@@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
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.
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.
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 :)
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.
@@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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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. 👍💯👍
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 . . .
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.
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
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!
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
Fantastic application with all that torque which they obviously need. Clearly the additonal weight, plus the current need to have a diesel generator onboard as well, isn't so much of an issue
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 ; /
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.
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.
As batteries continue to get smaller and cheaper, the cost of electric tugboats will go down. When batteries eventually get cheap enough, eventually, it will become possible to eliminate the diesel engine for the reserve power, unlocking even more cost savings.
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.
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.
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.
@fullychargedshow Hello, I was respectfully wondering if you had received a response from the professor of statistics who published the fact that EVs were 300% more likely to be involved in crashes and collisions with pedestrians where you claimed the findings were a "downright lie". Was he correct or has he issued a retraction I have missed? Thanks.
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?!
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).
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
I think SeaSpan is underestimating where battery tech will be in 5-6 years. It will not be long until they will have batteries that will enable these tugs to operate for much longer periods of time.
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?
Incredible. Didn't expect to get choked up watching this, but here we are.
we all see that the diesel is still the best backup here lol!!! its more of an hybrid with a much larger battery.
@@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!
@@alanmay7929 No it is not Hybrid, it's more like extended range technology, since the diesel only starts when the battery are fully depleted.
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.
Go Retrofit the older tugs to make them Electric too! That would be such great upcycling!
@@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 is NOT the first all-electric tug boat. Port of Auckland has just celebrated 2 years using it's all-electric tugboat, "Sparky"
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.
How about “world’s first electric (with diesel backup) tug boat fleet”?
ecotricity had a good article about sparky on their website, quite amusing as well.
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.
There is a big difference between a one-off single tug and a fleet of electric tugs.
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!
Beautiful BC! See you at Everything Electric Vancouver :)
This is fantastic, but might need to clarify "the first" as Sparky in New Zealand is claiming to be the first (2022).
You should have included the lunch and you at the controls tho' the later may be unwise if the BC port authority is a stickler for rules.
You seem to have annoyed a few Kiwis :-)
@@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.
This is definitely not the world's first. In Auckland, New Zealand, they've been using an EV tugboat since 2022. It's called Sparky
Yep, Sparky is the first!
May not be the first all electric, but is it the worlds first range extending EV tug boat?
@@ALMX5DP Sparky the Auckland tug is all-electric - although, like the tugs in this video, it has diesel generator sets for emergency use.
@@geoffp8366 oh gotcha, so really this is not the first at anything lol.
Actually Dan Diego may have been the first.
Love the cinematic sound design and visuals!!
everytime they say "seaspan" I'm thinking of C-SPAN. 😂
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 :)
What a positive and uplifting story... Thanks.
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.
@@ab-tf5fl ships still runs on all kinds of fuels, modern ships can run on more types of fuel also depending on where they are navigating for example.
Thank you for the great news. I hope that everyone is having a wonderful day. Sheila Mink in New Mexico
Fantastic to see these and I am sure technology and battery improvements will make this work in more and more ports.
@@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.
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!
I find these videos really interesting. It is so important that business is involved in electrification.
@@JorgeniLund
Business involved?
Where else would the money come from?
@@t1n4444 Yes
@@t1n4444 YES.
Auckland, NZ has had an electric propulsion tugboat for several years...
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.
@@willelindgren7012 I drive a Renault Twizy which _definitely_ has straight gears LOL
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!
Also my experience riding a Zero electric motorcycle.
Thank you. Great episode.
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.
Excellent. Lots more of these please
Absolute rock N roll !! Love tug boats. The working ants of any harbour. What they do and can do is amazing !!! 😁
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.
@@dr.andersonsghost4315
You could have Googled the facts prior to posting.
Why didn't you?
@@dr.andersonsghost4315
Ecotricity did a video on "Sparkie", found in NZ.
This tug too is claimed to be the world's first!
@@t1n4444that was the video I immediately thought of when I saw the claim that these were the first.
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.
Bravo! Nice boats! Well presented Imogen! Small steps forward... we'll take it.
What battery chemistry please? And please show charger and connection on similar videos.
If the grid is not sufficient, they can drop a diesel generator pack on a concrete pad on shore to charge the "green boat."
I heard Robert talk about those a while ago, great to see them at work, thank you!
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!
Another cracking video, Imogen. Killing it. Bravo
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?
well, tugging might be...
@@pooroldpedro 😄😅
Yes he sounded so confident about what he said!!!! Actually it’s 5 to 1 the other way. It’s like he thought a ship is always attached to 3 Tug boats!
Wondered about that too. Hundreds or thousands of cargo ships out transiting the oceans while the tugs are still in the harbor.
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.
Thank you for this video! Directly relevant to my work and will be sharing with my colleagues immediately :)
Any info on charging demands on the local electricity grid?
Everything that is environment and nature friendly is good... 👍👍
Great to see!
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.
Great that u cover this topic!
so wonderful to see you back in Canada. Sorry I can't make it to the show this year.
Thank Goodness and thank you for this content.
👍 every little helps 🙂
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.
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.
👍💯👍
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 . . .
Spot on, that was a blatant lie but one of many I suspect
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.
Worlds first electric Tugboat? Sparky has been operating at the Port of Auckland for 2 years already.
Awesome
Great job
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.
Elco has been powering a tug in NY for many years. Been building electric boats since the 1880s
Yes, Auckland has Sparky. Built by Damen, check it out. This is not the first.
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
amazing
Finally ❤ Thank YOU ! ⚜
What a great thing
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!
Going green isn’t perfect but it’s progress.
Do a video on the MV Yara Birkeland electric container ship.
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
Fantastic application with all that torque which they obviously need. Clearly the additonal weight, plus the current need to have a diesel generator onboard as well, isn't so much of an issue
Wasn’t the first electric tugboat in New Zealand in Auckland.?
👍 The next gen battery will improve
That is always true. The important part is that the current gen works!
About time of course.😎
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 ; /
It is not only that it is less noisy and smelly, it is also cleaner in der engine compartment.
Electric boats is the future, we will build it. 💯
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.
@@t1n4444👍👍🔥🔥
FOR STARTERS its not the 1st electric tug boat that belongs to the kiwis in auckland
Cool
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.
This is awesome.
As batteries continue to get smaller and cheaper, the cost of electric tugboats will go down. When batteries eventually get cheap enough, eventually, it will become possible to eliminate the diesel engine for the reserve power, unlocking even more cost savings.
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.
@@AlRoderick• I understood her showing and describing the "L Drive" in this tug.
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.
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.
I genuinely thought that was Robert at the helm for the minute 😂
5:50 Hope the marine life adapts quickly to this tug as it's hull and props may be a "silent killer."
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.
@fullychargedshow Hello, I was respectfully wondering if you had received a response from the professor of statistics who published the fact that EVs were 300% more likely to be involved in crashes and collisions with pedestrians where you claimed the findings were a "downright lie". Was he correct or has he issued a retraction I have missed? Thanks.
Now Retrofit the older ones! They've earned their keep as pure diesels, now install the innards of the Electric ones, and use the hull some more!
Thanks
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?!
It's about 1.2 new tesla megapacks in capacity. You know the bess grid scale battery they make by the hundreds every week. 👍🏻
So electric towing boat exist. Good 👍
Great story. It would have been good to hear what their operating range / time is between charges. Fantastic development.
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).
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.
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.
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.
Imogen. Cool 😎
This is lovely. I have an idea about something. I may email that company to find out more about the concept I want to investigate.
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.
how efficient are these beautiful machines?
Another fascinating episode. Wonder if they let Imogen have a go on the controls!? 😂
When someone says, “It’s not ready for use everywhere” you should ask what would it take to make that so. Like battery swapping or just more battery?
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.
Great! Put some shorts up with the sound of the engines operating please
The tugboat is a hybrid. Not an EV. It has "two enormous Diesel generators" (4:46) to replenish the propulsion batteries.
From how they described it they are more like range extender as a back up and not something to be used in normal operation
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.
So +VE on many levels
In marine Diesel electric is over 100 years old, perhaps there is a market in research ships that need to have a quieter noise signature?
I think SeaSpan is underestimating where battery tech will be in 5-6 years. It will not be long until they will have batteries that will enable these tugs to operate for much longer periods of time.
Amusingly, the name of the tugboat sounds like an anagram ....
....of what, I haven't worked out, yet...!?
Now I want to see a hydrofoiling tug
I wish you would have mentioned price compared to conventional Tugs.
This is one of the transportation ways where hydrogen also will great solution.
Great video
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?
1.2mw! Holy power grid Batman.