SEATTLE — The jumbo ferry known as the Wenatchee can carry 200 cars, nearly 2,000 passengers and more than 115,000 gallons of climate-warming diesel fuel. Ship superintendent Tom Larson helped build this boat nearly three decades ago and is now presiding over its disembowelment.
With a view of Seattle’s skyline and the accompaniment of barking sea lions, Larson’s crew hoisted two 24-ton diesel engines out of the Wenatchee in the fall. They were driven to a scrapyard, attacked with torches, and by the next day, he recalled, there was nothing but “a pile of rubble.”
“It was bittersweet,” he said.
But the transformation heralds a cleaner future for the nation’s largest ferry system. The Wenatchee is the first boat to undergo the costly conversion from diesel to hybrid-electric, part of a broader plan to electrify the fleet. The ferry electrification effort is expected to receive more than $400 million over the years generated by Washington state’s new program requiring the biggest emitters of climate-warming greenhouse gases to pay for their pollution.
