China launches electric cargo ship to carry…coal?

Yep.

China Daily announced that “the world’s first 2,000-metric-ton all-electric cargo ship has been launched in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province.”

It is the first cargo ship in the world to use lithium-ion batteries. It

The ship is 70 metres long (about 225 feet) with battery energy of 2,400 kilowatt hours, the equivalent of about 40 electric cars.  It takes about 2 hours to charge up for a run of 80 kms with a top speed of 12.8 kmh (7 knots), according to its builder, Guangzhou Shipyard International.

Huang Jialin, chairman and general manager of the ship’s designer, Hangzhou Modern Ship Design & Research Co., somehow convinced himself to give this quote: “As the ship is fully electric powered, it poses no threats to the environment.”

Unfortunately, the ship’s task is delivering coal to run China’s power plants to generate the electricity for the ‘no threat to the environment’ ship.

In even more ‘good news’ Chen went on to enthuse about how much more coal the ship could carry. “Theoretically, the fully electric-powered ship could have more capacity in cargo loading. If it is equipped with larger energy batteries, it will carry goods of more than 2,000 tons.”

And Chen said  the other great benefit of the ship’s technology is that “use of the new-energy cargo vessel would help greatly reduce shipping costs for electric power operators.” So they wouldn’t have to spend so much money to, you know, burn coal.

Read the full article at China Daily
Photo Credit:  Xia Shiyani/China Daily