Battery Boats Beat Hydrogen in Epic Ocean Cost Clash!

Cargo ships are the workhorses of the world's oceans, carrying everything from grain to bicycles across the water. For over a century, these floating giants have chugged along burning dirty fossil fuels. To clean up the skies, engineers in Norway designed futuristic freight ships powered by hydrogen fuel cells, which mix hydrogen gas with oxygen to generate electricity without smokestack pollution.

Hydrogen sounds like magic fuel because its only exhaust is pure water vapor! However, creating hydrogen fuel takes lots of steps. First, you use green electricity to zap water and bottle up hydrogen gas. Then, you chill and compress that gas into super-strong tanks. Finally, the ship turns the gas back into electricity to spin its propellers. Every time energy changes form, some of it gets lost as wasted heat.