“Zero nuisance”: when river cruising runs on hydrogen

“No noise and it’s good for the planet”: France’s first hydrogen-powered river tourist boat has recently been sailing on the Burgundy canals, without any carbon emissions. But this pioneering propulsion still encounters many obstacles.

Peter Clayton, a 52-year-old English tourist, has just turned the ignition key of the boat he rented for a family trip on the Loire side canal, in Digoin (Saône-et-Loire). But no noise escapes from the small rear trunk housing the engine.

“You only hear the water,” says this one-day pilot, cap and dark glasses on his sun-drenched face.

“It’s like slipping,” confirms his wife Tammy, 49. “We rented 2-3 thermal boats but this one makes no noise. It’s a good experience and it’s good for the planet”, adds Tammy between two chats with a French friend, Sabrina Blond, 41 years old.

“We have zero nuisance. We only hear the birds,” she said, embracing the landscape of trees and meadows, as the small 8.5-meter boat passed, available for hire for a few weeks. only.

At sea, the first hydrogen-powered yacht was launched in 2020 off the Mediterranean by the company Hynova, in La Ciotat (Bouches-du-Rhône).

But on fresh water, the planetary movement of decarbonization by hydrogen remains timid: the first boat was launched, in August 2019, for a public shuttle service on the Erdre, a river crossing Nantes.

Multiple freight transport projects are underway, the most advanced of which is a hydrogen barge intended to deliver to Paris.

– “Three times more expensive” –

For river tourism, only Les Canalous, the leading rental company and builder of river boats in France, based in Digoin, have thrown themselves into the water.

“It is true that it is daring because the return on investment, we are far from it”, recognizes his boss Alfred Carignant, listing the obstacles encountered.

The cost, first: a hydrogen boat costs “three times more” to build, according to him. And hydrogen “fuel” costs 30 euros per day of transport, compared to around 8 for electric and 15 for diesel.

“The problem with hydrogen is refueling: we have to transport it by truck” from its production sites, generally far from the canals, which increases its cost and cancels out its “zero emissions” advantage, explains Philippe Cauneau, transport engineer at Ademe, the ecological transition agency.

The hydrogen powering the Canalous boat is produced with wind turbines, and therefore green, but it comes from Vendée, more than 500 km away.

“Transporting a kilo of hydrogen over 100 km by road generates 2.5 kilos of carbon”, recalls Mr. Cauneau. To lower the environmental cost and the price, “at around 3-4 euros per kilo of hydrogen compared to 10 currently, we must be producing within a radius of ten km”, he explains.

“When will hydrogen be produced directly on the edge of the canal?”, dreams Mr. Carignant, recalling that hydrogen is produced from water.

“There is no hydrogen producer if there are no users. But users want to be reassured about the diffusion of hydrogen. It’s the dog biting its tail”, sums up Christelle Boutolleau, Managing Director of Europe Technologies, a Nantes company specializing in particular in alternative motorization of boats, a stakeholder in the Canalous project.

“It’s like when we went from horse to automobile. In its beginnings too, the automobile coughed,” she explains. “We are in a pioneering phase.”