Hydrogen 1.008
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With an ongoing push by the maritime community to reduce ship emissions to satisfy IMO MARPOL Annex VI regulations and limit the sulfur content of ships from 01 January 2020 to 0.5 percent world-wide, many ship owners are starting to consider hydrogen fuel cell technology to satisfy evolving emissions regulations. To date, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on research programs to utilize hydrogen fuel cells for transportation. Several maritime powers including the European Union, the United States and Japan have initiated pilot programs to assess the feasibility of maritime hydrogen to reduce emissions while maintaining cost parity with traditional propulsion technology.
A leading voice in the field is Dr. Joseph Pratt, CEO and CTO of Golden Gate Zero Emission Marine (GGZM), who is an internationally recognized expert on maritime hydrogen. GGZM is one of several companies making the transition from feasibility study to vessel construction and operation.
FIRST COMMERCIAL HYDROGEN FUEL CELL VESSEL IN NORTH AMERICA
After completing a keel laying ceremony for the Water-Go-Round in November last year and an anticipated launch in September of this year, GGZM is on track to become the first commercial hydrogen fuel cell vessel in North America. The Water-Go-Round will be a 70-foot catamaran built by Bay Ship & Yacht Co. capable of carrying up to 84 passengers in the Bay Area.
According to Dr. Pratt, once launched the vessel will operate in San Francisco Bay for three months while Sandia National Laboratories, a national lab at the forefront of hydrogen fuel cell technology, conducts performance testing on the vessel and gathers data. The vessel will carry a tank array of up to 242 kilograms of compressed hydrogen at 250 bar (approximately 3600 psi) which will provide enough fuel for up to 2 full days of operation. The Water-Go-Round will be propelled by two 300 kW (400 horse power) shaft motors with a 100 kilowatt hour battery to provide speeds up to 22 knots.
Some of the initial funding for the Water-Go-Round project comes from California Climate Investments, which is a cap and trade program aimed at reducing Green House Gas emissions in the state of California.
Dr. Pratt commented that the successful launch of his business and the building of the Water- Go-Round “was a long time in the making” growing organically out of a partnerships he developed while managing the SF-BREEZE and other studies at Sandia National Labs.
“The feasibility report showed that it could be done, but we wanted to prove it. When looking at the business side [of the company], we saw a really big demand for hydrogen fuel cell vessels”.
Dr. Joseph Pratt, CEO and CTO of Golden Gate Zero Emission Marine (GGZM)
Once the Water-Go-Round project is complete, GGZM will focus its
efforts on taking lessons learned from the project to develop “ready to go” hydrogen fuel cell power systems which could be used for new vessel construction and retro- fits around the world.
One of the oft-quoted challenges is the “chicken and egg” dilemma when a disruptive propulsion technology enters the maritime market. Critics will claim that ship owners are reluctant to deploy new technology in new vessel construction, like hydrogen fuel cells, until the port infrastructure is in place. They will also claim that port infrastructure will not develop until there is a strong demand from ship owners creating a “chicken and egg” dilemma.
For Dr. Pratt, the answer is “clearly the chicken needs to come first… the chicken is the proof”.
Noting that the US produces more than 10 million metric tons of hydrogen annually (US DOE), Dr. Pratt believes the necessary ingredients for a rapid expansion of maritime hydrogen fuel cell technology already exists in many industrialized countries across the world.
He quipped that instead of producing an endless number of feasibility studies, it was necessary to “get the boats on the water” to prove to the international maritime community that hydrogen technology could be economically feasible.
Dr. Pratt asserts the biggest factor in determining which parts of the world will adopt this technology is “whether [ship owners] can get hydrogen”. At the moment, not all countries throughout the world have easy access to hydrogen. Moreover, the majority of vessels will require liquid hydrogen based on their required endurance since liquid hydrogen has a considerably higher energy density than compressed hydrogen gas. Because of the mature network of hydrogen suppliers in North America, Dr. Pratt believes that North America will continue to be a strong market for this type of maritime technology.
The Report • September 2019 • Issue 89 | 51
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