First Fuel Cell-Powered Passenger Ship Launching Later This Year
When you think about fuel cell-powered transportation, you probably also think about automobiles. But Proton Power Systems might just change your perspective. PPS claims to have launched the world’s first fuel cell-powered passenger ferry. The ferry marks the first use of fuel cells in marine passenger transport.
The Zemship runs on a hybrid unit consisting of two 48 kW fuel cell systems and a lead gel battery— a combination that has twice the fuel efficiency of a diesel engine.
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As you may have surmised, the fuel cells need to run on something. In this case, they run on gaseous hydrogen stored in onboard tanks. At any given time, the ship has enough fuel for three days.
A special hydrogen filling station has even been created for the Zemship. The station stores the hydrogen as a liquid, and then transforms it into a gas in an evaporator before compressing it.
After an initial test phase, the 100-passenger ship will go into commercial service later this year.
While the Zemship is an important breakthrough, we can’t forget that hydrogen is usually derived from oil and gas. However, the large reduction in carbon emissions promised by fuel-cell powered boats is still a boon to passenger ships.
More Posts on Fuel Cells:
- Nanotech Research Could Remove Need for Hydrogen in Fuel Cells
- How Biodiesel Fuel Cells Could Power The Future And Your Car
- Another Interesting Fuel Cell Development
It’s coming! Thank God for the technologies that will free us from the grips of OPEC and the likes. Next we need to tackle our Fiat monetary system and how it relates to government spending. There is hope for America and the free world in our technologies and politics, we just have to get rid of a few bad apples like Bush and McCain. We need to lead in the world again, gain their trust and admiration and show the way to a brighter future for All Peoples, not just the rich uber-calss of the U.S. Lets get going on this and stop trying to pretend that our uber-class is innocent of filling its pockets these last eight years!
Fuel Cell-Powered Passenger Ship Launching Later This Year | nerdd.net…
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