Electric Car Ferries Enter Service In Norway (bbc.co.uk)

AmiMoJo writes from a report via BBC: Following two years of trials of the world's first electric car ferry, named Ampere, Norwegian ferry operators are busy making the transition from diesel. It is thought that 84 ferries are ripe for conversion to electric power, and 43 ferries on longer routes would benefit from conversion to hybrids that use diesel engines to charge their batteries. If this were done, nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions would be cut by 8,000 tons per year and CO2 emissions by 300,000 tons per year, equivalent to the annual emissions from 150,000 cars. The Ampere uses an 800kWh battery, equivalent to 8 high end Tesla cars. According to a report from Siemens and environmental campaign group Bellona, long-distance ferries are not well suited to electrification, but about 70% of Norway's ferries cover relatively short crossings, so switching to electric power would pay for itself in a few years. The BBC report also mentions some of the challenges associated with converting the diesel ferries to electric ferries. For example, "during initial trials, the fast charging placed excessive strain on the local grid, designed as it was to service a relatively small population," reports BBC. "To lighten the load, high-capacity batteries were put on constant charge on either side of the fjord, ready to transfer the electricity quickly to the ferry's batteries whilst docked."

Comments

Re:typical delusion

[Anonymous Coward]

This is in Norway. The vast (vast) majority of Norway's electricity is hydro generation. Whilst not technically zero emissions, it's about as close as you can get.

So the "externalised" emissions are in fact essentially zero.

Re:typical delusion

[silentcoder]

Electric cars cause emissions- they're just externalized at the generating station.

Bullshit.
1) Not all generating stations cause emisions
2) Even if yours does - it still causes FAR less. The best ICE's are only about 25% energy efficient. Most electric cars are 2 to 3 times that. This means that, even from a dirty grid, the same amount of carbon burned will take an electric car two to three times further, or to put it another way - an electric car on a dirty grid still produces only between a third and two-thirds as much CO2 per mile as a car with an internal combustion engine.

Re:typical delusion

[silentcoder]

Actually no, it's because heating is one of the few things electricity does really, really badly. It takes long to heat up (which wastes energy) and it does so inefficiently. So directly-burning fuels like gas is a much more efficient way to produce heat -and that makes it cheaper for the purpose of heat. For moving things around - electricity beats fire every time though.