Renewable Electric Fishing

The DOE is behind an effort to promote the use of electric motors as propulsion in a part of the North Pacific fishing fleet based in Sitka, Alaska. Three different programs are being encouraged financially by the DOE's Vehicle Technologies Office, a division of the Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy.  These projects are just a small part of the federal government's enthusiastic embrace of eliminating fossil fuels in not only power generation, home heating and automobile travel but also in commercial fishing and who knows what else. 

The DOE is the godfather of a number of executive branch agencies that were created by the executive itself, apparently to be involved in issues for which there were no historical presence of federal involvement. 

 flicker.com 

Two of the projects involve both ICE engines and supplemental batteries. A third runs on batteries exclusively. 

Aside from the fact that a freighter loaded with lithium batteries caught fire near Alaskan fishing port Dutch Harbor recently, commercial fishing remains one of the most dangerous occupations. Fire at sea is certainly one of the gravest calamities that can occur in the fishing business. That would be one very good reason to not be involved with this fiasco. 

Another is that the weight carried by a boat is a serious issue in fuel consumption. Batteries are heavy and would inevitably reduce catch by limiting the weight a boat can carry. The two projects using batteries as an adjunct will be forced home sooner than otherwise when catch reaches the point of the boat's capacity. The batteries themselves will also take up precious space once reserved for catch. Using the ICE engines to turn generators that charge batteries at sea is uneconomical, silly and uses the fuel that is so bad for the environment.

If this transition made any sense at all, it would already have been either investigated and adopted or discarded by cagey fishermen compelled to look at the bottom line, like all small businessmen. Continuous developments in fishing technology and practices have improved catch so much that more stringent catch quotas are imposed regularly to avoid depleting stocks.

Agencies of the federal bureaucracy are determined to justify their existence in any way they can by riding on the CAGW bandwagon.