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San Francisco may have beaten us to the punch with the world’s first hydrogen-powered ferry, but New York isn’t about to sit dockside. A sleek new vessel could soon be slicing through the East River without belching out diesel fumes—or rattling your eardrums.
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Switch Maritime, the company behind California’s pioneering Sea Change ferry, has landed $2 million from New York State to develop a bigger, faster hydrogen boat designed for Gotham waters, reports Canary Media. The 150-passenger vessel is slated to debut around 2028 for a yearlong demo period, during which it’ll prove whether clean marine transit can work at scale in a city where ferries haul thousands of commuters and tourists every day.
Instead of burning diesel, the ferry runs on hydrogen fuel cells that generate electricity to power the motors. The only byproducts are water vapor and a little heat, which means no carbon dioxide, no nitrogen oxide and no lung-searing exhaust hanging over the harbor. It’s the same basic tech powering some zero-emission buses and trucks, only this time, it floats.
The stakes are high. More than 600 ferries crisscross U.S. waterways and nearly all of them still guzzle diesel. New York’s own fleet has started to go greener, with a $33 million hybrid-electric boat already in service, but hydrogen could be the game changer for longer routes where batteries alone can’t cut it.
Of course, there are wrinkles. The Sea Change had occasional hiccups in San Francisco, mostly due to the tricky business of sourcing fuel. Right now, there’s no hydrogen supply chain for the maritime sector in the U.S., which means New York’s experiment will depend on building that infrastructure alongside the vessel itself. Switch says it’s lining up potential “green hydrogen” suppliers (produced from renewable energy), but costs remain much steeper than diesel.
Politics aren’t helping either: The Biden-era incentives for clean hydrogen are under threat as the new administration looks to pull back funding. Still, New York State is betting big on hydrogen, with Governor Kathy Hochul recently announcing more than $11 million for projects ranging from hospital backup systems to grid support.
If all goes to plan, New Yorkers could be boarding a ferry in just a few years that glides across the water with barely a hum and none of the haze. Call it progress you can actually breathe in.