America’s New Maritime Plan Is Competing for the Wrong Century

Support CleanTechnica’s work through a Substack subscription or on Stripe.


Or support our Kickstarter campaign!

The new U.S. Maritime Action Plan, available from the White House Maritime Insights page, is serious policy work. It acknowledges that American commercial shipbuilding has withered to less than 1% of global output and that only a handful of domestic yards can build large oceangoing vessels. It recognizes workforce shortages, fragmented procurement, and brittle supply chains. It calls for multiyear contracting, yard recapitalization, and supplier development. On its own terms, it is coherent. Its diagnosis of the situation is realistic, as far as it goes. The problem is not that the plan lacks effort. The problem is that it is trying to restore competitiveness using a 20th century framework in a shipping market that is already shifting under it.

Global shipping economics are changing because energy architecture is changing. The European Union has incorporated maritime into its Emissions Trading System, phasing in coverage from 40% of emissions in 2024 to 100% by 2027. FuelEU Maritime imposes a declining lifecycle greenhouse gas intensity requirement on energy used on board ships beginning in 2025, tightening over time. The IMO’s 2023 strategy sets a net-zero direction for international shipping by or around 2050, with indicative checkpoints of at least 20% (striving for 30%) by 2030 and at least 70% (striving for 80%) by 2040 versus 2008. The legally binding package to implement that direction, a global fuel standard paired with a pricing mechanism, has been delayed in negotiations, featuring strong U.S. opposition, but the direction remains and regional rules like the EU’s are already forcing fleet and fuel decisions. China has strong domestic targets, a strengthening and broadening carbon price, is electrifying shipping, and building strong low-carbon fuel industrial ecosystems. These are not symbolic targets and actions. They attach cost to carbon intensity. A vessel trading into Europe or Asia will face a rising compliance bill if it burns fossil fuel in a conventional architecture. That cost will be embedded in charter rates, asset valuations, and financing decisions.

Battery electric and hybrid propulsion are not moral statements. They are cost structure shifts. If a short sea vessel consumes 10 tons of marine fuel per day at $700 per ton, that is $7,000 per day in fuel. At 300 operating days per year, that is $2.1 million annually. If hybridization cuts fuel burn by 30%, that is $630,000 per year saved before accounting for carbon pricing exposure. If EU ETS adds an effective $100 per ton of CO2 on 3.1 tons of CO2 per ton of fuel, that is an added $310 per ton of fuel burned. On 10 tons per day, that is $3,100 per day or $930,000 per year. Hybridization that reduces fuel use by 30% reduces that exposure proportionally. The economics are not subtle.

Battery system costs have fallen sharply, making most studies on the subject obsolete as I noted recently. Containerized battery energy storage systems are being procured in competitive markets at $80 to $150 per kWh for delivered modules at port. Gravimetric densities at the system level are in the range of 140 to 175 Wh/kg. A 10 MWh installation at $120 per kWh is a $1.2 million capital item. At 150 Wh/kg, that 10 MWh weighs about 67 tons. On a 5,000 ton vessel, that is about 1.3% of displacement. If that battery displaces fuel burn equivalent to 3 tons per day and operates 300 days per year, it offsets about 900 tons of fuel annually. At $700 per ton, that is $630,000 per year. The simple payback is under two years before carbon pricing and maintenance effects. Not every vessel pencils out that cleanly, but many inland and short sea segments are already within this range.

The new U.S. plan acknowledges innovation in automation and digital systems. It addresses autonomous vessels and regulatory modernization. It calls for improved procurement efficiency and better requirement definition. Those elements are aligned with current practice. What it does not do is treat energy architecture as a core competitiveness lever. There are no electrification targets for vessel classes. There is no integrated strategy for port electrification. There is no defined domestic industrial base for maritime power electronics, battery integration, or high capacity shore connection hardware. Energy appears as background modernization, not as the organizing principle of the next generation fleet.

Protection is the dominant instrument in the plan. It proposes strengthening cargo preference rules and imposing fees on foreign built vessels entering U.S. ports. It calls for expanding U.S. flag tonnage and building a Strategic Commercial Fleet supported by federal funding. This is mid 20th century maritime doctrine. It assumes that domestic build origin is the foundation of security. In a world where lifecycle operating cost under carbon constraints determines asset value, that assumption is incomplete.

The productivity gap remains central. Large commercial vessels built in South Korea, Japan, or China often cost 2 to 4 times less per compensated gross ton than comparable U.S. builds. That gap reflects continuous production lines, supplier density, standardized designs, and yard automation. If a Korean yard can deliver a 3,000 TEU feeder for $40 million and a U.S. yard requires $120 million for similar tonnage, protection can force domestic procurement but it cannot erase the cost differential. If the $120 million vessel also carries higher fuel and carbon compliance exposure because its energy architecture lags, the lifecycle gap widens further.

The universal per kg fee proposal in the plan illustrates the risk. At 1¢ per kg, a 20,000 kg container load would incur $200 in additional cost. On 10 million containers, that is $2 billion. At 25¢ per kg, that same container would incur $5,000. On 10 million containers, that is $50 billion. These costs would not be absorbed by shipowners. They would flow through freight rates into food, electronics, appliances, and construction materials. If the purpose is to raise $66 billion over ten years at 1¢ per kg, that $6.6 billion per year is a tax on trade. It does not improve yard productivity. It shifts costs, and not externally, but to American consumers. As James Carville helped then future President Clinton articulate, “It’s the economy, stupid”. This plan will take a long time to rebuild capacity and put the costs on voters who are already paying over $1,000 per year on average for new protectionist tariffs.

Energy transition is also a security issue. A hybrid coastal fleet that reduces liquid fuel consumption by 30% reduces exposure to supply disruption. Shore power allows vessels at berth to draw from domestic electricity rather than imported fuel. Maritime shipping fuels used in the United States are refined primarily from a mix of domestic crude oil and imports, with Canada by far the largest foreign supplier. In recent years, roughly 50% to 60% of U.S. crude oil imports have come from Canada, followed by smaller volumes from Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Colombia, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data. Gulf Coast refineries, which produce most U.S. marine bunker fuel and marine diesel, typically run blends of domestic shale crude and heavier imported grades, especially Canadian heavy crude, to optimize refinery configurations designed for high sulfur residual fuel and distillate production. Current US policy is antagonizing or actively overthrowing foreign sources of crude, and the global energy market is making them economically non-viable, creating a strategy energy risk for US shipping fuels. A fleet designed around flexible energy inputs is harder to constrain through fuel embargo or price spike. If security is the core justification for maritime policy, then energy architecture should be central, not peripheral.

The Jones Act is the structural variable shaping American maritime economics, as I’ve returned to a few times. It requires U.S. built, U.S. owned, U.S. crewed vessels for domestic coastwise trade. It is not mentioned in the plan. Not once. This is not oversight. It is avoidance. A maritime revival plan that will not even name the rule that defines the domestic market is policy shadowboxing. If the Jones Act strengthens security and competitiveness, say so and defend it. If it distorts cost and slows modernization, confront it and reform it. Silence is not strategy. Refusing to engage directly with the Jones Act in a comprehensive maritime plan is intellectual cowardice.

The world market will not wait for American political comfort. A vessel ordered in 2026 will likely operate into the 2050s. If that vessel enters European waters in 2030, it will face ETS exposure and FuelEU intensity requirements. China is heading in that direction, having 700 TEU container ships operating domestically. If the ship’s energy architecture is fossil heavy, it will carry a rising compliance burden over its life. Asset values reflect expected cash flow. Cash flow reflects operating cost. Operating cost increasingly reflects carbon intensity. These are mechanical relationships.

If the United States rebuilds yard capacity primarily to produce conventional fossil heavy tonnage, it risks creating a protected domestic niche that depends on preference rules and tariffs rather than export competitiveness. If it rebuilds yard capacity while integrating battery, hybrid, and shore power readiness as baseline design elements, it can compete in the emerging regulatory environment. The difference is not philosophical. It is economic.

Competitiveness in the 2030s maritime market will be defined by three variables. Build cost per ton. Lifecycle operating cost under carbon constraints. Regulatory compliance flexibility. The current plan addresses build cost partially through procurement reform and supplier development. It addresses lifecycle cost only indirectly. It does not address compliance flexibility in a structured way.

Avoiding the energy transition question does not freeze the market. It shifts the cost to later years. Retrofitting hybrid systems onto ships not designed for them is more expensive than integrating them at build. Retrofitting shore connection systems onto vessels not designed with appropriate electrical architecture adds complexity. Building tonnage that requires future modification to remain competitive is not industrial strength. It is deferred liability.

A serious competitiveness strategy would treat maritime battery integration, high power conversion, thermal management, and shore infrastructure as core industrial base components. It would tie federal procurement to energy performance metrics. It would set measurable goals for hybrid penetration in coastal and government fleets. It would align port infrastructure funding with vessel electrification timelines. It would address the Jones Act openly in the context of energy architecture and global competitiveness.

The United States might be able to rebuild shipbuilding capacity. It could modernize yards and train workers. It could protect domestic trade. But if it defines competitiveness using 20th century metrics while the rest of the world prices carbon and redesigns vessels around new energy systems, it will find itself defending a fleet that is structurally expensive to operate. It’s also subject to the ongoing policy flipflops in the country. Industrial policy without energy realism is incomplete. Maritime security without energy architecture is fragile. Competitiveness built on insulation rather than adaptation will not endure.