RiverQuestion of the Month

for October 2007

Question:

What makes Explorer a

“green” boat?

Where is Explorer today?

Answer:

RiverQuest will soon welcome a new green vessel named Explorer to Pittsburgh as its flagship.  Explorer is called a “green” boat because it is designed to minimize its impact on the environment, both in the way it has been built and in the way it will operate.  This 150-passenger, 90-foot boat is the first boat in the world to be designed in accordance with the US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) guidelines – what defines the green buildings in Pittsburgh.  A lot of a boat's construction and operation is very much like that of a building! 

Boat propulsion systems are the greatest source of marine pollution – each marine vessel is basically a little power plant that produces its own electrical and mechanical power.  Explorer features the world’s first commercial diesel-electric battery powered hybrid propulsion systems, known as the Siemens ELFA system. 

Explorer’s green features include:

• The hull is made out of 100% recycled steel.
• The interior and exterior is finished with the latest low VOC paints and coatings from Sherwin Williams.
• Highly efficient interior and exterior lighting systems are used such as our colored fiber optic running lights from Fiberstars. (You have to see them at night!)
• Water management systems and zero wastewater discharge keep us from contributing to combined sewer overflow problems. (We have waterless urinals – boys, you might be interested to know this!)
• A ship-wide energy management and control system tracks our energy use.

The hybrid propulsion system will not only run on a biodiesel mixture, but thanks to the PA Department of Environmental Protection’s Energy Harvest program, we will also be adding 1.5 KW solar arrays to the boat’s roof and to our docks to charge our batteries.

The hybrid propulsion system will allow us to significantly reduce the boat’s energy needs on a per passenger basis and reduce greenhouse gases and cancer-causing diesel particulates.

Presently, Explorer is awaiting repair in Bayou LaBatre, Alabama.  A faulty gear box is being replaced with a new gear box that is presently being manufactured in Italy.  Once the new gear box is manufactured and sent to the United States, it will be installed onto the boat, along with several other minor modifications, and Explorer will then resume its upriver journey to Pittsburgh.

Find Out More:

For more details access the Explorer Fact Sheets on the RiverQuest website at http://www.riverquest.org/pdf/riverQuest/Green Boat Fact Sheets_v8.pdf and the U.S. Green Building Council website at www.usgbc.org.

Explorer photos courtesy Pittsburgh Tribune Review.

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