Japan has produced world’s first hybrid fishing trawler, the Shinei Maru No. 66, which looks like the dozens of other fishing boats moored in this Japanese harbor. The trawler can switch between oil and electric-powered propulsion, it uses up to a third less fuel than conventional boats. Tadatoshi Ikeuchi, 62, the boat’s owner and captain, informed that it helps to a great extent as commercial fishermen around the world have been laboring under the weight of high fuel prices.
Earlier this year European fishermen expressed their frustration by blockading ports to protest prices and taxes. In the United States, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, the former Republican vice presidential nominee, has called for low-interest loans to help Alaskan fishermen buy fuel-efficient engines. It is noted that Japan is searching for high-tech solutions.
Experts said that the hybrid boat engine, which is still just a prototype, is part of a multimillion-dollar government-led effort to rescue Japan’s fishing industry from rising energy costs, which are likely to return to rise again once the global recession ends and demand comes back. It is informed that the Japanese are also testing biofuel-powered marine engines, computer-engineered propeller designs and low-energy LED lights on squid boats, which use bright lights to lure their catch.
It is fact that many Japanese boat engines that use computers to raise fuel efficiency are already popular among American fishermen. And Yamanaka, the Tokyo-based maker of the hybrid engine for the trawler, which is called the Fish Eco, says the United States and Europe are large potential markets.
Japan’s agriculture and fisheries ministry, which has led development of the new technologies, will subsidize their introduction as part of a $700 million aid package announced in July to help the fishing industry.
