APEX:60 – Energy observer

by | Jul 21, 2020 | APEX:60, Articles, Videos

What if your car made its own fuel as you drove down the road? That’s sort of what Energy Observer does. It runs on hydrogen but it doesn’t have to stop at a filling station; it makes the hydrogen itself.

The project is a joint effort between a naval architecture team and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). The hull was originally a racing boat but now it’s a floating laboratory that sails the world testing innovative energy technologies. The goal is to perfect these technologies and move us all towards a more sustainable future. 

It set sail in 2017 and will spend 6 years sailing the world, propelled only by the renewable energy it can create. Each year it will stop at the shipyard for data analysis and systems upgrades before heading back out to sea.