-and-why-do-they-matter

Additional links and resources:

A definitive carbon calculation engine for Australian agriculture, fisheries and forestry. Home | AIA EAP 

Beyond Fossil Diesel – NSW Decarbonisation Innovation Hub, https://www.decarbhub.au/eesn_projects/beyond-fossil-diesel/ 

Fan, H., Chen, P. S.-L., Harris, A., Abdussamie, N., Gray, E. M. A., Penesis, I., & Mehr, J. A. (2025). Preliminary Feasibility Study of Using Hydrogen as a Fuel for an Aquaculture Vessel in Tasmania, Australia. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, 13(11), 2037. https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse13112037

Seafood Industry Australia & FRDC (Project 2021‑089), Papacosta, V., Nelson, C., Cosentino, T., Haroutonian, A., McDonald, A. (2023). Climate Resilient Wild Catch Fisheries. FRDC Project No. 2021‑089. Fisheries Research and Development Corporation & Seafood Industry Australia. https://www.frdc.com.au/project/2021-089, 

Seafood Industries Australia, Blue Economy CRC and FRDC (Project 2023-080). Alternate energy solutions for aquaculture: A Seafood Industry Australia + Blue Economy CRC Collaboration, https://www.frdc.com.au/project/2023-080

Alternative Fuels for Marine Applications.  A Report from the IEA Advanced Motor Fuels Agreement. https://www.iea-amf.org/app/webroot/files/file/Annex%20Reports/AMF_Annex_41.pdf

Mohammadpour J, Salehi F (2025) A review of alternative liquid fuels in marine engines, Applications in Energy and Combustion Science,  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaecs.2025.100394 

Fuel for thought – alternative fuel choices for shipping https://www.lr.org/en/knowledge/research/fuel-for-thought/

Perčić, M., Vladimir, N., Koričan, M., Jovanović, I., & Haramina, T. (2023). Alternative Fuels for the Marine Sector and Their Applicability for Purse Seiners in a Life-Cycle Framework. Applied Sciences, 13(24), 13068. https://doi.org/10.3390/app132413068