Maersk installed 100-foot-tall rotating sails on one of its tankers

Post by alonmower » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 5:20 PM UTC

mabbo wrote: post #103

jessewmc wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignorant question: if operational costs trump all, especially fuel (Maersk says in the article 60% of operational cost) why not pure sail power? Is there some other maintenance cost or infeasability there? Or is there another hidden variable that is not satisfied?

I've long imagined some fun possibilities for this. I picture a small-ish shipping ship, say something moving 20 or 30 containers only, fully autonomous (100% crewless) with sails and solar only powering it. Solar electric motors handling the near-land operations and "not enough wind" conditions, sails otherwise. If you had autonomous loading and unloading, you would have zero variable/operational cost. I am certain…

Post by lgats » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 5:24 PM UTC

Post by village-idiot » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 5:27 PM UTC

delecti wrote: post #110

village-idiot wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clarification: I was talking about using excess electricity from shore based solar units. This would give operators somewhere to dump excess power cheaply (preventing negative electricity rates), all while providing fuel that's easy to store and usable in applications where batteries wouldn't work. Obviously at this point fuel cells cannot produce the power output that diesel engines can at a given weight. But your p…

> But your power estimates on what a hydrogen fuel cell can do are off by a bit My estimate didn't assume the ship left the shore with any hydrogen fuel. I (apparently incorrectly) assumed you meant that the ship would generate its own hydrogen during the day from excess solar while it was in transport.

Post by wenc » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 5:30 PM UTC

jessewmc wrote: post #64

abtinf wrote: post #18

Some years ago I read The Box by Marc Levinson, a history of containerized shipping. Highly recommend it. If you live in SF and have wondered about the numerous barely used piers, this book explains their history as well - and why the major container terminal ended up in Oakland instead. One of the painful early lessons for the industry was the discovery that minimizing operational costs (particularly fuel and mainte…

Ignorant question: if operational costs trump all, especially fuel (Maersk says in the article 60% of operational cost) why not pure sail power? Is there some other maintenance cost or infeasability there? Or is there another hidden variable that is not satisfied?

Post by chooseaname » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

mvpu wrote: post #91

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...