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Friday 4 August 2017

The World's First Electric, Autonomous, Zero-Emissions Ship


Welcome the Yara Birkeland

Welcome the Yara Birkeland, with a capacity of up to 150 shipping containers, the battery-powered ship will be small compared to modern standards (the biggest container ship in the world holds 19,000 containers, and an average-size ship holds 3,500), but its launch will mark the beginning of a transformation of the global shipping industry. This transformation could heavily impact global trade as well as the environment.


It's estimated that the ship will cost $25 million, which is about three times the cost of a similarly-sized conventional ship. However, the savings will kick in once the ship starts operating, since it won’t need traditional fuel or a big crew.

The Yara Birkeland won’t take to the sea unmanned on its first voyage, nor any of its several first voyages, for that matter. It'll undergo multiple types of tests to refining its sensors, upgrade its software, and generally improve it functionality little by little.

Rather, the ship’s autonomy will be phased in but the ship will eventually run fully on its own, under supervision from shore, in 2020.



The United Nations’ International Maritime Organization estimates over 90 percent of the world’s trade is carried by sea, and states that maritime transport is “By far the most cost-effective way to move en masse goods and raw materials around the world.”

Studies show that just 15 of the world’s biggest ships may emit as much pollution as all the world’s cars, largely due to the much higher sulfur content of ship fuel. Oddly, shipping emission regulations weren’t included in the Paris Agreement.

Interestingly, there’s currently no legislation around autonomous ships (which makes sense since, well, there aren’t any autonomous ships, either). Lawmakers are getting to work, though, and rules will likely be set up by the time the Yara makes it first fully-autonomous trip.

All for now,
+Brad Skelton