China has debuted the world’s first all electric cargo ship and it is already being put to use. According to China Daily, the 2000 metric ton ship is a “technological breakthrough as it is the first in the world to use lithium battery in a fully powered cargo vessel”.
The ship can run for approximately 50 miles after being charged for 2 hours, which is the approximate time need to unload the ship according to Clean Technica. It will be running in the inland section of the Pearl River in Guangdong province.
Qiu Quanlin writes:
The ship, 70.5 meters in length, has battery energy of about 2,400 kilowatt hours, or about the same energy of 40 new energy cars. Its highest speed tops out at 12.8 kilometers per hour, and there is zero emission of waste gas pollutants.
"As the ship is fully electric powered, it poses no threats to the environment. The technology will soon be likely ... used in passenger or engineering ships," said Huang Jialin, chairman and general manager of Hangzhou Modern Ship Design & Research Co, which designed the electric cargo vessel.
Clean Technica expands on the story and notes that the “battery is comprised of 1,000 individual lithium battery packs”. Carrying more cargo is a simple matter of adding more battery packs to provide sufficient the additional power for the ship they say.
Steve Hanley writes:
The new ship has two primary benefits. First, it will emit no carbon emissions while underway. Cargo vessels tend to be some of the biggest carbon pollution sources in the entire transportation sector. Second, it will lower the cost of transportation for bulk cargoes because the price of electricity is lower than the price of diesel fuel.
Here’s the bad news: The all-electric cargo ship will be used primarily to transport coal to generating stations along the Pearl River. So, imagine this — the world now has a ship that can claim to be zero emissions even though it is powered by electricity generated by burning coal, one of the dirtiest of fossil fuels in terms of carbon emissions, and is used to transport coal more cheaply.
“This kind of ship takes into consideration the harmony between humans and nature and can protect water quality and marine life, and should be copied by other ships sailing on local rivers,” says Chinese environmentalist Wang Yongchen. That much is correct. The same technology that makes the new electric collier possible can also be used to power ferries, container ships, or other vessels used for short haul coastal shipping.
The Chinese should be applauded for advancing the idea of electric propulsion for ships, but using clean power to lower the cost of shipping coal to electric generating plants illustrates how far the world has to go before a zero-emissions world becomes a realistic possibility.
This is a much needed breakthrough in technology to lower green house gas emissions from a transportation sector that burns some of the dirtiest of fossil fuels. Hopefully, it will not be carrying coal much longer.