Hydrogen takes to the water

Barge breakthrough on zero emission shipping

When transport secretary Ruth Kelly addressed the International Maritime Organization in June, on the increasingly vexed subject of the shipping industry’s huge carbon dioxide emissions, she might have drawn inspiration from an unassuming canal boat on the Birmingham to Worcester canal. Because the Ross Barlow is helping to prove the viability of one of her proposed solutions – hydrogen fuel cell technology.

Professor Rex Harris, whose team developed the idea at Birmingham University, explains that the key innovation on board the Ross Barlow is how the hydrogen is stored – in the form of metal hydride powder, which then releases the hydrogen by decreasing pressure. As the powder doesn’t need to be kept at such high pressure as gas or liquid hydrogen stores, it’s a potentially safer and cheaper use of the fuel. And because ships need ballast to keep them stable anyway, the extra weight of the hydride doesn’t present the same problem as it does for car manufacturers experimenting with fuel cells.

Harris believes the approach could eventually be scaled up to larger craft such as passenger ferries, and in the nearer future, to freight vessels similar to those that Tesco and Sainsbury’s have been trying out on our canals.

Kelly’s other proposals to reduce the industry’s 4.5% share of global carbon emissions included bringing shipping within an emissions trading scheme, and slowing down craft to maximise fuel efficiency [see 'Old World Wine' for more on slow cargo]. – Tom Bamford

8 August 2008

Tom Bamford