As an older model diesel tugboat roars to life on Vancouver’s industrial waterfront, a plume of black diesel exhaust erupts from its stacks and drifts skyward.
The boats were designed by local naval architecture firm Robert Allan Ltd. and, like most tugs on the world’s waters, they were built in Turkey’s SANMAR shipyards. Just above SAAM’s dock is a new 3.5-megawatt transformer from BC Hydro, which the crew have dubbed Optimus Prime.Better marine technology That’s also good news for the nearby aquatic life, Bikkers noted, which will have to contend with a fraction of the noise pollution that diesel engines make.
And because the technology is new, it faces more stringent regulations, including the requirement to have an engineer on board, something Bikker said should change as regulators better understand how they perform. While the age of electricity is arriving in Vancouver’s harbour, naval architects around the world are turning their minds to other methods of reducing carbon output from shipping, including the use of sails and gyroscope devices that assist engines, along with alternate fuels like hydrogen, methanol, ammonia and LNG. In Antwerp, there is one hydrogen fuel cell tug operating, but hydrogen is much more readily available there, Bikkers said.