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Comment by Epa095 | Hacker News Reader

For those interested in this, there is also a quite large battery powered ferry operating in Norway.

>The Bastø Electric is 139.2-metre-long and 21-metre-wide and was built by the Turkish Sefine Shipyard and has room for 600 passengers and 200 cars or 24 trucks.

>Bastø Electric uses batteries with a capacity of 4.3 MWh. The fast-charging system has a capacity of 9 MW.

https://www.electrive.com/2021/03/02/worlds-largest-electric...

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Around a quarter of all ferry connections in Norway have been electrified. Often there's one electric and one regular diesel ferry operating in tandem. Bastø Electric is still the biggest one though.

While not fully electric, there's also the Color Line ferry operating between Sandefjord and Strömstad[0]. I happened it be in town for its inaugural voyage and it turned out to be a quaint little trip. As far as I understand it though, they more or less only run on electric power when navigating out of port, and back to diesel when at see and arriving. Enjoyable trip nonetheless!

[0]: https://www.colorline.com/sandefjord-stroemstad/color-hybrid

Hurtigruten also have two exploration cruise ships that with hybrid propulsion. I think they mainly use the electric part when close to shore and in harbour.

While Norway is to be admired I find it difficult to see their experience as applicable to the rest of the world when they have a 1.19 Trillion wealth fund which equates to over 22 million per person in Norway.

America invented the airplane then went to the moon. We started every large tech company. We essentially created or popularized everything that defines the modern era.

Excuses are why infrastructure and politics here sucks. We should bully the federal government for their failure here, just like Biden bullied LGA into renovating

Well, we also have a significant fraction of the population who think that the federal government does too much as it is. Even during the moonshot, there was a lot of pushback on the federal spending on the project.

It’s actually $220,000 pr person.

I don't think the wealth fund has much to do with this: it doesn't seem like it's significantly more expensive than other options, and indeed the video implies it's a cost savings over diesel. I do agree that this isn't really a general purpose solution, as it's not feasible on wide or busy waterways. What makes it work for Norway is that they've got a lot of little inhabited islands.

Washington State Ferries are working on electrification as well. If it works near plan, it should be an operational cost savings, and hopefully that'll pay for the capital costs.

Also, electric service upgrades should increase my home utility reliability, so that's nice for people on the island I live on.

Supposed to be less noisy which should be nice for aquatic life.

I think most electric crossings are fjord crossings, not island connections. Typically 2-6 kilometers.

You can watch the live value there: https://www.nbim.no/

I wonder if these electric ferries have diesel backup systems? A little 100 horsepower backup engine wouldn't use much space/weight/cost, but would still be enough to get the ship slowly home in case of other failures.

The energy required to move a ship isn't proportional to speed - so just a little slower saves a lot of energy.

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