Interesting post. I just read about the Indy cars now having a very limited battery and motor to augment the engine. Brand new so the teams are trying to figure out if they want to use it a little bit throughout the race to conserve fuel (fewer pit stops) or to use it to provide a quick short burst for passing, etc.
I am dubious though of anything the Washington State DOT does. They always over-promise and under deliver and their timelines are always extended.
The contract for fully electric ferries was just awarded the other day. The local WA state company lost out to the low bidder from Florida.
This is the future of hybrids. 8kg worth of ultra caps and they can discharge or charge 400 kilowatts that’s 536HP. It only takes 600 watt hours worth of storage to hold the full kinetic energy of a car accelerating two or decelerating from 60 mph. It’s kilowatts that matter to hybrids how fast can you suck up regenerative braking energy the more the higher the mpg of the total system. It’s why the hybrid Camry gets 50+ mpg city and the ICE gets 30 same car ,same foot print one is vastly more efficient in energy flows and use.
https://allotrope.energy/page-pr-jun25.php
Contract for hybrid ferries that can charge or run on diesel gensets at much improved total efficiency. You can also run diesels with virtually no emissions off ethanol, methanol, natural gas, biomethane from landfills or sewage treatment plants Ammonia too. Any fuel but diesel that is not locked to the NOx/Soot curve due the the fuels physics. Oil based fuels will always produce soot or NOx in high pressure combustion systems due to the long chain carbon carbon bonds.
Cummins and Clearfire both have MCCI what a diesel technically is (mixture controlled compression ignition) engines that get zero NOx and zero soot but only running on methane,ethanol,ethane. Propane and butane get close to zero any longer chain CH2-CH2 and you get soot or to burn out the soot NOx.
Washington State has the largest ferry system in the USA. You can see the ferry dock to Whidbey Island from the deck of my sister’s multi million dollar home over the Sound. We take the ferry to the island to see my buddies kid on the Navy base he is with the growler unit there.
My bad clearfire is steam boilers with zero emissions, Clearflame is the MCCI engine company. They modify engines to be zero emissions and also run on soot free fuels. Ammonia is already being used as a shipping fuel you can make it from thin air too using N2 from the air and H2 from nuclear power spitting water so it’s a forever fuel. Off peak wind in the middle of the night at $5 per megawatt hour or less makes for some cheap ammonia as well. Its easy to store, farmers transport it, use it for fertilizer injections and some burn it to power pumps by the millions of tonnes per year. The handling certs and infrastructure are well known and it is one of the most used chemicals World wide.
https://x.com/ClearFlameEng/status/1800942468600369235