SAN FRANCISCO — The world's first industrial hydrogen-powered passenger ferry will begin service in San Francisco Bay, a part of plans to phase out diesel-powered ships and reduce planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions, California officials said Friday at an illustration of the vessel.
The 70-foot catamaran, named MV Sea Change, will carry as much as 75 passengers along the waterfront between Pier 41 and the downtown San Francisco ferry terminal starting July 19, officials said. The service can be free for six months while it operates under a pilot program.
“The implications of this are enormous because this is not the last stop,” said Jim Wunderman, chairman of the San Francisco Bay Area Water Emergency Transportation Authority, which operates commuter ferries across the bay. “If we can operate this successfully, there will be more of these vessels in our fleet and in other people's fleets across the United States, and we think around the world.”
Sea Change can travel about 300 nautical miles and operate for 16 hours before needing to be refueled. The fuel cells generate electricity by combining oxygen and hydrogen in an electrochemical response that releases water as a byproduct.
The technology could help clean up the shipping industry, which accounts for nearly three percent of world greenhouse gas emissions, experts say. That's lower than cars, trucks, rail or aviation, nevertheless it's still lots – and the number is rising.
“The real value of this becomes clear when you multiply it by the number of ferries in operation around the world,” he said. “There is huge potential here. This is how you can start to reduce the carbon intensity of your ports.”
Supporters also hope that hydrogen fuel cells could sooner or later power container ships.
The International Maritime Organization, which regulates industrial shipping, desires to halve its greenhouse gas emissions by the center of the century.
As fossil fuel emissions proceed to warm the Earth's atmosphere, the Biden administration is banking on hydrogen as an influence source for vehicles, manufacturing and electricity generation. It has offered $8 billion to encourage the nation's industry, engineers and planners to determine methods to produce and deliver clean hydrogen.
Environmental groups say hydrogen carries its own pollution and climate risks.
Currently, the hydrogen produced world wide every year, mainly for refineries and fertilizer production, is comprised of natural gas. This process is warming the planet as an alternative of saving it. In fact, a brand new study by researchers at Cornell and Stanford universities has found that when hydrogen is produced, much of it emits carbon dioxide, meaning that hydrogen-powered transportation cannot yet be considered clean energy.
But proponents of hydrogen-powered transportation say hydrogen production will change into more environmentally friendly in the long run. They expect that electricity from wind and solar energy can be increasingly used to separate hydrogen and oxygen into water. As such renewable types of energy change into more widely used, hydrogen production is prone to change into cleaner and more cost effective.
The Sea Change project was financed and managed by investment firm SWITCH Maritime. The vessel was built at Bay Ship and Yacht in Alameda, California, and All-American Marine in Bellingham, Washington.
Associated Press author Jennifer McDermott contributed to this report from Providence, Rhode Island.
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