Maritime Emissions are Causing Irreversible Damages
Our Friends, Family, Environment, Wildlife, and Planet are all suffering from the unbelievable amount of emissions that marine vessels are releasing into our atmosphere and ecosystems.
Pollution
If the shipping industry were a country, it would rank as the 6th largest contributor to greenhouse gasses in the world. With 3% of global greenhouse gasses, 18 to 30% nitrogen oxide, and 9% sulfur oxides coming from maritime it is essential we put systems in place to limit or completely end our contribution to deadly pollutants.
Health Concern
Every year 8.8 million premature deaths are caused by health conditions related to air pollution. In the US, marine transportation emissions alone take an average of 1,200 lives every year. That is the equivalent of undergoing the atrocities of 9/11 every 30 months. In addition to premature death, large amounts of pollution can lead to lung cancer, chronic heart disease, and asthma which is disproportionately found in communities near ports. It is important we work toward solving our emissions problem or people, especially those in disadvantaged and underrepresented communities, will suffer.
Damaged Ecosystems
Emissions from maritime can have a lasting impact on the ecosystems they travel through. Disasters like oil spills contaminate the waters essential to aquatic life with toxic waste lasting years in the sediment and marine environment. Daily activity results in atmospheric pollution, waste, and sound pollution which continuously threatens wildlife. If we want to preserve our planet’s fragile aquatic ecosystems it is imperative zero emission solutions are implemented.
Hard To Electrify
In order to clean up maritime it’s essential we transition to fully electrified systems that produce zero emissions. The primary way we electrify power systems today is through the use of batteries. While there are great examples of effective battery use, maritime can in no way be one of those examples. Batteries scale in a linear manner, if you want more power or range you add more batteries. This approach quickly becomes null and void in an application that is so dependent on effective use of weight and volume, not to mention the downtime needed to recharge batteries.
What’s the answer?
Hydrogen Fuel Cell Power is the only proven technology that can bring an end to maritime emissions forever.
Read more in Why Hydrogen.