The world’s first hydrogen-fueled ferry service just started running in San Francisco

Sea Change, a new San Francisco ferry, runs on hydrogen fuel cells—and uses its exhaust as drinking water for passengers on board.

If you ride on an ordinary diesel ferry, you’ll hear a loud engine, and if the wind blows the wrong way, you’ll smell the diesel exhaust. Riding on a new hydrogen-fuel cell ferry in San Francisco is a different experience entirely.

“It’s all electric drive,” says Joe Pratt, CEO of Zero Emission Industries, the company that designed the hydrogen tech onboard. “What that means is you don’t have the engine noise. You don’t have the vibration. It’s kind of like a really big sailboat that’s just cruising silently through the bay.”