Dutch luxury shipbuilder Feadship has introduced the first hydrogen fuel-cell powered superyacht, called Project 821. After five years of design and construction, the 390-foot vessel finally left the Amsterdam shipyard on May 4.
The ship stores liquid hydrogen on board at temperatures below -253 degrees centigrade. The hydrogen cells can provide completely clean power while cruising between harbors, and can power the yacht's 30-person hotel for a week.
With battery-powered electric cars getting all the attention, you might not realize that there are about 72,000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the road today, according to Hydrogen Insight. That number is 42 percent higher than in 2022. In comparison, battery-powered electric car sales topped 10 million in 2022, up 55 percent compared to 2021.
Hydrogen remains the top preference for trucks, since hydrogen refueling takes just minutes instead of the hours required to charge an electric vehicle. However, battery-powered truck sales have been helped along by battery swapping stations. About 2,000 such station operate in China now, serving some of the 12,000 trucks designed for battery-swapping that were sold in 2022. Swapping batteries takes about three to five minutes.
China is also home to more than 95 percent of the world's hydrogen trucks. There were a total of 1,020 hydrogen refueling stations around the world in 2022. China had the most, followed by South Korea, Japan and Germany. As of 2023, there were 59 retail hydrogen stations in the U.S., mostly in California.
