The transportation industry is reaching sustainable new heights nearly every day.
From the electric vehicle boom to solar-powered high-speed rails, a clean energy future is upon us.
The latest in innovation? San Francisco’s hydrogen-fueled ferry.
The Sea Change ferry, created by Zero Emission Industries, is now running in the Bay Area (between San Francisco’s Ferry Building and Pier 41 by Fisherman’s Wharf, to be exact).
An entirely different experience from a traditional diesel ferry, the Sea Change is quiet and emits only heat and water vapor.
“It’s all electric drive,” Joe Pratt, CEO of Zero Emission Industries, told Fast Company. “What that means is you don’t have the engine noise. You don’t have the vibration. It’s kind of like a really big sailboat that’s just cruising silently through the bay.”
But how does it work?
Hydrogen is stored on the top deck of the ferry and sent to fuel cells on the main deck, which convert hydrogen to electricity. Once the power is generated, it is sent below deck to power an electric motor.
The Sea Change is able to travel up to 300 nautical miles (345 miles) at speeds of up to 15 knots (17 mph).
It also uses the water vapor emitted in its bathrooms on board — and to supply a drinking fountain.
“It’s the only vessel in the world where you can actually drink the exhaust,” Pratt added.
While Zero Emission Industries designed the hydrogen tech in the ferry, it is officially owned by startup Switch Maritime and managed by San Francisco Bay Ferry. The 70-foot-long ferry can hold 75 passengers, and the fare to board is no more expensive than its traditional counterparts.
Refueling is simple, too. The Sea Change gets deliveries of hydrogen from a truck, which is comparable to what boats already do, receiving a refueling of diesel. There’s no new infrastructure required; just a new kind of power.
Other cities across the globe — like Seattle, Oslo, and Northern Ireland — are trying their hand at electric ferries; which have also received praise for their innovation and sustainability.
But the Sea Change is the first to use hydrogen.
Despite the higher cost of hydrogen fuel (some estimates say it costs about $25 per kilogram), experts are confident the cost will soon come down.
John Motlow, the chief strategy officer at Zero Emission Industries told Fast Company: “If you look at the next 10 years, there’s a very good chance that the price per kilogram of hydrogen will be cheaper than the price of a gallon of diesel.”
The caveat of it all is that most hydrogen is still made from fossil fuels, so it’s not fully “clean.” The Sea Change ferry will use hydrogen fuel that is available locally, but eventually, designers hope it could use green hydrogen, which is made from water and renewable electricity.
For now, this new ferry will run for a trial period of six months. But it could become a permanent service in the Bay Area, especially as the California Air Resources Board now has a requirement for all short-run ferries to transition to zero-emission technology.
“A lot of municipal ferry operators in populated cities are under pressure to decarbonize, as are most transit systems,” Switch CEO Pace Ralli, told Canary Media, last fall. “The technology exists; now it’s just about learning how to adopt these new decarbonized technologies and getting them to scale.”
The Sea Change is a nautical mile in the right direction.
“We think it’s a huge step to clean up the vessel,” Pratt told Fast Company, “getting these diesel fumes off the water.”
Header image courtesy of Switch Maritime
