Maria Gallucci: Zero Emission Marine Vessels

Sea Change Radio

When it comes to energy transitions, marine vessels tend to get overlooked, even though they are some of the worst polluters of our oceans and air. The heavy duty diesel fuel used by most ships presents serious problems for the planet. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with Maria Gallucci, a Senior Reporter at Canary Media, who describes efforts being made to transform boats and ships into zero emission marine fleets. We look at a project to electrify tugboats in San Diego, a cutting-edge hydrogen ferry about to launch in San Francisco, and innovations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the international cargo shipping space.

Narrator | 00:02 – This is Sea Change Radio, covering the shift to sustainability. I’m Alex Wise.

Maria Gallucci (MG) | 00:17 – When we think about the effect that these vessels have, yes, they are certainly contributing to climate change in a very real way. They’re also directly spewing pollution into these communities as well.

Narrator | 00:30 – When it comes to energy transitions, marine vessels tend to get overlooked, even though they are some of the worst polluters of our oceans and air. The heavy duty diesel fuel used by most ships presents serious problems for the planet. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with Maria Gallucci, a Senior Reporter at Canary Media, who describes efforts being made to transform boats and ships into zero emission marine fleets. We look at a project to electrify tugboats in San Diego, a cutting-edge hydrogen ferry about to launch in San Francisco, and innovations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the international cargo shipping space.

Alex Wise (AW) | 01:30 – I am joined now on Sea Change Radio by Maria Gallucci. Maria is a senior reporter for Canary Media. Maria, welcome to Sea Change Radio.

Maria Gallucci (MG) | 01:43 – Hi. Thanks for having me.

Alex Wise (AW) | 01:45 – Why don’t you first tell us about Canary Media. You just recently celebrated your third anniversary, correct?

Maria Gallucci (MG) | 01:51 – Yes, we did. So, Canary Media is a nonprofit newsroom covering the clean energy transition. We are a fully independent outlet, and we focus primarily on the United States, but kind of hoping to expand globally because obviously this is an issue that affects everywhere.

AW | 02:07 – When we think about energy transitions, we’re often thinking about getting an electric vehicle or making a change to our electric grid. But one of the more global issues is ocean transport. And you’ve written a few pieces on how maritime vessels are trying to electrify. Why don’t you first kind of give us an overview of some of the industry’s problems that they’re facing and, and what the solutions could be on the horizon?

MG | 02:36 – Sure. So globally, the International Shipping Sector accounts for about 3% of greenhouse gas emissions every year. That includes cargo ships, harbor crafts, and all types of vessels that serve this massive multi-trillion dollar industry. And there are kind of many ways to go about tackling the problem of, one of which is, is developing greener fuels to go in these cargo ships. Another is electrifying, uh, especially the smaller vessels like tugboats and ferries. Still complicated and expensive to do, but, uh, we’re starting to see a lot of progress on harbor craft and particular that operate close to ports close to communities. And so it’s not just a solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but also kind of these toxic air pollutants that concentrate in communities.

AW | 03:28 – So these harbor craft, let’s focus on those a little bit more. It makes a lot of sense. These are kind of the low hanging fruit for transitioning to electrification, right? You can recharge them pretty frequently because they’re not out to Sea for two or three days.

MG | 03:43 – Exactly. Uh, ferries especially, and even tugboats, they kind of have a home base. They’ll go out, they’ll do the run, they’ll come back, and so they can recharge, whereas right, a, a cargo ship could be sailing for weeks, uh, or longer, uh, kind of crossing the oceans. So that’s more complicated than something that sort of is, is always going to be at point A or point B.

AW | 04:06 – Maybe the holy grail is to someday transition these heavy long distance shipping fleets away from the heavy diesel that they use to electrified boats. But in the meantime, let’s talk about tug boats, which are surprising sources of quite a lot of pollution, particularly when you consider that they’re usually operating close to land. If you can back up a little bit and tell us a little bit about the history of the tugboat industry and how it’s been moving up till now. That might give us a little better perspective on, on the next phase in terms of electrification.

MG | 04:43 – Sure. So right, in the United States, there’s about, 6,000 tugboats nationwide. These vessels account for about a quarter of, uh, greenhouse gas emissions from the US maritime fleet alone. That’s roughly the equivalent of driving 1.3 million cars in a year. So pretty significant. And, um, in California, which is obviously a, a major hub of shipping imports and exports, that state has about 230 tug boats, and these represent a disproportionate share of the air pollution in the state or air pollution among the commercial harbor craft. So just looking at California’s numbers, tug boats represent about 7% of the total harbor craft fleet, but they represent 19% of particular mat at 2.5 emissions. And these, uh, increase the risk of cancer in people. And this 7% of tugboats is responsible for 23% of total NOx emissions, which can damage people’s lungs and trigger asthma symptoms. So even though there are fewer tugboats, they represent a much bigger share of these nasty toxic emissions that harm people’s health. And that’s because of the, the diesel that they’re using and sort of the inefficient engines that they’re burning it with.

AW | 06:04 – And is that disproportionality also reflected in water pollution, or is it more of a airborne emissions are the, are the real problem when it comes to tugboats?

MG | 06:16 – To be honest, I actually don’t have a a, a clear answer for the water pollution as to whether tugboats certainly do contribute water pollution. They leak diesel, they, you know, spill trash. Um, but I don’t know exactly if it’s disproportionately worse as it is with air pollution.

AW | 06:36 – Right. The reason I asked is that I was thinking of these cruise ships that go into some of the more fragile harbors around the world. You’ll hear about them going into fjords, and then these very pristine waters will end up having oil slicks and fish die offs, et cetera, because of these very large boats, it seems like the ocean is infinite, but these heavy diesel fuels have a real direct impact on, on the coastlines that they come across.

MG | 07:03 – Definitely. And, and the fact that these vessels are so concentrated in such a small area. So even though the ocean is vast, all of this pollution, all of these emissions are happening in a concentrated area where, um, they interact with each other and there’s sort of this effect that happens, these cumulative effects that happen by being in a port or a harbor instead of sort of out in the middle of nowhere where, um, it kind of can spread out, be more diffuse.

AW | 07:32 – So let’s talk about San Diego’s EWolf project, if you can. It’s, it’s pretty exciting and hopefully a template for transitioning tugboat fleets around the country. What is the EWolf project, Mariam?

MG | 07:45 – Sure. So EWolf is the first all electric tugboat in the United States and one of only a few in the world. It recently arrived, uh, at the port of San Diego, and it should be, uh, set to start operating in the coming weeks. EWolf uses, batteries to power its electric motors and charges its batteries. It plugs in at a shoreside station in San Diego, that was built specifically for the project. It was EWolf has been several years in the making. Um, it was an initiative of Crowley, which is the company that owns and operates the vessel, the Port of San Diego, the Environmental Protection Agency, and kind of assorted regional authorities in California and around San Diego County. Uh, the support of the project.

AW | 08:35 – And what are some of the hurdles that an electric boat needs to leap over? What are the biggest drawbacks? Is it the battery, is it the power charging, etc?

MG | 08:47 – It’s probably a combination of all of those. With any vessel in particular, weight is the biggest issue, and batteries are heavy. And so say for a tugboat that really needs to, to kind of rev up and down have a lot of power, it needs this, these bursts of energy. And to get that using batteries requires a lot of weight, which affects its ability to do the job. So it’s really a balancing act between, um, the weight of the batteries and how much power they deliver. And the other part of the equation is the charging equipment. So in general, ports tend to be, you know, they’re, they’re literally at the end of the grid. They’re on the waterfront. There might not be sufficient electrical infrastructure to supply all of this power that they need. You know, we’re talking about in the e wolf’s case, the EWolf has a 6.2 megawatt hour battery system, and so it needs about that much, you know, to, to recharge. And so in order to have an electric tugboat or an electric vessel, you need to compliment that with charging infrastructure, um, building batteries on land, pulling directly from the grid, uh, whatever you can do to supply the power without kind of overburdening the infrastructure that’s there.

AW | 10:04 – And is there a solar element as well in terms of the recharging?

MG | 10:08 – Yeah, so with the EWolf project, they built what’s called a micro grid. So this system draws power from San Diego Gas and Electric’s power grid. It can also store it in a three megawatt hour battery system, and it also has a canopy of solar panels over top of it. So the solar’s charging the batteries, it can draw from the grid, and that allows the tugboat to be able to charge whenever it needs to charge. And it also allows for that charging to happen, uh, without stressing out the grid, especially if everybody is turning on their air conditionings at the same time, or for whatever reason, there’s a huge power surge on the main grid, the tugboat can kind of do its own thing without adding that sort of surge of demand.

(Music Break) | 11:03

AW | 12:16 – This is Alex Wise on Sea Change Radio, and I’m speaking to Maria. Gallucci Maria is a senior reporter for Canary Media. So Maria, we’re talking about this EWolf project, this, this electric tugboat that’s setting sail in San Diego. Are there other similar projects that you’re aware of? What, what’s the competitive landscape look like for the electric tugboat market moving forward?

MG | 12:43 – I’m aware of at least a one or two other electric tug boats, uh, that are launching in New Zealand, actually, but I believe it’s a relatively new space. I think where we’ve seen a lot of electrification in vessels happen has been with passenger ferries. One part of that is the fact that people ride on passenger ferries, sort of the general public interacts with ferries a lot more than they do with these working tugboats. And so there’s kind of more public pressure and exposure to clean these up first.

AW | 13:13 – I would imagine also that these public ferries are public boats so that there’s no private industry that’s already made an investment into their diesel boat. And then asking them to give up that investment and switch to an electric is, is very difficult in like the tugboat industry, let’s say, where a private company might own a fleet of non-electric boats, and now you’re asking them to switch to these very expensive boats, that that transition won’t be easy, I imagine, or certainly not as easy as as something like a government mandate with ferries, right?

MG | 13:48 – Exactly. And that’s, well, a big reason why you’re starting to see the shift happen in California specifically is because the state has adopted regulations around harbor craft emissions. So requiring, um, ports or vessel operators to switch to cleaner technologies, be it, you know, all electric or some version of a, a less polluting, uh, engine or, or technology for these vessels.

AW | 14:14 – So in San Francisco, there’s a hydrogen powered ferry system. How far along is it, and maybe you can contrast that technology from what you were describing with the battery powered tugboat.

MG | 14:26 – So the battery powered tugboat is just that, it’s all batteries and electric motors. The hydrogen ferry in San Francisco called the Sea Change.

AW | 14:35 – It’s called the Sea change, huh?

MG | 14:37 – Yeah. Aptly named .

AW | 14:40 Go on, sorry.

MG | 14:44 – No, no, that’s all right. So, uh, fuel cells work like batteries except that they are using hydrogen to, um, produce electrical energy that drives the motors. Uh, Sea change has been several years in the making. It is in San Francisco. Um, I’m not quite sure the exact status. I know that they are the sort of, the owners and operators are waiting to get all of the requirements that they need because this is a new type of technology, a first of a kind for, um, for the country certainly and for San Francisco. So there are a lot of extra layers of, of regulations that go into making sure everything’s good to go. I mean, in any situation, but especially when you’re dealing with passengers, I think there’s an, uh, sort of an enhanced layer of making sure nothing goes wrong.

AW | 15:29 – And would the fueling be comparable to hydrogen powered vehicles that we see, especially in fleet vehicles? Would fueling up these ferries be similar to just fueling up a hydrogen car, or is it a more elaborate process?

MG | 15:45 – It’s fundamentally similar, and that is sort of one of the advantages, um, that at least proponents of hydrogen ferries and cars say, is that it’s more akin to fueling up your gas car, your diesel truck, uh, your, you’re putting a nozzle into the tank and refueling in that way. Versus with a charger, you have to wait potentially hours, um, to, to recharge a battery. The Sea Change, the hydrogen ferry in San Francisco has fuel cells. It also has storage tanks, which it keeps on board. So it is bringing its own fuel with it in that way, just as it might, you know, um, tanks of diesel fuel and that allows it to travel up to 300 nautical miles at speeds as fast as 15 knots, which is kind of similar to the capabilities of diesel-powered vessels. So in that way, it’s kind of able to operate relatively similarly to sort of the existing, existing ferry technology.

AW | 16:47 – So are there other ferries that are using hydrogen power around the country or the globe that you’re aware of? And are there also some battery-powered ferries that we can kind of compare the performance and the problems that need to be overcome with both of these concurrent technologies that are unfolding?

MG | 17:07 – So, as far as I understand, Sea change is the first hydrogen powered ferry in the United States. There are others in the, around the world. Uh, Norway especially has been leading on all types of, uh, sort of zero emission technology for, for maritime, uh, including ferries and other types of vessels, because they have a huge amount of public money to invest in these projects, but also because it is such a maritime culture traveling from, from these fjords, you know, that’s how people get around. So there’s a real need to reduce pollution from those vessels. Um, in the United States, we are starting to see more electric ferries. Washington state is, uh, working to convert some of its fleet. San Francisco actually the same, uh, uh, uh, public agency that is bringing on the hydrogen ferries, also working on battery powered ferries. And that technology, my sense is that battery ferries are gaining momentum, uh, are gaining more momentum than hydrogen fuel cell ferries. That’s not to say that we won’t see more of the hydrogen, but I think, um, the same way that’s happening on, on the road is the more you have of something, the costs come down, timelines come down, people understand the technology better. And so I think that’s slowly starting to happen with, uh, battery powered ferries in particular.

AW | 18:32 – So turning back to these tugboats for a second, if we can, we, we kind of discussed how the transition could be challenging in the face of private industry and, and it’s less public facing in general than ferries, but, um, how, how do, how do people that you, um, well, um, how should, how will policymakers approach putting in incentives and, and helping to usher along this transition from, um, uh, diesel powered tugboat fleets to an electric fleet in your estimation?

MG | 19:14 – Well, one of the sort of clearest example of this at the federal level is the Inflation reduction Act, uh, which Congress passed in 2022. That includes, well, includes hundreds of billions of dollars for clean energy investment. Among those are $3 billion just for cleaning up ports. And, uh, some of that funding, uh, is, could be used for zero emission vessels and other types of infrastructure like cranes and forklifts and other kind of heavy duty diesel burning equipment that also contribute to port pollution. So that’s a, a very clear example. The EPA has other funds that is pulling from to reduce diesel emissions in particular. And so, especially with ports and these types of harbor crafts, I think, um, there’s a lot of overlap between investments for reducing carbon emissions, but also public support for just clean air in general with, uh, reducing diesel pollution.

(Music Break) | 20:17

AW | 21:59 – This is Alex Wise on Sea Change Radio, and I’m speaking to Maria Gallucci Maria is a senior reporter for Canary Media. At the outset of our conversation, Maria, you gave us some information about how tugboats affect climate change, their disproportionate share compared to other vessels. How do ferries stack up in terms of their emissions? Are they bad polluters as well?

MG | 22:26 – They are, and for similar reasons, um, because they typically have these older diesel engines. Um, so looking again at California, uh, ferries represent 2% of commercial harbor craft, but they contribute 11% of particulate matter, 2.5 pollution and 15% of NOx emissions. So they have a much higher share of pollution than they do actual number of vessels, very similar to tug boats. And these, again, are operating very close to shore, very close to communities. Another kind of interesting stat for the entire country is that about 39 million Americans live in close proximity to ports. The majority of those people, uh, are lower income or people of color. And this is, uh, these are stats from the, uh, EPA. So really when we think about the effect that these vessels have, yes, they are certainly contributing to climate change in a very real way. They’re also directly spewing pollution into these communities as well.

AW | 23:29 – And for the passengers, is that a problem? I know that there’s been studies that show that people who work on cruise ships tend to have a higher rate of asthma and other airborne illnesses. I can’t imagine it’s good to be sitting right next to a, a motor of an old polluting diesel ferry if that’s part of your daily commute, let’s say, or the employees who work on these boats.

MG | 23:53 – Right? Yes, that, that’s a very good point. I would say that the, the risk is probably much higher for the people who work on the boats in terms of the health impacts, it’s obviously not a good thing, but I think it really depends on how much exposure a person has a little bit in the morning, a little bit in the evening, uh, is kind of different than having these sort of emissions accumulate above a community day in, day out.

AW | 24:21 – Unless there’s some epidemiological study that’s looking at the impact of ferries on employees or, or the, the local communities. It’s tough to pinpoint, but one can imagine that it’s, it’s a lot better when it’s a zero emissions boat that we’re looking at rather than these heavy diesel fuel emitters.

MG | 24:39 – Exactly. And the mission’s, um, obviously a big thing, but noise as well. Um, these zero emission vessels are generally much, much quieter, uh, which is more pleasant for the passengers, and for the workers. Um, although an interesting sort of, um, uh, fact, what I learned talking, uh, to folks on the e tugboat story, the EWolf is that crews on tugboats use noise as, as cues to understand what the vessel is doing. And so in the absence of noise, they’re having to relearn or kind of learn new ways of understanding, uh, the direction or, or sort of the function that the tugboat is doing, because they can no longer depend on sort of the groan of the diesel engine to tell them.

AW | 25:24 – We’re not all going to be riding on electric ferries anytime too soon. It sounds like it’s going to be a slow rollout over the next decade or so, one would imagine. Is that fair to say?

MG | 25:34 – I think that’s fair. And I would say that the main barrier is not the technology itself, um, because we know that battery powered, uh, tugboats and ferries, uh, can work and hydrogen fuel cell ferries, uh, sort of from a technology standpoint. So the biggest challenge will be, um, the cost of building the vessels, and then even more so perhaps will be the cost and the time involved with building up the charging infrastructure or building up the hydrogen supply infrastructure. Sort of everything you need to keep these vessels running is right now a very big bottleneck that will need to be solved over time to speed up the rollout.

AW | 26:15 – What does the future hold for international shipping and travel? Are there solutions on the horizon for electrified vessels that can travel long distances, Maria?

MG | 26:27 – The future for large cargo ships and other types of vessels is a lot less clear. Um, there are, I think certainly we will see batteries incorporated into these vessels, and, and that’s already happening today. Hundreds of, of vessels, uh, large vessels use batteries, um, but not necessarily for sort of their main source of propulsion. It’s more to, to kind of power the lights and the equipment on the vessel. Um, a lot of, there’s sort of a lot of momentum around, uh, what are called kind of future fuels. So it could potentially be ammonia, uh, or hydrogen ideally produced using renewable energy. Um, these fuels are possible to make, but they’re extremely expensive, extremely energy intensive, and no place really has the infrastructure to supply them. So, uh, but I, I think there’s general consensus that to clean up large cargo ships, you’ll need a cleaner fuel. Because again, like I was talking about at the, uh, earlier part of the segment, the weight from the batteries is a big problem and it’s an even bigger problem when you’re on a, you know, 300 plus foot long cargo ship carrying cargo, uh, carrying containers, carrying cars, all these things. So there’s a lot of progress and a lot of momentum, but I don’t think that there’s sort of a real, um, agreement or clear picture yet of what, you know, the future cargo ship will look like.

AW | 27:53 – Maria Gallucci is a senior reporter for Canary Media Maria, thanks so much for being my guest on Sea Change Radio.

MG | 28:00 Thank you. It’s been fun.

AW | 28:16 – You’ve been listening to Sea Change Radio. Our intro music is by Sanford Lewis, and our outro music is by Alex Wise. Additional music by Lettuce, Elvis Costello and Crosby Stills & Nash. To read a transcript of this show, go to SeaChangeRadio.com to stream or download the show, or subscribe to our podcast on our site, or visit our archives to hear from Doris Kearns Goodwin, Gavin Newsom, Stewart Brand, and many others. And tune in to Sea Change Radio next week as we continue making connections for sustainability. For Sea Change Radio, I’m Alex Wise.