Hydrogen power is not new. It is also not without its perils. Just look at the Hindenburg in 1937. I would have to assume this project has addressed those issues and overcome them, or else it wouldn‘t be operating public transportation so powered. Bravo if they have! 100% emissions-free AND 100% safe is a goal that used to belong to the realm of science fiction up to now. Even horses aren‘t 100% emission-free, as anyone familiar with the term „horseshit“ will remind you.

I also wince at the term “free.” The service may be offered at no cost to riding passengers during the experimental period, and that‘s fine. But the research to develop the boat was not done by unpaid technicians. The material to build it was not donated by the companies that made them. The workers that built it did not do so for zero wages. Providing pure hydrogen is not something done on a whim. The crew operating the boat is not doing it without pay for six months. The people working the docks from which the boat departs and leaves have not offered to work those hours without pay. Like education in Germany, the cost of the service is being borne by the taxpayers via their paying for the San Francisco Bay Area Water Emergency Transportation Authority. This is actually a good thing in my opinion, like the method of financing education in Germany. But it is not „free.“ If it isn’t being provided by slave labor, nothing really is. This is as it should be, but the people who are really paying for it deserve to know it.

The Hindenburg was a giant gas bag, filled with hydrogen (well a number of giant gas bags, contained by a larger bag. The fire seems to have been started by a combination of leaking gas, and weather conditions, leading to sparks. A number of victims suffered terrible burns from the diesel fuel used to power the motors.

A better analogy might be the Challenger explosion. In that case, you had a large fuel tank, with essentially a blowtorch aimed at it.

Hydrogen is flammable, and under the right conditions, explosive, just as oil is (for example) yet, for some reason people are scared of hydrogen.

https://apnews.com/article/explosions-cuba-fires-caribbean-fe8040ae6f88442a8d49f93574ba2c19

Playing with hydrogen as a fuel is like lighting a match in an enclosed room to look for a gas leak. You have to be doubly and triply sure that protections against leaks are in place and tested numerous times. If something goes wrong, there will be nothing left to save.

Like other buses: