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That's surprising! A griddle does take a fair bit of power, but aren't these griddles usually heated with natural gas or propane? I know that some use electri

That's surprising! A griddle does take a fair bit of power, but aren't these griddles usually heated with natural gas or propane? I know that some use electric heat - a quick search suggests up to 10 kW for a decent-sized commercial unit - but it seems more likely that they opted to increase the efficiency of the ferry and make it cheaper by removing the kitchen than that it was an unsolvable conundrum.

pi-rat 9y ago
Indeed, defiantly solvable! I'm guessing they're playing it safe and reducing risk where they can for the first generations of electric ferries. And it's probably much cheaper for the company to sell food from a vending machine than having a full kitchen onboard, so they might be using lack of power as an excuse. However, there really isn't that much tradition for gas powered cooking in Norway (other than "BBQ"), almost everything is electric and power is really cheap. Many of our other newer generation ferries are LNG powered, which probably comes with tons of strict rules for open flames on board. Might just be they've inherited some safety regulations for the electric ones as well.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  Even for BBQ charcoal is the traditional way, with propane grills only becoming a thing in the last decade or so. And then mostly because of a combined effort between stores to try to sell the "American" BBQ experience. Honestly hearing the "extreme" right fretting over the nation clandestinely going Muslim i point to things like the above and Halloween themed stores each September as an indication that we are already going American. Damn it, for the last year or so there have been a "non-permanent" presence of US Marines on Norwegian soil, something that was never the case for the whole of the cold war. I am honestly not sure what is going on with the nation any more...
  - irrational 9y ago
    Whenever I think of Norway I think "vikings" (honestly, whenever I see pictures of Norwegians, men or women, that don't look like the stereotypical hefty viking I have to do a double take ;-) The vikings did a lot of helping other Europeans regions go Scandinavian, whether they wanted it or not (My family is from the Manchester region of England, but DNA tests show that something like 60% of my DNA is Scandinavian in origin - huh, I wonder how that happened). Maybe it's just Karma!
  - pm90 9y ago
    American culture is kinda like that; I don't think its influence is limited to Norway.
  - tallanvor 9y ago
    Propane is popular because it's convenient, but it's hardly "the 'American' BBQ experience", King of the Hill aside. For the troops in Norway, my guess is that NATO is trying to make sure that Russia has to watch it's entire western border, and the hope is that this will help spread their resources too thin to do anything like they've been doing in eastern Ukraine. But Erna doesn't seem to be interested in explaining why she invited them in.
bigiain 9y ago
Propane/LPG is problematic in boats - it's heavier than air so it sinks down into the hull and pretty much stays there unless you actively ventilate it. It's not an insurmountable problem - petrol/gasoline fumes have the same "builds up to explosive concentrations in the bilge" problem too, and lots of boats use that as fuel (at least down in recreational sizes, not so much in ferry sized vessels I don't think) - but I wonder if the combination of propane buildup in the bilge combined with the possibility of sparks from very high power electric motors and controllers is a showstopper in these cases?
- digi_owl 9y ago
  There is at least one LPG fueled ferry travelling the fjords of Norway.
- ams6110 9y ago
  CNG (compressed natural gas) doesn't have that problem.
  - bigiain 9y ago
    Yeah - you trade it for the 250bar/3600psi storage pressure problem (compared to 8bar/120psi for LPG). It's also about 1/3rd of the energy density of LPG, so you need to carry a lot more of it.
    - ams6110 9y ago
      You wouldn't need to carry all that much for cooking. The storage pressure is a solved problem in cars, so it shouldn't be difficult to manage on board a ship.
taneq 9y ago
Most of those boats pictured could make that much power purely by mounting solar panels on deck.
- dotancohen 9y ago
  At 60-70 degrees latitude? Maybe for a week in June. Even if such a thing were feasible on buildings, the ferries navigate so the cells cannot be simply tilted south.
  - taneq 9y ago
    Well no, not inside the arctic circle, not as much for most of the year.
    - pi-rat 9y ago
      Also, the steep mountain sides occlude the sun for large parts of the day - especially during winter[1]. [1]: http://www.tinderangel.no/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_0180.jpg http://www.tinderangel.no/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_018...
Dylan16807 9y ago
The specific ferry detailed in [1] has two 450kW motors, so any lack of 10kW cookers is not because it was difficult. [1] https://www.siemens.com/innovation/en/home/pictures-of-the-future/mobility-and-motors/electromobility-electric-ferries.html https://www.siemens.com/innovation/en/home/pictures-of-the-f...

pi-rat 9y ago

Indeed, defiantly solvable! I'm guessing they're playing it safe and reducing risk where they can for the first generations of electric ferries. And it's probably much cheaper for the company to sell food from a vending machine than having a full kitchen onboard, so they might be using lack of power as an excuse. However, there really isn't that much tradition for gas powered cooking in Norway (other than "BBQ"), almost everything is electric and power is really cheap. Many of our other newer generation ferries are LNG powered, which probably comes with tons of strict rules for open flames on board. Might just be they've inherited some safety regulations for the electric ones as well.

digi_owl 9y ago
Even for BBQ charcoal is the traditional way, with propane grills only becoming a thing in the last decade or so. And then mostly because of a combined effort between stores to try to sell the "American" BBQ experience. Honestly hearing the "extreme" right fretting over the nation clandestinely going Muslim i point to things like the above and Halloween themed stores each September as an indication that we are already going American. Damn it, for the last year or so there have been a "non-permanent" presence of US Marines on Norwegian soil, something that was never the case for the whole of the cold war. I am honestly not sure what is going on with the nation any more...
- irrational 9y ago
  Whenever I think of Norway I think "vikings" (honestly, whenever I see pictures of Norwegians, men or women, that don't look like the stereotypical hefty viking I have to do a double take ;-) The vikings did a lot of helping other Europeans regions go Scandinavian, whether they wanted it or not (My family is from the Manchester region of England, but DNA tests show that something like 60% of my DNA is Scandinavian in origin - huh, I wonder how that happened). Maybe it's just Karma!
- pm90 9y ago
  American culture is kinda like that; I don't think its influence is limited to Norway.
- tallanvor 9y ago
  Propane is popular because it's convenient, but it's hardly "the 'American' BBQ experience", King of the Hill aside. For the troops in Norway, my guess is that NATO is trying to make sure that Russia has to watch it's entire western border, and the hope is that this will help spread their resources too thin to do anything like they've been doing in eastern Ukraine. But Erna doesn't seem to be interested in explaining why she invited them in.

bigiain 9y ago

Propane/LPG is problematic in boats - it's heavier than air so it sinks down into the hull and pretty much stays there unless you actively ventilate it. It's not an insurmountable problem - petrol/gasoline fumes have the same "builds up to explosive concentrations in the bilge" problem too, and lots of boats use that as fuel (at least down in recreational sizes, not so much in ferry sized vessels I don't think) - but I wonder if the combination of propane buildup in the bilge combined with the possibility of sparks from very high power electric motors and controllers is a showstopper in these cases?

digi_owl 9y ago
There is at least one LPG fueled ferry travelling the fjords of Norway.
ams6110 9y ago
CNG (compressed natural gas) doesn't have that problem.
- bigiain 9y ago
  Yeah - you trade it for the 250bar/3600psi storage pressure problem (compared to 8bar/120psi for LPG). It's also about 1/3rd of the energy density of LPG, so you need to carry a lot more of it.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    You wouldn't need to carry all that much for cooking. The storage pressure is a solved problem in cars, so it shouldn't be difficult to manage on board a ship.

taneq 9y ago

Most of those boats pictured could make that much power purely by mounting solar panels on deck.

dotancohen 9y ago
At 60-70 degrees latitude? Maybe for a week in June. Even if such a thing were feasible on buildings, the ferries navigate so the cells cannot be simply tilted south.
- taneq 9y ago
  Well no, not inside the arctic circle, not as much for most of the year.
  - pi-rat 9y ago
    Also, the steep mountain sides occlude the sun for large parts of the day - especially during winter[1]. [1]: http://www.tinderangel.no/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_0180.jpg http://www.tinderangel.no/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_018...

Dylan16807 9y ago

The specific ferry detailed in [1] has two 450kW motors, so any lack of 10kW cookers is not because it was difficult. [1] https://www.siemens.com/innovation/en/home/pictures-of-the-future/mobility-and-motors/electromobility-electric-ferries.html https://www.siemens.com/innovation/en/home/pictures-of-the-f...