The ships moving global trade are going electric
With each passing year, batteries get cheaper, lighter and more powerful
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IN JULES Verne’s classic Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Captain Nemo’s futuristic submarine, the Nautilus, is battery-powered. Electric shipping has remained science fiction ever since.
That might be about to change, though. The Ning Yuan Dian Kun, an electric container ship capable of carrying 740 20-foot-equivalent units (TEUs) was delivered earlier this month. Its 10 containerised batteries hold as much charge as 380 Tesla Model 3s, and can either be swopped at port or charged from shore-based cables.
If you follow the shipping industry, 740 TEUs might seem pretty paltry. The size record is currently held by the MSC Irina, launched in 2023 and carrying 24,346 TEUs, almost 33 times as many as the Ning Yuan Dian Kun. Until batteries compete on that scale, they can be safely ignored.
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