Miljöprisade elfärjan E/S Sjövägen körs på diesel vid samtliga testresor

Images

×

E/S Sjövägen lämnar Kvarnholmen 2016.Foto: Alexander Williamson (Wikimedia) Alexander Williamson (Wikimedia)

A Stockholm commuter ferry marketed as a flagship of electric shipping has been running on diesel, according to an investigation by TV4 Kalla Fakta. Reporters made ten trips aboard the E/S Sjövägen over seven days, and on every one of them the vessel was powered by its diesel generators.

The ferry, built in Denmark in 2014 for Rederiaktiebolaget Ballerina, carries two battery packs and has been celebrated as a model of clean maritime transport. The shipping company points out that its agreement with SL, the regional transit authority, does not require electric operation, and says the batteries are maintained according to the manufacturer's instructions. That is likely accurate — and it is precisely the problem. The environmental credentials were attached to what the vessel is, not to what it does, and no party to the contracts is obliged to close the gap.

Kristina Östman, head of climate and law at the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, called the findings extremely serious. A ship running on diesel rather than electricity has enormously greater climate impact, she told Kalla Fakta — meaning the emissions avoided by the batteries are avoided only on paper. Passengers who chose the ferry on environmental grounds, and a transit authority that pays for a service it believes to be electric, both absorb the difference.

The episode follows a familiar pattern in subsidized green infrastructure: the award, the press release and the procurement documents reward procurement of the right hardware, while nothing in the contract measures the exhaust actually leaving the funnel. The diesel runs whenever doing so is cheaper or more convenient, and the label survives because no one with the authority to check is the one paying the climate bill.