First Fully-Autonomous Electric Cargo Ship

As the world is getting involved more and more in the climate change debate, major market players are looking for an alternative to the most prominent cause. One of the biggest reasons for the emission of greenhouse gases is caused due to Maritime Shipping and Aviation.

Norway is the first country to launch a Fully-Autonomous cargo ship, which can be seen as the first step towards carbon-free shipping and transport through the waters.

The cargo ship is called “Yara Birkeland.” If you compare it to the other cargo ships, you will find that it is not that big. But this small ship can take a load of up to 120 containers of goods and does not require any crew members to sail through the sea. It can run entirely on electricity.

This vessel can be controlled by two operators remotely. When the vessel is being tested for the first two years, a crew will be deployed on the ship to monitor its progress.

It can reach top speeds of 13knots, which is equivalent to 24kmph. This cargo ship is equipped with a battery rated at 7MWh, two Azipull pod thrusters, and two Tunnel thrusters. The ship is 80 meters long in length, 15 meters in width, and the height is 12 meters.

Under the commission of Norwegian fertilizers giant Yara, this ship was built by Kongsberg, a maritime technology company, with the help of the Norwegian government.

Svein Tore Holsether, CEO of the fertilizer giant Yara, said in a press release, “With Yara Birkeland, we move transport from road to sea and thereby reduce noise and dust, improve the safety of local roads, and reduce NOx and CO2 emissions”.

On November 18, the ship took its first journey to the capital city of Oslo. Yara is planning to use the cargo ship to transport fertilizers from a plant in southern Norway to the port of Brevik. The total distance of the journey will be 16 kilometers. The route looks small, but the Fully-Automated cargo ship will eliminate the 40,000 trips made by the trucks that are petroleum-powered every year.

Holsether added in his statements, “With this new autonomous battery-driven container vessel we move transport from road to sea and thereby reduce noise and dust emissions, improve the safety of local roads, and reduce NOx and CO2 emissions”.

One of the biggest reasons for pollution in the atmosphere is maritime shipping. According to the International Maritime Organization data, the maritime industry was responsible for 962 million tons of greenhouse gases in 2018 alone.

In order to keep global warming under the limit of 1.5 degrees from the pre-industrial level, efforts are being made by the maritime industries and the aviation industries also.

Source:- https://technoinfoone.blogspot.com/2021/11/first-fully-autonomous-electric-cargo.html