Prospects of Decarbonizing Industrial Areas in the Baltic States by Means of Alternative Fuels

All three Baltic States have reached good figures regarding the change in total greenhouse gas emissions from transport during 1990-2017. Particularly successful is Lithuania, showing a negative value of -2.7%. Latvia considerably lags behind Estonia (+15.1% vs. +1.5%). Amid the achievement of Latvian scientists, engineers and merchants, the authors point out the work of Lithuanian engineers who investigated how gaseous hydrogen affects the parameters of diesel internal combustion engine. Important to note that in the Baltic States, the activities of inland waterway vessels and the shunting locomotives are concentrated in only a few main cities. Regarding that, Baltic scientists and environment specialists nowadays are developing plans also for local air pollution decreasing, which can be carried out in particular cities or industrial areas, thereby allowing for improvements in air cleanliness and the ecological situation in concerned local area. A numerical estimation shows that applying the NYSMART technology, introduced in this paper, will make areas of active action of the high-volume diesels cleaner in the same amount as gained by photosynthesis of the urban green flora. In recent years, the developed technology of hydraulic piston compression allows producing numerous different vehicle fueling appliances for the CNG/bio-CNG fuel. The further development of this technology means the producing of various solutions, applicable at biogas/biomethane production sites, for CNG/bio-CNG compression, transportation and fast natural gas vehicles refueling in a cost effective and convenient way. The hydraulic piston compression and NYSMART have a potential in small and medium-scale technologies and therefore need to be developed further for applications with hydrogen. Production of biomethane and green hydrogen is delayed by the lack of state aid programmes in the Baltic States. Lithuania is on the way to change the situation in the coming years, with one of the first biomethane gas production plants due to be built near Panevėžys, in Šilagalys near the Via Baltica motorway. Summing up all aspects, the preconditions for the use of alternative fuels in the Baltic States are similar, allowing one to learn from other’s experience and to consider joint projects.