The passengers on New Zealand's brand new electric ferry, the Ika Rere, had to be rescued a few days ago because the ship's batteries ran out of power in Wellington Harbor. Fortunately, the New Zealand Herald says a fossil-fuel powered police boat was available and nearby to not only pick the passengers up, but also to tow the ferry back to port.
This comes after Kiwi media published propaganda earlier in the month trying to make the case for the electric ferry revolution that will cost Auckland taxpayers a whopping $150 million to achieve. While electric ferries are quieter than fossil fuel-powered ferries, they are more expensive to make because of the materials used to construct the ships.
Many ferries are also equipped with back-up engines that run on fossil fuels in case the batteries run out, and the cost to even charge electric vehicles in general has risen too. Additionally, ferries draw so much power they had to be given their own power lines or they could strain the power grid or contribute to black outs.
Converting ferries from using fossil fuels to electric-powered engines is nothing more than another excuse to waste taxpayer's money without any gains (except for climate change). If the west wasn't experiencing an energy crisis and energy costs weren't rising, money could be saved by no longer using fossil fuels. But that isn't saving much.
PHOTO CREDIT:
PHOTO CREDIT: The Scandlines Berlin hybrid ferry - By Sebaso - Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61627259
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