Wonder why ships aren't trying solar panels and electric motors and auto-pilot... they're out in clear Sun, have a large surface area, and no traffic...
Maersk installed 100-foot-tall rotating sails on one of its tankers
91–100 of 233 posts
Re: Maersk installed 100-foot-tall rotating sails on one of its tankers
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, salt water is corrosive. And yet, there are metal ships with viable lifetimes. This sub-thread is a bit less helpful than I am asking for. Edit: Come on. It's not impossible to engineer for ocean use. Wave power generation: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-250... Longer term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_power_cable
It’s obviously not impossible, it’s just expensive, which is a problem in the given context.
How big is the check and why? That's what's so hard to get an answer for when people are determined already to not to try. I mean, I guess I have Google and a long-weekend. I was hoping for someone to drop an URL that can explain this and provide key terms.
Re: Maersk installed 100-foot-tall rotating sails on one of its tankers
#93This should be a big deal for combatting CO2 emissions as well. I believe it was never refuted after it came out a few years ago that ~15 of these ships emit the same CO2 as all cars in the world? https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/cargo-container-shipping...
Re: Maersk installed 100-foot-tall rotating sails on one of its tankers
#94What these ships are mostly surrounded by are waterfields that go as far as you can see. Can they come up with some sort of rolled flexible solar panels that once ship goes into full sail they release their “solar tail” behind that floats on the water surface and captures sun and turns it into electricity for ships’ engines? I mean 300 meters square of solar panel should be sufficient to push the ship at its nominal…
A typical 250W PV panel is 1.6m^2. 300m2 of these will give a peak power of about 47kW which is about 63hp. for comparison a Wärtsilä RTA96C is rated for over 80MW which means you'd need over 0.5million m^2 of PV panels to match this. (about 85 football pitches). Feasible but expensive
The idea that it would need to be 1000X bigger is helpful. The original poster's figure of 300m^2 does not make much sense.
Re: Maersk installed 100-foot-tall rotating sails on one of its tankers
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Salt water destroys everything This is the statement I hear relating to all kinds of ocean-based renewable energy ideas. Sources are never provided. The problem must have to do with economic viability and the replacement/maintenance costs exceeding savings. Could you supply sources to elaborate on where the break even point of solar tail (or any two other ocean renewable energy) systems would be as relates to costs…
> Sources are never provided. We also do not need to provide sources for statements such as 'water is wet'. Anything on a boat, or even shoreside near to the ocean is subject to corrosion and corrosion protection is a serious maintenance issue. I've lived 2 km from the sea and even there the nails would rust right out of the building due to the salt that the wind would carry in.
There’s a reason why pictures of “beautiful” beach front houses are usually from a long distance away: they are usually in pretty rough shape.
Re: Maersk installed 100-foot-tall rotating sails on one of its tankers
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s obviously not impossible, it’s just expensive, which is a problem in the given context.
How big is the check and why? That's what's so hard to get an answer for when people are determined already to not to try. I mean, I guess I have Google and a long-weekend. I was hoping for someone to drop an URL that can explain this and provide key terms.
Throw out a speculative idea, get a speculative answer.
Dunno why you’re expecting me to go all civil engineer on you, nor do I understand why you’re acting like I’m the barrier to the idea being tried.
Go do the math yourself, it’s your idea.
Re: Maersk installed 100-foot-tall rotating sails on one of its tankers
#97Wonder why ships aren't trying solar panels and electric motors and auto-pilot... they're out in clear Sun, have a large surface area, and no traffic...
Two problems with boats and solar propulsion: 1) they need 24/7 power. 2) Using a random LG 330 W panel on top of the Edith Maersk, it would take an array 1/3 of a mile by 1/2 of a mile in area to match Edith's 80,000 kW engine power output. Edith is 1/4 mile long and 3/100ths of a mile wide.
Quite a gap, and thats before you start factoring in batteries for the night, structure to support the array, storms...
Re: Maersk installed 100-foot-tall rotating sails on one of its tankers
#98Re: Maersk installed 100-foot-tall rotating sails on one of its tankers
#99This should be a big deal for combatting CO2 emissions as well. I believe it was never refuted after it came out a few years ago that ~15 of these ships emit the same CO2 as all cars in the world? https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/cargo-container-shipping...
The article says "pollution" not CO2. Given that they burn bunker fuel (very dirty oil left over after things like gasoline are refined away), it's likely the article means particulate or sulfur emissions.
The CO2 emissions are easily estimated and not even close. A container ship can burn 225 tons of bunker fuel per day at normal cruising speed.[1] At a generous 300 days in transit per year (they spend time in port loading / unloading / waiting), that's 67,500 tons of fuel per year. It's a massive number, but a drop in the bucket relative to the 913 million tons of oil consumed by Americans every year, the majority of which is spent on motor vehicle fuels.[2]
Even assigning just 50% of US oil consumption to cars, you're comparing about 450 million tons consumed by American drivers versus about 1 million tons for 15 large cargo ships.
[1] https://transportgeography.org/?page_id=5955 [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/264825/oil-consumption-i...
Re: Maersk installed 100-foot-tall rotating sails on one of its tankers
#100I've been wondering why shipping companies haven't been doing this for years now. Whenever I brought it up with friends they would say it's probably not worth the effort, but I can't see how it wouldn't be worth it. It's essentially free energy to help move the ship around. Got to say, I feel vindicated by this story.
Notice the height of the rotors. Cargo ships already have problems clearing bridges in some ports. I imagine that must also be a factor.
I wonder if they could be made to be telescoping or otherwise collapsible.