I don’t “feel” anything in particular about it. I don’t read it as the inevitable future or savior of shipping or the planet OR as a waste of time and money of no value. I note it. The Viking Lady seems to have been what we called a “demonstrator” project. 330 kW for 7000 hours. They should have gotten some good data about that specific cell design and fuel system. This is not even EDG size on many ships. I assume it had nothing to do with propulsion but no drawings or references to details are provided. Was this thing powering the entire SS bus? The lighting circuits only? Did a DG remain installed and ready to start? How many times was it taken off line and then re-started? What is the start up time? Hard to evaluate the project with out details such as these. Doesn’t make it not worthwhile though. This is how things evolve.
Hmm I don’t see it that way. First, it is a “concept”. Second, it seems to be meant to power stationary platform presumably within service distance of shore and alternate powering in case of problems. Which leaseholder will be first to replace his GT gen sets with this and risk shutting in production when the concept fails? In other words this, like all the other ideas, will progress from concept to demonstration projects, to scaling up, to commercial scale prototypes, to shore testing, to installation and actual use - if it has merit.
Where batteries fit in to a general ship size propulsion scheme I do not know and cannot generalize about. There may be no need for batteries at all or only sized for in-port ship service loads or specific system UPS service. In other cases like Foss’s ship assist hybrids it seems to make great sense - or will.
The whole area seems to be proceeding on many divergent paths and I expect the future will find that R&D will focus more narrowly on the most promising solutions and weaker ones will fall by the wayside. Not every press release represents a definitive conclusion or even useful evidence to base a decision on if you’re building a ship today.
It is possible to view these developments in a even tempered, rational, technically orientated, even hopeful fashion without professing to know “date certain” for various events or making huge jumps of conclusions. However, doing so may get you labeled as a Luddite or as “being left behind”.
I would suggest that if you and others want to continue the discussion of fuel cells we could move some of these posts to its own thread. I will look into that. However, interested as I am in the subject I really don’t have much else to offer unless someone starts posting real papers and drawings specifically aimed at the marine world.
In the meantime bona fortuna!