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Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

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Re: Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

#81

Post by ajford »

nwah1 wrote: post #14
laurencerowe wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric is an immediate option. Norway has 80 electric ferries in service. https://businessnorway.com/articles/norway-showcases-award-w...

It may be an immediate option for places that have a very strong desire to reduce carbon emissions, but for profit-driven entities the push towards natural gas ends up as both more economical and more ecological. https://www.lngindustry.com/special-reports/21112023/the-ris...

It seems like the profit-driven attitude put us in the ecological situation and maybe it's time to put the environmental impact first.

Re: Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

#82

Post by tonymet »

Panzer04 wrote: post #33
tonymet wrote: post #2

Ferry service in the Puget Sound (Seattle Area) has suffered due to delays with electric ferries. The state refuses to maintain their existing fleet. Every line has frequent delays, and the international route which was suspended for “a couple years” in 2021 is now delayed until 2030. The frustration people have with electric isn’t the technology – it’s the dogmatic commitment to technology that isn’t quite ready, ba…

I don't know what you mean by dogmatic. Alternatives to electric are still the primary workhorses in most industries, but falling prices for batteries mean they are rapidly becoming more competitive. My experience is that people don't have a good grasp of how effective electric is, and think it's somehow worse than the alternatives and winning via subsidies, which is not really the case today. Likewise for things lik…

dogmatic in this case refers to tolerating critical service disruptions despite strong signal that electric is not yet ready, when you could easily continue service with diesel, the mature technology.

Re: Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

#83

Post by EricE »

Polizeiposaune wrote: post #52
mcswell wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost as bad as a fuel oil fire on a cruise ship.

Lithium batteries are more prone to self-immolation/thermal runaway; heavy fuel oils aren't prone to spontaneous ignition at typical temperatures & pressures.

Furthermore, oil fires can be extinguished by water and/or CO2 - Lithium battery fires can't be smothered and require exponentially more water to bring under control (producing copious amounts of heavily contaminated water too). And once put out can easily re-ignite.

Re: Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

#84

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

sitharus wrote: post #34
hwillis wrote: post #3

Wow, this is a really good paper. Supplementary info is really great too- they get into details down to floating charging port stations as part of the infrastructure. Surprising how much demand is from tugboats. I have questions about how you'd safely hook up 5 MW connections, but it's definitely solvable.

Tugboats are a perfect use for battery electric boats! Most tugs work close to a port, they don't need to travel very far, need to be extraordinarily powerful for their size, and they need to change power output rapidly to manoeuvre a ship. A harbour tug internally is almost entirely engine. Well, two engines, because an engine failure during tug operations is almost always disastrous.

Not to mention that many of them are diesel-electric hybrid already, going back to the 1940's.

Re: Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

#85

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

DanielHB wrote: post #70

I wonder how viable an autonomous single-container electric cargo ship would be, instead of massive ships you could have thousands of tiny ones. With automated loading/unloading it could massively simplify logistics A solar panel covering the ship and one of those flaps to generate power from wind with a EV-scale battery could be enough for containers moving light non-time-sensitive stuff. Probably wouldn't be able t…

That sounds like a nightmare in port. Instead of one ship, now you have thousands arriving one after another.

Re: Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

#86

Post by lstodd »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #78
m463 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why hydrofoils aren't more popular

Because they're expensive and unreliable for most applications. They need more power, they increase draft, they don't tolerate debris, and they really dislike rough seas.

They do fine for passenger traffic. Draft, debris and rough seas are not a problem. You need gas turbines or very unusual diesels for the power, that is the problem.

Re: Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

#87

Post by lstodd »

entropicgravity wrote: post #63

The future of shipping is ammonia. It has, pretty much, all the attributes of fossil fuels but being NH4 it doesn't produce an earth warming byproduct.

now imagine a leak of it.

fuel oil.. you just fence it off and scoop up.

ammonia.. evacuate the port and city

Re: Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

#88

Post by mrguyorama »

Polizeiposaune wrote: post #71
euroderf wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speculation: this system propped up by the long-distance trucking lobby.

Longshoreman's union "touch fees" reportedly have a lot to do with it: https://capitalresearch.org/article/what-you-need-to-know-ab... https://twitter.com/johnkonrad/status/1840904466310316459 " it’s somehow cheaper to truck containers hundreds of miles and let taxpayers foot the road repair bill than let the union touch it two more times for short sea shipping to work."

It's not the Longshoreman's union fault that truck drivers have zero leverage against their employers in comparison.

If every form of transportation had strong unions, the system could find whatever healthy or natural distribution was actually economically efficient. More stuff would be sent by Train and Boat, both substantially more efficient in most cases, and both industries that suffer in the US from being ignored.

Instead, so much of the US essentially just runs on Employee Coercion Arbitrage and we all suffer for it.

We should be able to shop around transportation choices without exploiting underpaid workers.

Realistically, a carbon tax would actually have the same outcome if you hate unions.

Re: Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

#89

Post by Const-me »

For marine applications, I think propane fuel cells will work better than batteries. Unlike batteries, energy density of liquified propane is good. Unlike hydrogen, logistics of propane is solved by now as it’s already widely used to fuel vehicles.

Currently people usually burn propane in combustion engines, instead of oxidizing in fuel cells. In theory, fuel cells are more efficient than combustion engines.

There’re commercially available fuel cells used for marine applications https://wattfuelcell.com/ however it seems low powered, not enough power for propulsion.

And there’re different ways being researched to synthesize propane: some biotech bacteria, traditional industrial chemistry with new catalyzers like trimolybdenum phosphide nanoparticles, etc.

Re: Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

#90

Post by hn-throw »

nominatronic wrote: post #31

> The researchers analyzed US-flagged ships less than 1,000 gross tonnage, which includes primarily passenger ships and three types of tugboats. This is the buried lede. They are excluding basically all cargo shipping. - Very little of the shipping industry is US-flagged. Most commercial ships sail under flags of convenience such as Panama and Libera, because of their reduced regulations and costs. - Nobody carries c…

Id guess its because large oceanic shipping ships have incredibly fuel efficient engines and batteries cant compete since they're recharged with thermal plants of similar efficiency.
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