Powering Cargo Ships With Hydrogen

Many of the products you use and foods you eat come from overseas. Many electronics are made in China. Clothes and shoes are often made in Vietnam. Bananas are grown in South America. And many medications are made in Europe.

All of these goods need to cross an ocean before they reach your house. Shipping around the globe is made possible by massive cargo ships. The largest ships can be 4 football fields long and 12 stories tall. A single ship can carry up to 14,000 shipping containers, each big enough to carry everything inside your home.

These giant ships have made it cheaper and easier to send products around the world. However, they also produce a lot of greenhouse gases  that contribute to climate change. Cargo ships are responsible for around 3% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. That’s more than the emissions produced by all of the cars in the US.

Car makers are reducing emissions from vehicles by powering them with electricity. But powering cargo ships with electricity isn’t as easy. The ships are simply too big and have to travel too far for batteries to provide all the energy they need. There’s also no easy way to build charging stations in the middle of the ocean.

An alternative way to make cargo ships greener is to power them with hydrogen . When hydrogen reacts with oxygen, it produces electricity that can be used to power a ship’s motor or recharge a battery. Hydrogen reactors can be turned on or off at any time, making them similar to the diesel  motors that most cargo ships use today.

Importantly, the only byproduct of burning hydrogen to produce electricity is water. Hydrogen fuel doesn’t produce any greenhouse gases. So, it’s an environmentally-friendly solution to power large ships over long distances.

Of course, there are challenges in switching from diesel to hydrogen power. Hydrogen is usually stored in liquid form, which requires cooling it down to –400°F. Cargo ships can carry cooling tanks, but these tanks make the ships heavier and take up valuable cargo space. Hydrogen-powered ships may need to be designed very differently from today’s cargo ships to carry all the fuel they need.

Another issue is that hydrogen fuel is expensive. Hydrogen costs nearly 10 times as much as diesel fuel. There’s little incentive for shipping companies to build expensive hydrogen-powered ships if they cost more to run than the diesel-powered ships they already own.

Despite these challenges, several shipping companies are experimenting with hydrogen power. The world’s first hydrogen-powered ferry is expected to begin running in Norway this year. A smaller hydrogen-powered ferry is also expected to launch in San Francisco. And the first hydrogen-powered cargo ship is being built right now in France.

These ships could mark the start of a broader shift to hydrogen fuel within the shipping industry. As more hydrogen-powered ships are built, designs will get better and cooling systems will become more efficient. In addition, ports around the world will build more facilities for producing hydrogen fuel. That could bring down the cost of hydrogen and encourage even more shipping companies to make the switch.

In the future, you’ll still be able to get your electronics, clothes, and bananas from around the world much like you do today. But these items could be shipped across oceans on cargo ships that don’t produce any greenhouse gas emissions.