Sunday, November 28th, 2021
Like Tesla, completely autonomous
Norwegians send e-container ships to sea
In the meantime, not only are cars powered by electric drives, emission-free transport has also arrived in shipping. In the coming year, a fully electric container ship will be sailing across Nordic waters. It was developed by a company from an unusual industry.
The world of electromobility seems to be just beginning, and yet more and more mobility companies are contributing to an emission-free future. Above all Tesla with an exclusively electric vehicle fleet.
But the Norwegian company Yara, together with other companies, is crowning the whole topic. Because from next year the purely electrically powered container ship “Yara Birkeland” is to sail across the Nordic waters, saving 1,000 tons of CO₂ and replacing 40,000 trips by diesel-powered trucks. This emerges from a press release from the two companies Yara and Kongsberg.
In addition to Kongsberg and Yara, the shipbuilder Vard was also involved in the development of the ship. The company Yara actually produces fertilizers for agriculture, but in order to be able to ship them in an environmentally friendly way, they needed an emission-free cargo ship. The project was also subsidized by Enova, a company belonging to the Norwegian Ministry of Climate and Environment, with the equivalent of EUR 13,374,785.
“We have been looking forward to this day for a long time. The Yara Birkeland will transport mineral fertilizers between Porsgrunn and Brevik and contribute to a significant reduction in emissions during transport. (…) We hope that this ship will mark the beginning of a new type of zero-emission container ship will be “, explains Yara’s CEO Svein Tore Holsether.
The container ship will now be tested for the next two years. The ship should not only drive fully electrically, but – similar to a Tesla – also be completely autonomous. In the test phase, it is now important to use the functions in practice in order to have the “Yara Birkeland” finally certified.
This article is at first Business punk appeared.