Floating ideas

Not long ago, massive electric boats were in the ‘that won’t happen’ category, but Tasmanian company Incat has just built the world's largest fully electric ferry (and possibly the world’s largest ever electric vehicle). At 130 metres long, it can carry 2100 passengers and 225 vehicles, and will run between towns in Uruguay and Buenos Aires.

As the ABC reported:

“It is four times larger than any previous maritime installation in the world and is connected to eight electric-powered water jets. The batteries on Hull 096 will keep the vessel running for 90 minutes and chargers will be installed on both sides of the Río de la Plata.

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"It's the future of short, sea shipping," Incat founder and chairman Bob Clifford said. "Today, the technology is good for 80 to 160 kilometres. It won't be long until it's good for 320km, and maybe in 10 years' time it's good for 640km. So the advancement of electrical ships is going to continue. A lightweight ship that weighs half the weight of a steel ship will require half the electricity to drive it. Now, that's important but it's even more important for a ferry boat because it means half the charging time when it comes to port."

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From the ship's berths in Argentina and Uruguay, a full charge was expected to take 40 minutes, he said.

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In case you're wondering, the ferry has been named in honour of Uruguayan actor China Zorrilla.

There’s a long list of things that people didn’t think would be able to be done (flying), or that wouldn't be popular (cars, computers, mobile phones) or that people didn’t think could be run without fuel. 

Rewiring Aotearoa CEO Mike Casey says there were many who said it wouldn’t be possible to run an orchard without diesel, but he figured it out. Same goes for buses, trucks and tractors but now there plenty of electric buses and trucks on the road, electric tractors are available, and huge electric machines are being launched all the time (with Australian mining company Fortescue doubling down on it with a massive order). 

We are also seeing big technological advances and cost reductions with high-speed charging, which means these machines can keep going or get back to what they need to be doing in a similar time as it would take to fill them up with fuel. That’s a gamechanger. 

‍Old Blighty backs Old Brighty

The Labor Party in Australia was victorious in part because it offered the world’s biggest battery incentive of 30% off. This was a logical follow-up to the solar subsidies that have helped Australia create the world’s cheapest electricity. Now the UK is pushing in that direction with a policy requiring solar on all new builds in around two years, another example of a country recognising that customers can play a role in the energy system and that solar and batteries will likley be the cheapest energy available to them. 

As the Guardian reported:

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“Almost all new homes in England will be fitted with solar panels during construction within two years, the government will announce after Keir Starmer rejected Tony Blair’s criticism of net zero policies. Housebuilders will be legally required to install solar panels on the roofs of new properties by 2027 under the plans.

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The policy is estimated to add between £3,000 and £4,000 to building a home but homeowners would save more than £1,000 on their annual energy bills, according to the Times. Labour has set a target of building 1.5m homes by the end of the parliament. The party has promised to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030 and cut household energy bills by £300 a year.

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While policies like this are to be applauded, we don’t build enough new homes to meet our climate targets. We also need incentives that will help us retrofit all the existing homes - and upgrade all their fossil fuel machines in their cupboards, kitchens, living rooms and driveways. 

‍On track

Solar can now be found in a range of different places - on fences, municipal ponds, paddocks and now even on railway tracks.

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Swiss start-up Sun-Ways is installing removable solar panels on active train tracks in the canon of Neuchâtel as part of a pilot.

They can be laid manually or by machine that can put down 1,000 square metres in hours while trains keep running. 

Just as Rewiring advocates to use our existing roofspace, the beauty of this idea is that the panels can be used on existing infrastructure - and where transmission lines are plentiful. 

Clean Technica reported that "deploying the system across Switzerland’s 5,317km railway network would blanket an area equivalent to 760 football fields in photovoltaic cells. Annually, that could yield approximately 1 TWh of solar energy, enough to meet about 2 percent of Switzerland’s total energy consumption."

Pilot projects are being developed in France, and discussions are underway in Spain, Romania, South Korea, China and the United States.

Climate inaction

If you’re not laughing, you’re crying. That’s sometimes what it feels like if you work in the climate space, but Oli Frost (who was behind Ogilvyland) favours humour and he and his company Serious People are back at it with another satirical masterpiece: “A wellness app to help you embrace climate chaos. With Smog Breathing Exercises, Drought Meditations, and Wildfire ASMR, Oilwell helps you find inner peace while the world burns.”

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“In a world of rising temperatures and sea levels, we believe the real solution is rising above your climate anxiety. Or even better, pushing it down."

If you want to meditate through the meltdown, download the app here. 

And for a bit more humour, this post goes into detail about the “absolute hell” that had to be endured recently as one many embarked on a trip in an EV.

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