@@alanmay7929 Well, if the diesel is used once in a blue moon it's a backup ... if it's an essential part of daily use then it's more of a hybrid. My impression is that use of the diesel engine would be an exceptional circumstance. If it uses diesel for 1% of its functional life that looks like an environmental "win" to me!
Thank you so much for highlighting HaiSea Marine and the HaiSea Wamis! It was an honour to get to showcase our partnership with the Haisla Nation and the advancements we're making in the marine sector.
Glad to see a local company taking risks. Do not get married to a specific battery though. There is a LOT of high density chemistries and technologies coming down the pipe now that will enable far greater range in your application.
Congratulations on such an amazing project. I'm hoping to do some kayak tours in the next year or so on the Haida Gwaii so hopefully I'll get to see the tugs in action
How far can one of these tugs travel between recharges? I guess that the motors could discharge the battery within an hour at full power, but that obviously means nothing in real life use. Thanks.
@@locknut5382 it's not purely battery and solar powered and shore-powered as it has a ICE-engine so it's technology technically not a BEV but a plug-in hybrid im i still gives it a 👍but marketing/binnie's 👎as that's not being fully honest about it but i do agree on solar,shore being the main way of recharging them as some manufacturers like Toyota skips the plugin for hybrid's and EPA-wise is a cheating as all-hybrid's standard should have them and enough range to do the average ( or more as a REV-mode ) cycle say drive to grocery's-city and back or there case one ship-parking and back as examples
This really was the BEST day! Aside from the amazing tech, what you don't see during the episode is the incredible lunch the crew prepared and when I got to have a go at the controls! The HaiSea Marine team are so wonderful and I feel really lucky that we got to tell their story!
@@AJames-jr8kw I am not a Kiwi and I am not at all annoyed, but I suspect Imogen is the sort of person that is happy to post a correction in the notes if indeed the Kiwi claim is found to be correct.
Indeed ... I was just reading an article from 2010 about fully electric and hybrid tugboats! So definitely not the first ... but it's a media thing, people love to use "'the first" for some kind of flag waving to increase interest in their content.
While this news piece is "new", the ships aren't. They've been around for a while. The third vessel was delivered to the customer by December of 2023. So they've possibly been around as long or longer than the Port of Auckland's ships. That being said, kudos to the Port of Auckland for also seeing the future of their port.
I know there are some people in the comments discussing claims about how this is not necessarily the first all electric tug boat, but I'm honestly more impressed by the coverage of this from both a cinematic perspective, but also the honesty from the environmental perspective. Information about the fact that it does have a diesel generator on board and the comment at the end regarding the fuelling of tankers and other large cruise liners etc shows that Fully Charged really thought about this piece before simply committing to it. A lot of other journalism would wash over the diesel bits rather than take it head on and sensibly show that they are there, and explain the reasons for it. Great episode :)
World first! How many times do we need to hear that. Ports of Auckland e-tug in October 2022 and I’m sure their world first wasn’t the first either… lol. Sensationalism alive and well!
@@Jaw0lf 😂😂😂😂😂 You can forget this battery hugging nonsense for marine use. If you or anyone cared to Google up hydrogen powered tugs then you would discover they are a "thing" and are already hard at work in Antwerp port. Just a case of asking Google to help with the fact checking thing. People should try it.
lol!!! it can alreday work just like diesel electric trains, in busy ports with even bigger ships more power is needed so batteries wont cope with that unless they can be swapped for example which is even more difficult.
5:20 “they lost one of their senses[…]” I had exactly the same experience learning to drive electric race cars, I was used to using the sound of the engine revs to know how fast I was going when coming in to a corner, but with the electric race car I had to learn other auditory cues, mostly the hum of the tires at speed.
Much like my road experience (MG4). The traffic lights turn green, I take of at what feels like normal speed, and then wonder where the cars beside me went!
I Loved this one ..I get bored with electric cars, unless there is something especially new and sustainable about their design...oh and well done with the filming, it was really nice.
History tells us that the first Steam Ships were not the Ocean Liners, or the Merchant Marine Cargo Vessels, it was the Paddle Steaming Tug Boats. That went out to pull in the Windjammers that couldn't make harbour as the wind was against them. I see a time when all Ships in Port will be required to either be "Clean" Hydrogen or Electrically powered, OR have to idle their ICE engines and be towed in by Electric Tugs. Once docked, they will be required to shut down all ICE power and run from Shore power. To be towed in without their own propulsion at all will probably require more tugs, which will entail greater COST. Then you will see a change to cleaner ships. The need for clean air in California drove change in the USA. The requirement for clean air in Ports will probably drive the change in the Merchant Marine. Southampton and Portsmouth already have Clean Air Zones for vehicles. It will be a mockery if the shipping is not also required to clean up it's extrodinarily DIRTY CRUDE BUNKER FUEL Act!
As mentioned in the past though NZ already has one and has done so for sometime in the Port of Auckland, but oddily you've never covered it on the show, for some time and it uses electric only for those commenters who think it's using fossil juice half the time has never used the fossil part only batteries to date.
Thank you so much! That was informative and impressive, technically and scientifically, but it also carried a moving message. These are the stories of life-improvement and hope that encourage people to look forward to a better future, and to work for that.
As a BC resident, it's nice to see these ships. I look forward to the day when the backup diesel generator is no more, and electric tugboats do all the tugboat jobs everywhere. The trust in the technology isn't there... yet, but it will come in time.
Did you know that 40% of international shipping is shifting fossil fuels? As we shift to electrified systems we can make a huge dent in the dirtiest of fossil fuel burning - ship bunker fuels.
Bunker fuel has l regulated out of use in Container Shipping for about couple decades. Much thinner liquid fuels are used now, still quite dirty but no where close to viscose bunker fuel. Alot of progress has already been done, more to come.
@@Neojhun Yeah and with that change they found the old fuel was cloud seeding which helped slow down global warming a bit by reflecting light with those clouds, so now they are looking into ways to cloud seed without using dirty fuel.
According to a captain's presentation on a cruise ship I was on in 2017, the ship was powered by bunker fuel. 250,000 gallons of it for a one-week cruise. Turns out that making and enforcing environmental laws for ships that spend the bulk of their time in international waters is really, really hard.
lol!!!! literaly no one is shifting away from fossil fuels, ships have been getting bigger and bigger hauling more cargo around the world in record times, batteries arent going to help here, it cant even entirely replace a diesel thugh boat.
Big sea ports are naturally close to population centers, so removing diesel pollution from ports is hugely beneficial. The transition to clean renewable electric power will happen in phases, and prioritizing tugboats is awesome. Tugboat crews might be apprehensive at first, but I bet after a while they'll refuse to work on stinky toxic diesel boats. 👍💯👍
Really cool, feel like I've seen something on this before at some point, its exciting times, the next 5 - 10 years will be transformative in so many ways!
2:27 - weird statement. I am pretty sure there are more fishing boats than tugboats in the world. His statement about 3 tugs to a ship also makes it sounds like the tugs wouldn't leave to dock other ships 4:51 - how can tugging or fishing be the oldest industries in the world?
There are more recreational watercraft than tug boats. 992k registered in Florida alone. I doubt there are even one tenth of that of tug boats in the world.
Ocean going colossal vessels are not far away from E-revolution now when we have electrical propulsion for Tugs. Lithium Titanite oxide (LTO) batteries are considered safest type of Li-ion batteries for maritime applications, hope LTO's are used in these tugs too. This was my most interesting video watched in the month, thanks for sharing.
wrong, wrong wrong!!!!! giant ships have had electric propulsion for very long time just like trains, its called Azipods and bow thrusters, the power still comes from giant diesel or LPG generators.... batteries will never cope with such loads and distances.
@@alanmay7929 Amigo I'm an ETO working for tankers. What you said is right but electrical propulsion is still not common. IC engines still dominating the shipping industry . Secondly please follow up the battery developments, you may change you way you think.
Tugboats are a good use case for electric propulsion. They can be anchored for hours while charging and their use case benefit from the precision of electric motors. The reduced emissions in harbors is a nice benefit as well.
I am concerned about the lack of noise. Noise is the main way animals and Marine life know to stay away from these boat. Those whales are gonna get propeller marks on their backs if they’re not careful. Where I live, dolphins know to stay away from boats because of the noise.
These aren't the world's first electric tugboats. China has had all-electric tugs for more than four years. In fact, I'm sure all-electric tugs have been around even longer than that.
I’m sure Donald Trump said electric boats wouldn’t work, and something about a shark, and having to choose whether to die by shark or electric shock. Or something.
@@randomjasmicisrandom It's a tad disappointing that we see sloppy editorial standards from Robert et al. As soon as anyone makes such a claim then Robert should realise it's "game on" ref the fact checking to see if the claims are correct. (I note there's a lot of fake facts being sprayed around on this platform ref hydrogen. Just as well I'm around to the volunteer moderator thing on facts ... ) With help from Google this tug from NZ turned up on YT in seconds. And what's more the video of 'Sparkie" was quite amusing what with the tug turning donuts, simply because it could. The crew seemed to be more into having a laugh than the earnest Canadian bloke going on about "pocket politics". Clearly the NZ crew were devotees of Clarkson J and were more than happy to thrash the bollocks off their tug in the interests of photo journalism. Perhaps next time Imogen does boats she might care to don a pirate hat to hint she's up for a laff. I know Imogen, sometimes you just can't win.
4:51 "the oldest industry in the world" . . . there's accounts of ladies and lads of dubious repute on Sumerian clay tablets and in Roman frescoes that would beg to differ with this pronouncement . . .
This makes so much sense, especially since they have been Diesel electric with Azipod drives for a long time. More boat stuff always welcome, coastal regions in the Pacific North West surely could pick up on a couple of pioneer projects in Denmark an Norway that got feature on this channel. But yeah, electrically tugging LNG vessels... Its a bit like Mercedes showcasing its latest 600 e-Actros truck hauling cement ; /
So cool! Delighted to see tugboats electrified! Makes sense for localized, maneuverable vessels. I should've known that Imogen would jump on board! I wouldn't be surprise if soon there will be electric ferries in these waters, like the ones in Norway. One question: do these tugs have prop guards installed to help protect those whales? Hope so!
Almost all tugboats built this century use azipods, an electric motor and a ducted propeller mounted in a rotating pod under the boat. That's why a lot of current tugboats are already diesel electric, the electric motor is mounted in the pod below the water line. They didn't show any of the drive but I have to assume these would have that drive type.
lol!!! the electric Ferry in Norway cant even do 50 miles of range what are you talking about?! diesel-electric or LPG- electric makes more sense, the propulsion is electric and the electricity comes from generators
@@alanmay7929 Sorry, but you're sadly misinformed. There are now 80 electric ferries in Norway. Ferries do not need greater ranges, as they are for transporting people and goods across fyords and inlets. Even the ferry from Seattle to Kingston in this country travels only 7.5 miles, and 41 miles to Oak Harbor. Also, electricity comes from an increasing number of renewable sources, especially in Norway and the Northwest here with hydro electric power plants.
@@Yanquetino wrong!!!! those special ferries only works in Norway because they have tons of small islands and they dont necessarily goes to difficult seas whereas diesel or LPG which norway also has alot are significantly way more capable and can actually change their routes in case of emergencies. 40 miles is literaly nothing compare to what other ferries have to navigate. they also have backup generators for emergencies too.
friggin cool idea well done to the builders. being so quiet i wonder if striking wales with the tugs will be an issue, similiar to fully electric cars and pedestrians.
About the same size battery as the ferries between Sweden and Denmark but a lot slower charging. Still, progress is progress and the electricity they use is mostly hydro.
I work with Corvus kit on a hybrid ferry, Corvus Orca, each one of of the trays are ~128Ah at ~50v brilliant kit ours have been operating since 2018 and still going
Awesome, well done covering this! 5 Mega watt hours of battery wow. How many equiv. homes is that? Plug it in to the local grid and you have battery backup also! If it only takes 4 hours to charge, can keep them ready while serving to help backup the grid for "Peak" electric need times too. Maybe this could be done soon?!
While it is fair to point out that Kitimat will be shipping LNG, there is also aluminum and forestry products that are currently moved through the port.
Like potentially installing 5 Mega Pack equiv. 's per tug and like what is trending in EV batteries, they are developing the bi-directional flow capabilities for home backup etc. and so we may all be able to leverage our local battery storage to augment the grid, making it more resilient and load capable. The advent of the newest battery tech is seeming to show that we will soon be seeing batteries with over 4,000 cycles and that is over 10 years of 100% discharge/charges once a day. The practical life is thought to be around 35 years down to like 80% of original so still very usable and so the added cycles will not be an issue. CATL even has a ready for market 12,000 cycle battery capable of charging at 1 MW rates too!!
@@MrMrFlyPuppy Forget home backup unless you live in the middle of nowhere. If the grid went down for too long and your panels couldn't see the Sun then a waste of cash. You'd soon be back to your petrol/diesel gen set before you froze/starved to death. Don't forget the power for freezers and fuel pumps on the CH. Why not Google up area battery storage farms? A much better bet and you can bet a man would be out to fix any issues regardless of the weather (well almost).
Would have been interesting to see more of the technology side. Quick shot of the battery and propulsion motor, no mention of the inverter, control system etc. the layman would think all you need to do is add some batteries and away you go.
This is great to see but your claim of being the first in the world is wrong, She was launched in 2023 while there has been an electric tug working in Auckland NZ since 2020 and they expressly state that it is not the first in the world
I was working with a battery supplier about 15 years ago out at UBC. They mentioned that they were working on the battery systems for electric tug boats back then. I would be interested in finding out how long these boats have been in service. I imagine with newer battery tech, these boats are getting more and more viable.
the power density is incredible, but the uptime is just not possible to acheive for most roles a tug does. but oh, i wish. this is a great use case, despite the unfortunate cargo.
It only makes sense. The diesel generators on traditional tugs are only there to supply power to the electric generator that drives the electric motorized propellers, just as the diesel motor in diesel locomotives drives 4 electric motors at the base of the engine. With a battery pack you can cut out the "middle-man" and supply power directly to the motors.
5:18 sensory loss of hearing an internal combustion engine and its vibrations, however gaining the sense of hearing what's around and feeling the far more accurate digital torque power.
Google will help with this. There were electrically powered pleasure boats navigating the Thames around 120 years ago. Using lead acid flooded cells as you might suppose. Interestingly they had peaked by 1905 and were followed by petrol engine boats. I would suggest that the charging issue was the problem.
Ive been waiting for this but i do have one question - does a tugboat have to be large - or can a swarm of smaller autonomous boats that are all motor and battery move the same load?
I did not quite get - what is the price of this boat. How much does it cost to operate? How long is the warranty of the batteries? What is the price difference between a regular tug boat and an electric one? How much time do you get from a regular tug boat before it is done for good? 10- 20-30 years? We all see the benefits, the economics is what is important.
How long can the operate for, can the replace all diesel tugs, is it one-to-one or are more needed due to long charging times, are they price competitive, where will their high power electricity come from where they operate?