Apart from any cost-saving, silent forms of propulsion benefit marine life, cetaceans, etc. Top of nobody's agenda, but certainly a useful side-effect.
That's a good point. Not only from a compassionate, wildlife loving standpoint, but because whales are one of the keystone species in the oceans, and generally speaking the more whales thrive, the more all life in the ocean thrives (and therefore the more food for us to eat and more oxygen producing phytoplankton to keep us breathing- the oceans account for at least half the oxygen emitted on Earth).
Thank you for pointing this out. Sound travels much better through water than air. Navy sonar testing is causing brain hemorrhaging in thousands of Whales and dolphins miles away. (230 dB signals!) Anything we can do to quiet the oceans helps ALL of us. Shipping is a good start.
Also the crews (and passengers, if on people movers). Going snorkeling from Cairns, FNQ on the Great Barrier Reef, I always preferred gliding along on a sailboat to the smelly noisy vibrating motor boats.
For Cetelogists (is that a word, if not I just made it, but honestly is sounds like it would easily be confused with SETI so not so great) I'm sure its quite high.
Another thing people need to understand about ship speed is that even though large diesel freight vessels CAN cross the ocean much more quickly, they often (probably usually) don't travel near their maximum speeds because fuel efficiency means it's cheaper to go slower. So that issue may not be as pronounced as you'd think for shipping companies.
slow steaming keeps vessels sailing below 20 knots. more vessels are looking to reduce down to 15kn or so. a well make windjammer could make 12kn in perfect condition with 10-8kn being typical. Ideas 1 and 3 would work perfectly together. #1 handling sailing conditions where the wing is blowing across deck while #2 handles sailing down wind.
I mean, even if the 90% carbon footprint reduction numbers don't hold up, even a 75% reduction is far better than a 0% reduction (and with the associated savings in fuel cost, it should be economically viable as well).
It kind of depends on if the ROI is good enough once purchase price and maintenance and consumables are taken into account. None of these solutions are maintenance free and will cost extra because now the shipping company will need to find and pay crew with the skills to operate and make best use of the technology.
There are many other questions for the first option. What is the upfront carbon to total load compared to traditional cargo ships, and how long would we need to operate it before we break even? Chances are they are more complexities/materials in this new design, so I can’t image the initial carbon footprint per capacity is lower, but I could be wrong. Retrofitting look like the biggest real world win at the moment, especially if the the 3rd option can be fully automated and not need a special crew to manage.
@@Angel24Marin That’s nothing. Extending the passage time costs you way, way, way more. Check just how much they pay to go thru the Suez canal to cut that time. The future is not wind power but nuclear power from thorium reactors e.t.c. Wind and solar is just snake oil.
As a recreational sailor, I think 12 days across the Atlantic is pretty darn good, and unlikely under most conditions. However, this is not a replacement technology, it is a way of reducing emissions though wind assist. If there is any approach that is commercially viable that reduces emissions 20%, that is huge. 40 or 50% would be incredible. BTW, one of the great proponents of the Flettner rotor was Jacques Cousteau.
Currently they use the worst part of diesel, the side product that cannot be used for vehicles - a ship is slow and steady so any fuel will do. That is why they create so much pollution (relativ to what they burn). They burn the crap that no on else burns.
@@xyzsame4081 Marine diesel is way lower grade than "auto diesel" and way more crap producing. It is the worst of the lighter parts of the crude- you should look into the fractions that become wrapping for your butcher's products! Or the cups and straws that your last big soda came in. FR
So Lets UNDERSTAND this... CARGO SHIPS would have to have Both WIND SAILS.... and a normal Combustion Engine? And would take TWICE as Long to complete a Journey,....? LOL! Yup... what could possibly go wrong with that BUSINESS MODEL in the highly competitive and commoditized Cargo Logistics Industry? in other words: LIBERAL IDIOT SAYS: "I have an idea for a new Eco-Friendly Ship... it can only do HALF the number of Journeys that normal Ships do... and We'll have LESS CARGO space, and cost much more to have an ENGINE and some SAILS!
Or when the price of fuel is jacked up, ie 2008, everyone jumped on the efficiency game ie "super slow steaming" for immediate fuel savings, while the kite idea launched around the same time.. Then fuel prices eased and it was goodbye to the efficiency drive
The original is from Star trek Trekkin. The quote is original “its life Jim, but not as we know it», but latetly ppl uses the saying when the first word is not explaining directly what is, even though it is.
That may be true... but costs were a different thing back then... not to mention there are other bits of "silliness" that you use on a daily basis without even thinking about it... Point being... useless commentary from one "lost to any reason" ... I guess the name says it all, doesn't it?
But if we have a green field start, how much Co2 is used to build this. Assuming in a zero Co2 World we would even still consider digging stuff up out of the ground or using ant heat to shape it and build that rotating mechanism, which surely would need to be very strong. But even in the Era of those "Classic" sailing ships, they still required mined metals to make parts strong enough to allow materials to withstand a force 6 gale, Let alone a force 10 gale which most large ships now would use their IC power to sail around.
@@MrBizteck we seem to have protests in the street that wasn't that,',tongue in cheek,we tried that in the 1800',s and before and it didn't provide us with a standard of living we could tolerate. So, I'm. Saying; I don't think`we could have a green field start on wind turbines and solar panels, assuming some survived the initial spoke out event event. I'm saying, let's not say start from nothing with green energy without providing the roadmap of how that could happen. Everyone promoting a totally green future, conveniently omits that that technology presupposes that there is millions of tons of mined minerals and rate earths just waiting to be cast into the required shapes by sunlight.
A couple of thoughts: Large container ships are not that energy efficient. They are logistically efficient, however. For their size, they have a huge amount of windage that the engine must overcome. This is because the containers are like bubbles. Each has its ration of cargo weight packed inside, but often less. A 20 ft container weighs about 5 tons empty, and it can hold about 20 tons, so even if it has its full weight ration packed inside, it's only 80% efficient. Add to that the fact that the containers have to be stacked on top of one another, and you have huge pockets of empty air taking up space. This is why container ships are bulky when light (as all ships are), but even bulkier when loaded. These ships will likely be powered by nuclear reactors, if they survive past mid-century. Then, putting sails on them will not be worth it. They'll continue to steam at 20 + knots. Otherwise, ships will once again be loaded for maximum weight and space efficiency, not logistic efficiency. Medium size ships (200 to 100 m) will have wind assist, such as what this video showed us. Smaller ships (less than 100 m) will likely be sailing ships with engine assist. The notion that we can keep our fast pace, high energy consumption life styles, with an ever growing population, and while going "green", is what I consider to be the big green lie. Some high carbon emitting technologies will have to stay. I don't know of any more efficient way of transporting people across oceans other than jet airliners. But that may end up being all they're used for. Over land, everybody Wil go by train. Convenience will be the first casualty of the "green revolution".
Two main changes will make that viable. Ditch the instant gratification of non perishables. If you want something and it's in stock, you are lucky. If it isn't in stock, you can order it, you'll get it when it arrives (whenever that is) For perishables, local production.
2:48 Lift generated by an airfoil is more complex and involves "both downward deflection and pressure differences" in the air above and below the wing. The wiki page on Lift (force) does a nice job of explaining misconceptions about wings and lift. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_(force)
Really its all about deflection, lift is always proportional to deflection and a surface not creating a deflection makes no lift but will still experience pressure differences, but these differences will cancel out fully because force is pressure TIMES area which is what EVERY one of these bad pressure explinations neglects as they pretend the areas are equal and flat to simply the forces to be directly proportional to the pressure differences.
TL;DR: The Bernoulli effect isn't anywhere near strong enough by itself. Air deflection is a big part of practical lift. (Is that what the wiki said? I really DR.)
Interesting stuff! I have never thought about this in such detail and always took the simple explanations out there as sufficient...Gotta tell more people! edit: Here is a Veritatisium Video (ua-cam.com/video/aFO4PBolwFg/v-deo.html) summarizing the misconception - not a lot of detail but getting anybody with more interest started...
Indeed, the myth about contoured top surfaces would mean you could not fly up side down and any fighter jets with flat wings would not be able to take off at all. Hell, even paper planes would defy the laws of nature. A contoured top does help reduce the critical angle of attack.
Indeed, one needs only to stick a hand out of a car window at a decent rate of speed to realize that the deflection on your decidedly *NOT* airfoil shaped hand is decidedly more powerful than the differences in shape or curvature, although those **DO** play a part overall...
here we concede that the most important aspect of modern life is we MUST consume more stuff ! any reductions of cost or increase in efficiency is appreciated. as long as we consume more STUFF !
I would say it was a critical aspect. Even if everyone consumes the minimal amount, population growth will still cause us to consume more and more. And the only way to stop population growth is with draconian use of force.
Any living organism is growing or dying. Good news: sales of horseshoes, razor strops, and ladies’ hats have decreased greatly over the last 100 years.
There typically is no one solution for an operational problem, so being objective and incorporating one of these solutions as an environmental option is a win-win solution that demonstrates commitment...
@@petemiller519 nice but I cannot find anything on efficiency between aerofoils and traditional sails. Real question - any links or resources I can lookup? Thanks.
@@user9b2 There's no inherent advantage, sails are aerofoils. Ridged airfoil sail wings can be double sided (skinned), so can be tuned a bit more in geometry. The other application advantage is the tall wide shape (aspect ratio). Sails often taper more at the top, as they aren't self-supporting in low wind. A ridged structure has application advantages, but both are similarly efficient. Thin wings can provide more lift than thicker wings, and traditional sails are some of the most efficient airfoils ever designed. So advantages? It's a matter of maintaining shape and aspect ratios in various conditions.
@@HELLBENDER77 not necessarily. The resource just needs an alternative. Food being a particularly obvious culprit. In the UK we've foregone many of our native species to either plant or import alternatives. To the extent that we create food homogeneity across the world and lose any identity our localities may of once had. There should be a way that we can retain our local food production for the vast majority of our needs and use the ingenuity of cooking to create new recipes and local variation of foreign favourites. For example Carlin pea falafel instead of imported chickpeas, that sort of thing.
that is EXACTLY what i had been posting to all those electric yacht manufactures (eg: Silent Yachts) on a combination of Kite Sails and Vertical Axis Wind turbines to augment power and charging batteries. Also think about the possibility of using thin film solar panels on these Kite Sails. I really hope we get there with Perovskites.
I suspect that the kit surfaceis far to dynamic for anything other than a strong fabric. Of course, the top of the ship is also catching full sun, so that is an option.
@@Angel24Marin I agree that you can generate electricity by turning a motor attached to the cable. The electric power should nearly equal the applied force time the velicity of the cable. There may be a clever way to use the change in angle to generate power, but that seems more complex.
The advantage of a Kite is also in induced wind…. when you fly the kite in a figure 8 downwind .. you almost double the Force it produces …. F=V Squared ….
I’d like to see the America’s cup competition be evolved so that each boat would need to transport a 40’ container. Just as the AC pushed hydrofoil design ahead it might do the same for small scale shipping.
Lets just start a new competition where moving the container the fastest using all renewable energy is the entire purpose. Hell, get Sir Richard Branson to put up a series of prizes and sponsor the race.
This has already happened .. as far as the design of the wing sail is concerned in fact its old news . If you want to see these in action you should check out the sail GP series (F50s) where the wing sails are powering those yachts to over 50Knots ! Of cause those designs are impracticle for freight ships but the main "sails" are being improved all the time and they show how well this idea is working. Improving the Kite sails by adding a generator to the base ( similar to what Skysails power are doing on land) would allow additional power to be harvested.
Elon Musk enters chat "I can ship it with a giant fossilfuled rocket or use ∞ amout of energy to reduce most of the air resistance in a rediculusly long tube" AND OFCOURSE! You can only send one at a time trains is not hipster enough!
This is the Walker Wingsail system from about 20 years ago!! Vertical sails that rotated around to take advantage of any wind direction and speed. Many claimed he was put out of business by many means (leading to his bankruptcy) allowing other interested parties to obtain his system on the cheap but at that time it was to stop his system being adopted on commercial shipping which was seen as a threat to those who did not wish to see this change come in. Walker has all the tech and spec details for his system at that time. It was being deployed on Yachts of all sizes at that time.
I like it very much. Thought provoking and credible developments in the pipeline. Graham W ps Have to admit to real love for the era of the tall-ships and have a particular attraction for HMS Victory at Portsmouth :)
The space and mass liberated by removing the engines should be at least 50% recoverable. Part of the deck space lost to the vertical wings would be available below decks in the now empty engine bay.
I would use that space for batteries to power the ship when maneuvering in port. Some solar on the sails themselves would provide electricity for operations a d slowly recharge the batteries out at sea.
It makes more sense to make more use of tugboats in harbor than to sacrificing possible cargospace for what is only a fraction of a percent of the journey. It is a system already in place that basically all ships of these sizes use anny way.
the engines won't be removed, they still have to be there for times when the wind isn't blowing like you want and for navigating into port as well as many other times. Sails could conceivably do the bulk of the work most of the time but never will replace engines entirely. Battery electric could conceivably replace fossil fuel engines but would incur a tremendous weight penalty with the way batteries are right now.
Thank you as ever. Lots of research brought together in fine style. Those "slightly expensive" sailboats are in recent years Foiling . I guess there's people working on autonomous (Robot operated America's Cup style Multihulls) Foilers for the delivery of perishables etc
When I see these things the first idea that comes to my mind is: That's a lot of surface area that you could put flexible solar panels on. I doubt that you would be able to get enough energy to make much difference in powering the boat itself But even if all you get is enough to run the ship's electrical systems it's still an idea worth looking into.
The issue there is solar cell efficiency is based on flux density, therefore very dependant on angle to the sun. These will only have a good angle to the sun in elevation at dawn and dusk, when the sun is at its weakest due to all the extra atmosphere it has to go though. Before even accounting for the wind deciding if the other angle points sunward. If cells get much cheaper it might be worth it. Might be something in wind turbines feeding electric screws.
On the first two, with physical objects, they could be skinned with photovoltaic cells. The kite whips around so much, I think it would thrash the pv into trash in a matter of months, while costing triple the non pv kites in use now.
@@docwatson1134 What you say is right. Put the PVs on the inside of the inflated tubes where they will be less exposed to higher-order stress forces. Use transparent outer/upper surfaces and reflective inner surface to concentrate light onto cheap and lightweight PV strips protected by the air tube. Concentrating troughs and aerofoils have similar-enough shape characteristics.
Those are great numbers for beginning! Technology is constantly evolving, so they may still make those ships even more efficient in the future and arrive faster. I'm excited about this =)
Yep, I remember them too. The reason they never took off was because wear and tear on the rotors was too high to be practical. 50 years on, we have improved materials technology, so definitely worth revisiting the concept. :)
With sails you have to tack and jibe to use the wind, whereas if you convert the wind to electricity you can sail a direct route. Q: Is converting wind to electric more or less efficient that using a sail but travelling a longer route?
This depends. With a boat that heavy, a spinnaker ("kite sail") could be run anytime you are moving with the wind (downwind). Vertical foil sails rotate, so they still get decent propulsion when not downwind. The only real no-go zone for sails is directly into the wind (say 20 to 30 degrees of true). So the course changes may be negligible when there is that much inertia. Seems you would want a strong keel/rudder system though. But for supplemental propulsion, it's probably a computer-assisted answer. Ocean currents play a role too.
The problem is mostly with power output. These kite systems can produce a steady amount of electricity, but it will never be enough to actually power the cargo ships engines. They just don't have the peak power output. Whereas when you use them to literally pull you ahead, each Newton of force they apply to the ship is exactly 1N less your engines have to provide.
I was in large diesel engine business before and got also deeply interested in kite propulsion. The deck part of the kite system is strong but I can't imagine a sail to last more than one or two years. The concept works and has a lot of advantages but my rough estimate is that it will not spread unless the crude oil goes persistently over 80-100 $/bl. Liquid fuels are just too convenient to use and too damn cheap at the moment.
If that kite sail saves 1000$ on fuel per 8 hours a day it is well worth its costs even if it should only last 2 years unless it costs more than 730000$. The cost efficiency can also be increased by extending operstions time. In other words it would be straight out stupid not to use them unless the the regular route makes it impossible to use.
@@ahsimiksnabac6576 ... not really, if government mandate a tax on a product it can manipulate the market to an effect. in ireland cigaretes cost 4 times what they cost in italy to disincentivise use. the same can be said for fuel as a whole in europe, having higher running cost made european cars more efficients and kept them small and light, at least realive to the US. basically this "capitalist nonesense" can be used to stir a freemarket economy in a more sustainable direction.
@@herlescraft in Italy the fuel cost is one of the highest in the world because there's a fuel tax that goes almost entirely to Ethiopia for paying the atrocities committed on them in the '900. Immagine a similar tax on Britain, France and USA, the prices would skyrocket and help deincentivize the use of fuel Btw the cigarettes cost is low because the government tried to stop the mafia from importing secretly way shittier ones from Albania
@@alfredorotondo wrong there are many different cost added to it, the smallest one is the going to ethiopia. 0,000981 euro: finanziamento per la guerra d’Etiopia (1935-1936) 0,00723 euro: finanziamento della crisi di Suez (1956) 0,00516 euro: ricostruzione dopo il disastro del Vajont (1963) 0,00516 euro: ricostruzione dopo l’alluvione di Firenze (1966) 0,00516 euro: ricostruzione dopo il terremoto del Belice (1968) 0,0511 euro: ricostruzione dopo il terremoto del Friuli (1976) 0,0387 euro: ricostruzione dopo il terremoto dell’Irpinia (1980) 0,106 euro: finanziamento per la guerra del Libano (1983) 0,0114 euro: finanziamento per la missione in Bosnia (1996) 0,02 euro: rinnovo del contratto degli autoferrotranvieri (2004) 0,005 euro: acquisto di autobus ecologici (2005) 0,0051 euro: terremoto dell’Aquila (2009) da 0,0071 a 0,0055 euro: finanziamento alla cultura (2011) 0,04 euro: emergenza immigrati dopo la crisi libica (2011) 0,0089 euro: alluvione in Liguria e Toscana (2011) 0,082 euro (0,113 sul diesel): decreto “Salva Italia” (2011) 0,02 euro: terremoto in Emilia (2012) plus taxes and these fund do not actually go finance what their name would emply, no, thwy were temporaly measures that ended up staying and providing the government with revenue while at the same time having the side effect of disincentivise car usage.
On topic of sailships what about hybrid everything ( eg. Use category): mixing small specialty niche market freight with yatch adventure tourism and carbon offsets. Maybe sailships could get preferential treatment at ports and lower tariffs.
Some of this is already a thing in some areas, especially for shorter trips around Europe with small batch high value goods like wine and spirits. Look up Fairtransport, Greyound, and Sailcargo. And, Charlestoen harbour in Cornwall (where Poldark was filmed) is sometimes a destination that only allows traditional sailing vessels in.
"as our global population grows". There's the fundamental problem right there. I'd also question why we need to ship so much stuff around the planet. For a time it might be cheaper to have goods made on another continent but that's only temporary and a sizable percentage of what's being shipped will ultimately end up as landfill.
Given the consistent/continuous temperature delta between sea water and atmosphere that ships/boats would be the ideal candidates for sterling engine applications
I've seen where they experimented with a kite system to generate electricity why not use it for both. To save deck space mount spinning cylinders to sides of ships where they can be raised or lowered even be telescopic, again also capable of generating electricity...
I have no idea why some sort of wind-power mechanism hasnt been used for freight shipping and *oil tankers* until now. It is not about totally relying on with but taking help from it. Whatever boost from wind is saving and free money for the company. The space over the command house is free space and also oil tankers have the entire deck free. For the first idea here imagine if you have two rows instead of one. Thank you it was an interesting episode.
@@drpk6514 I thought you were thinking of adding solar panels on the flat part of oil tankers, not wind wings. Btw, new oil tankers are built to last 30+ years. I wouldn't put my money into a new oil tanker since I think the oil demand will shrink dramatically over the next 10 years. Just like last year when oil prices went negative, things can changes faster as you think.
Nuclear power would be a true zero-carbon propulsion system. Using mass-produced compact modular thorium-based reactor systems, we could have systems that are reliable, fueled once, and replaceable if the vessel outlasts the energy source. We would also have a fuel cycle that is not suitable for producing plutonium. Of course, you would need some inspectors to keep everyone honest.
The upfront cost would be astronomical through; not to mention the hazard of recovery in case of shipwreck. While the fuel cost is pretty low, the maintenance cost (including the inspectors cost) would be higher than conventional ICE engine. I love nuclear power, but I do not thing this will be feasible in near future.
Just think; would you have full confidence in the management of a nuclear reactor under the control of an anonymous entity only traceable, perhaps, via a letter box in a FOC (flag of convenience) nation state? If you are, could you sell that confidence to Japan, the state that hosted the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear detonations as well as more recently the Fukushima ‘event’? Then try that same, or a similar, sales strategy on Ukraine, the nation state that as a part of the USSR (CCCP) hosted the Chernobyl ‘event’. Modern iterations of nuclear energy, thorium fuel, molten salt reactors or fusion reactors, will carry the legacy of past problems. It is the global trepidation of anything with 'nuclear' in the name and the economics of nuclear having transitioned from 'energy to cheap to charge for' too 'the costs of remediation are incalculable' that will prevent the adoption of nuclear energy as a means of creating energy at sea. Modern reaction systems may have overcome the safety problems but the general public, having been misled in the past, will be reluctant to believe the fresh new promises. The incident of the ‘Ever Given’ blocking the Suez Canal, March 2021, may also have a little to add to this debate. The cooling water on ships tends to get taken in from near the bottom so when running aground the inlets are in a prime spot to get plugged up restricting, if not stopping, the flow of coolant. One thing that the TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents all had in common was that the supply of coolant, or rather lack thereof, was a fundamental cause. Similarly and only months later, May 2021, had the ‘X Press Pearl’ been nuclear powered then a major port for a populous nation in the global South would have possible been the site of a significant exclusion zone due to a non power plant related incident. ‘They’ say nuclear is cheap, it’s not it is expensive and has a large embedded carbon quotient as well as being complicated, dangerous, not universally socially acceptable and having only ‘no need for refuelling’ as a questionable advantage; actually it does need refuelling just not as often. When ‘they’ do need to refill the warming up stuff it takes considerable longer than pumping tonnes of thick black stuff, cSt380 HFO, or thin runny stuff, MDO, onboard which is one of the reasons HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales are pushed about by ICEs and gas turbines thus using a similar fuel as the aircraft that fly off of them. The Royal Navy (RN) with a high degree of skill and expertise uses, at vast expenses to the UK taxpayer, a current operational nuclear fleet of 11 submarines (also known as ‘boats’) in two flotillas, seven attack subs and four ballistic missile boats. The carbon footprint of all the extra bits of hardware and the fuel, including processing thereof, from ground to propeller, are the external costs that never seem to get considered. Disposal, once it wears out, of both the machine (that was a ship) and fuel is another can of worms best left unopened. The 26 RN nuclear powered boats no longer in use are laid up (some in Rosyth and some in Portsmouth) awaiting long term deconstruction including dealing with the fuel rods and other irradiated material. The USN is not, as far as I know, a commercial organisation working to very tight margins and also has the skill and expertise to handle the complexities of nuclear power; so as well as submarines their aircraft carriers are nuclear powered and each of the current iteration has a build cost three times that of QE/PoW, bigger crews and more generous funding. For those who still think that nuclear energy might be the answer I recommend this report: - www.bbc.com/future/article/20200901-the-radioactive-risk-of-sunken-nuclear-soviet-submarines?ocid=ww.social.link.email. The navy of the USSR might have been under resourced and over extended but it was still generously supported in comparison with merchant shipping.
@@BernardLS I think that there are answers to this comment. Yes, most of the disasters to nuclear power plants are associated with loss of their cooling systems but the whole idea of molten salt reactors (E.G. thorium-U 233 reactors) is that they are inherently stable and are in a different ballgame of safety that don't use water cooling (water is itself a dangerous material inside a nuclear reactor) and if they fail the liquid fuel automatically drains into cooling tanks where the reactions stop. The older reactors were all built with an eye on manufacturing fissile materials for weapons and whilst I know that it is necessary to persuade people away from their fixed views about their fears of nuclear fuels, one of the advantages of these later generation reactors is that they can utilise many of the waste products of previously stored spent fuels that would have to be stored for thousands of years. This is a good reason to encourage certain types of nuclear reactors. I must admit that they are not as immediately practical on ships but try to be a little more open-minded about their general use. I used to be anti nuclear but have been persuaded by the facts about the later ideas about nuclear power generation.
@@alfredorotondo a gennaker or a balloon is a drag device for reaching. A kite is moving and creating lift. Skysails deploy and operate automatically. Be sure to check out Skysails Power. High altitude wind can operate at 6000 full load hours. It's basically wind baseload.
@@alfredorotondo I hope I didn't correct you, just wanted to point you to high altitude wind energy. It's a fascinating technology. Check out skysails power, KiteGen and Ampyx Power. Wish just have a think would do a video about it.
Very interesting. Shipping uses around 300 million tonnes of oil per year which is about 7% of global petroleum production of 4 billion tonnes per year. Biofuels only total about 80 million tonnes per year and are currently nowhere near able to replace the petroleum used in shipping, road freight and aviation, but it's not impossible. Improved efficiency will definitely help. Can we burn ammonia without making NOx? You have to wonder why we need to move so many things around the globe like we do. One of the things on the ship that got stuck in the Suez canal was garden furniture. International freight rates are currently very high which begs the question of whether with efficient manufacturing techniques we couldn't make our own garden furniture and many other things.
Here's an idea. Let's make stuff where we need it and not ship stuff back and forth. That would save a lot of steel and fuel from being produced and used.
Cool! Moonraker sails like this were used on clipper ships in the 1840's and 50's, I hope this has a computer control because otherwise it takes skilled sailors.
Using the last two wind sources in combination may not replace the internal combustion engine, but, imagine using the turbines to charge batteries as needed and see when electric ships could be practical. As far as the extended time of sailing, change the delivery date to account for the vessels speed.
@@pauleohl Find the perfect answer and solve the entire problem. The true answer will be a combination of technologies, some we know about, some still in process of discovery and development. I have seen pictures of ship engines, some are over 20 feet tall and 30 feet long. pistons bigger than the largest cast iron frying pan I have even seen. They run at less than 125 RPM's. Even as a mechanical marvel, I would not be sad to see them out of service, maybe put in a museum. They seem beyond human scale, but the propellers ( screws) seem like that in pictures.
Having spent most of my working life at sea and being involved with various propulsion systems from diesel to gas turbines and my last vessel was electric propulsion with diesel generators, solar energy plus batteries may have been of some assistance , but emissions are a major problem for the shipping industry. Hydrogen could be a possibility but to be honest all the technology you put forward, some of which has been around for some time, does not produce enough propulsion for a large commercial vessel. Some major “blue sky thinking “ as you say is going to be carried out to solve, what is a global problem for the shipping industry.
We are a long way from commercialism in Hydrogen, it is to energy intensive to separate. When we can do that, that might be the game changer, but we’d need the infrastructure which will take decades once we can do it
So basically you're saying that a bunch of sailships cannot achieve the efficiency of higher capacity ICE vessels? What about niche markets instead of generalized container ships: eg. Yatch adventure tourism combined with coffee trade?
@@williambreen1001 Thomas Midgley Jr. (born 18 May 1889 died 2 Nov 1944) was an American (USA) chemist who, as well as developing the technique of putting the tetraethyl lead (TEL) additive in petrol, created chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), yes those ozone depleting CFCs, so that the use of NH3 as a refrigerant could be discontinued. NH3 could be the most dangerous and least ‘clean’ clean energy source, it is very bad and probably deserves a rant all of its own; so let’s just leave that for a while (somewhere very far away that is cool, dark and quiet).
@@williambreen1001 Methane is the flavour of the month for clean burning. Fluidity in the Fossil Oil & Gas Industry is a thing so reallocation of middle distillates from road fuel to marine, as you suggest, could be carried out relatively easily.
Another great video. I love these efficient engineering solutions. One thing to keep in mind though (and this could be a topic for another video) is the rebound effect. If all ships we're 30% more efficient, there wouldn't be a 30% drop in emissions. This is because fuel costs would drop, so shipping costs drop, so more shipping happens. Often this effect more than outweighs the efficiency savings (see Jevens paradox) There are upsides to this, especially for people in poorer countries who can sell more goods to richer ones, but if we want to reduce emissions there has to be some sort of disincentive such as higher fuel taxes or regulations, not just greater efficiency.
Shipping is about supplying demand. Cheaper goods doesn’t have to mean more demand for those goods. There are only so many blue jeans or washing machines a person can buy. Humanity biggest problem is population explosion. Remember that thing that scared us in the 70’s and 80’s that globalists don’t want you to talk about anymore?
Why is everyone touting a technology that has 100 years of fuel left at the current consumption rate? There are only about 200 nuclear generators globally right now... If folks like you had their way we'd run out of uranium, plutonium and thorium in the next 10 years. To replace fossil fuels an absolute minimum of 2000 nuclear power stations and 500 nuclear reprocessing plants would be needed. That's before you get to nuclear powered ships. Do that and you wouldn't even have time to build 20% of them before running out of fuel.
@@mickelodiansurname9578 no. You need to study harder. Using fast breeder reactors, which extend the use of uranium by a factor of 60, the uranium could last for 300,000 years. Thats plenty of time to find a alternative, eg fusion.
Love the kite idea, that's got lots of room for all sorts of interesting design ideas. Might be able to generate considerable amount of electricity as well as wind assist. Also deployment on existing bunker fuel ships can happen quickly too.
Skysails is now developing high altitude wind power plants. It's a very beat idea saving lots of energy and material thus with a huge EROEI. KiteGen had the idea to generate electricity to power ships.
Call me cynical but the most efficient ship is the one that doesn’t sail. How about making stuff locally rather than shipping materials around the world. The “Planet Money” documentary on making a T-shirt comes to mind.
It's not only about trade, we will always need the means to deliver emergency supplies to overseas disasters and famines. Thank you Lockheed for the Hercules.
this picture of a wind turbine driven vessel is hilarious fiction - don't you know anything about the amount of power required to move a massive cargo ship? Sailing ships reached their full potential eons ago - to get to the next level required serious horse power from driven engines - Wind Turbine driven ship travel is a disastrous idea - just when you need it the storm overwhelms the mechanisms and they have to be latched down - the ship would be adrift at the mercy of the seas ...that wouldn't work out
I like the ZBeluga Skysail system. With huge oil, tankers add solar panels across the deck since it is a relatively flat aspect of those types of ships and you have extra power generated! There are many possibilities we just need political and corporate will to change their dinosaur attitudes!
Not a bad idea, but somehow the idea of saving a few thousand tons of potential emmissions while delivering millions of barrels of oil to be burned to produce tens of thousands of tons of carbon footprint seems a little out of whack. Just my thought! FR
@@fredericrike5974 You are spot on! I can see it now, ship docks at destination: Captain: "These solar panels on the deck and our Skysail allowed us to release 400 Tons less CO2 into the environment during our trip." Dock worker: "That's excellent! How much C02 will the oil in your holds release when burned?" Captain: (Face Plant)
@@larrybolhuis1049 I do see we must become much better stewards of our planet. And for a time, we may need to seriously limit our "negative outputs". The latest UN reports are not just scary, they are real facts and events occurring now, not a decade or two from now. We should have begun much sooner- this was one of the subjects first deeply effected by the "misinformation syndrome"- and it has stymied much of any First World response. We need to do the "right thing"- survive and survive well. We need a plan that can do a big chunk of both or as much as possible. We need that plan yesterday, or better, last month. FR
Fascinating. Saves money. Can be retro-fitted to a very small number of vehicles (compared to cars), and a climate benefit established extremely easily using tried and tested technology. Someone call Evergreen and pitch them (once they stop crashing into the sides of canals).
The great thing is that many of these techs stack. Low sails, a kite and solar (also on the kite?) all stack together to reduce fuel requirements in an additive way. 10% here, 10% there, and a swift, zero fuel super carrier suddenly looks possible.
The more technologies you add, the more maintenance costs you pile up. The technical requirements for th crew also increase. It's not as straightforward as that.
@@Withnail1969 If we can start at the COP conference on Glasgow, with international agreement to terminate subsidies for the oil industry, there would be price increases, and competition to bring them down again. A win-win situation for everyone except Big Oil. No damage to international trade, except in oil. They need to adapt, not resist.
@@theotherandrew5540 there are no alternatives that can power the size of ships we have. international trade will simply cease for almost all goods. that will happen anyway of course as oil becomes more scarce.
@@Withnail1969 Goods that come from afar aren't on the "just in time" schedule. Sail and electric power take longer than diesel power, and we don't need ever larger ships. So the only extra cost (paid from the savings in fuel) will be the wages of the crew. It is now clear, even to the greediest of fat-cats, that we can't carry on as before. The human race is now quite capable of self destruction, and doing very well. Capitalism is doing a good job, the end is neigh. Will we humans change course in time to avert disaster? I very much doubt it. But under the scorching sun, it's just possible that the survivors will make the necessary, obvious, already available changes.
@@theotherandrew5540 I agree that one way or another, the world of consumerism is going to come to an end. In fact I believe the collapse started in 2019/2020. I think there are going to be further supply chain breakdowns and shortages and they will get worse. Global oil production peaked in late 2018. Without increasing oil production, there is no more growth.
Sailing vessels have been around for a long time. Their limitations are well known which is why we use powered ships now. Turning back the clock won't work.
An excellent topic I'm sure you will develop. I'm a retired naval officer and master mariner. Over recent years weather software has been used in planning wind favourable routing for large container vessels; the slab-sided vessels can, optimising the angle of the prevailing wind, reduce fuel usage that can provide a fuel cost reduction per voyage. Noting the longer voyage duration, it is not uncommon to consider goods in transit effectively being warehoused in these vessels until delivery. This practice is already in use for bulk raw material kept afloat until market prices suggest a favourable discharge. I like the telescopic rigid sails. Great topic.
@joseph blansjaar stated "...container vessels; the slab-sided vessels can, optimizing the angle of the prevailing wind, reduce fuel usage...". Sounds interesting; can you expand on that premise. Are you suggesting that as the wind direction turns during the passage of a weather front, that the vessel will be steered to keep the wind smoothly running parallel to the large slab side?
Or there is a future where countries try to be more self-supporting. Sure large+densely populated islands are in a bit of pickle when they have the need for goods yet have done away with the means and only rely on imports for 80 to 99% by mass/vol. The silver lining is that these islands are often by larger land masses (New Zealand is only a short boat ride from Australia whilst Singapore is near enough to the mainland). Even the UK didnt have to exit; in that they could enjoy mainland Europe's support. This is all to say that China doesnt need to supply the usa or the rest of the world. Shipping can be reduced to focus on certain goods. In that there is absolute madness in shipping furniture/cabinets across oceans. #NATO, #WTO, #UN, #EU and like bodies need to agree on limiting excessive goods. It takes time to change people’s perception and move industries but we cannot hope that an innovation solves the battery and nuclear problem. Instead we can be more proactive. Using less and being more thoughtful how we use goods.
To most people a 10% reducing of fuel might not sound a lot. But it wouls make a huge difference. These idea's could be attached to the outside of the decks instead of taking up deck space.
I worked with a Swedish backer for new mineral carriers, using these rigid sails. What I focused on was reducing drag, a completely new way to get more performance which will allow much higher speeds and much more reliably. Using bubbles.
What I never see in these cargo ship designs is what they did for the worlds fastest aerofoil catamaran (the company my father in law works for produced some parts for it), where they had tiny wings mounted underneath the two bodies of the vessel. The faster they'd go, the more lift these wings produced and the higher the catamaran was lifted out of the water, reducing drag and making them even faster until what's normally considered the boat wouldn't even touch the water anymore. And I know that it doesn't scale 1:1, but what if we made such a system for cargo ships that just lifts the entire vessel up by a meter or so when it gets up to cruising speed. If it reduces drag, the wind assisted system and the lift could work synergistically.
Oh, I love the airplane-wing idea! Probably because somewhere in my wee little scientist's, guerilla-engineer's heart, there is a secret sailor lurking. The speed of shipping for some items is crucial; the speed of shipping other things is not all that relevant. How fast does the car for the September roll-out have to travel from Japan to New York? In time for September's roll out. If the cost of shipping is down significantly, it wouldn't be a disadvantage to manufacture the car so that it's ready 6 days earlier than previous scheduling. Sadly, the thing you mentioned at the start is the greatest obstacle to all of this: "Increased demand for shipping of goods." More goods means more heat in the atmosphere, unavoidably and unsurvivably. In the time before we all cook to death, though, we can really have some fun inventing better sailing-ships for cargo hauling--because it's fun!
I mean it is currently happening but with ice destroyers. To make it economical the journey would have to be very long, but that isn't economical when it comes to route planning, so you are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
I met a man on the side of a volcano, who had been a merchant seaman all his life. I asked him if it would be possible now to scale up huge merchant sailing ships. He was convinced that is was very possible.
Anything is "Possible"... you just try doing it for a Year or Two.... TWICE the time to complete a Shipping Route means HALF the Number of Journeys... see what that does to your Bottom Line as a shipping company, and see how you cannot COMPETE with Cargo Carriers that can get there TWICE as FAST as you can.
I think its Sweden or Denmark that have petra glyphs of boats etched in to rock,that was submerged 5-6 thousand years ago(sea rise).and aborigines of Australia had to have got there by boat.i think there is an incentive to pausade shipping companies to install complex filters for the crude oil engines ,the world's boats/ships uses,but this is only gonna pan out to 5% of the worlds ships in 10 years(not gonna ever work),the same can be said for the building or conversion of the worlds biggest most sophisticated steel constructions,the cost of the old engines rip out alone,is unfeasible for evan a fraction of a fraction of the worlds ships,never mind refurbishing them with expensive mega tech installations for all different shaped ships.just building a 1% replacement of green mega ships will cost trillions.there might be a handful of hydrogen ships in the future,but that will do little for the atmosphere or fish.as always a combination approach is essential,combining wind and self mounting to the Hull and deck green powered wheels/submarines/turbines/green tug boats/para sails
Building sailing ships denuded the worlds forests. Looking at the final product disregards the materials and energy that has gone into the product, ie electric cars, windmills etc. Reduce the need to move all that unnecessary stuff, much greater savings.
Another amazing video. Please do not stop, these are fantastic summarizations. I would ask, and perhaps I have just overlooked them, that you provide links to the sources you cite within the videos. I would love the opportunity to quickly access and read the articles.
Can I put the kite sail on a bungee cord? Then if I sail from new york to london the kite can be half way there before the energy is transferred to my ship?
The rotating cylinder solution isn’t all that effective, only reducing fuel consumption a very small amount. The wing solution paired with solar power would be extremely efficient. And even the use of Hydrogen (Methanolic/Ethanolic/Proanolic/Butanolic) Fuel cells are a likely beneficiary thus becoming a carbon sink simultaneously. The kite solution might be a great solution for when other engine/propeller propulsions fail.
The flettner rotors generate a lot of lift if rotated fast enough, but they also generate a lot of drag, which is often ignored in discussions like this.
@@macrumpton The "drag" is part of the propulsive force when the wind is in the right direction. The "drag" on the "oncoming face" of the Rotor directlt contributes to forward momentum at all wind speeds after of the beam. Don't confuse the "rotor drag": with "airfoil drag". Not the same thing at all. www.boatdesign.net/threads/everything-old-is-new-again-flettner-rotor-ship-is-launched.24081/page-38#post-913676 Also. You can't increase the drag without a greater "lift" effect".
Hi Dave, We could also see marine transport reduce CO2 emissions by greater use of nuclear power, a totally tried and tested technology. The amount of wind available for marine transport is tremendous, any time of the year, ability to harness this source will definitely come in coming years.
Cost is likely the issue there. Currently, ships burn the cheapest (and dirtiest) fuel in existence. We will need to impose costs on the shipping industry for their CO2 and toxics releases.
From what I've read (admittedly just a BBC article and a wiki page, today) nuclear power is not viable for merchant shipping for reasons of high capital and operational costs of running and maintaining ship nuclear reactors, despite the advantage of not having to refuel as often as an ICE ship (there is currently one ship that I am aware of, a Russian ice breaking merchant ship, which does use a nuclear reactor). And of course we know that ships do sink from time to time, causing pollution. If it was nuclear reactors rather than diesel fuel being lost beneath the waves, it might be a massive disaster. Then there is the issue of decommisioning, an expensive process for which the current best method is to cut the reactor out of the ship and bury it!
@@danyoutube7491 Economics of nuclear powered ships are way above the current costs. We can expect some innovation wherein nuclear fuel is benign, non weapon grade and available in plentiful, maybe thorium or maybe something else. As for accidents, that no doubt is the greatest concern for which Govts and Authorities need to approve a framework which is absolutely safe under any eventuality. Thanks for your inputs.
Actually, they get used a hell of a lot - there is a good video on them on YT somewhere. They are fully automatically deployed and retracted and are used something like 85% of the journey. There are quite a lot of them in use already.
@@piccalillipit9211 I suppose with them being retractable, it doesn't increase the size of the vessel at all, which is significant for entering harbours and passing under bridges. Whereas the other two designs in this video, while they can reduce their size to enter such areas, do nevertheless increase the size of the vessel in those reduced states.
@@danyoutube7491 - I cant find the documentary - its really clever cos it is fully automated, it stoors below the deck. It is linked to the weather report so if bad weather is coming it puts its self away, it can fly at different heights to be in the best wind speed and direction at all times. This is A video on it - but its 10 years old, there was a much newer one. ua-cam.com/video/pYv6k5A-kHg/v-deo.html
Any movement on board a Ship can be converted into Electrical Energy the Sea itself can be converted into a propulsion system with Magnetohydrodynamics MHD. So combined Solar and Wind you can come up with a trifecta of alternatives...
Just think; would you have full confidence in the management of a nuclear reactor under the control of an anonymous entity only traceable, perhaps, via a letter box in a FOC (flag of convenience) nation state? If you are, could you sell that confidence to Japan, the state that hosted the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear detonations as well as more recently the Fukushima ‘event’? Then try that same, or a similar, sales strategy on Ukraine, the nation state that as a part of the USSR (CCCP) hosted the Chernobyl ‘event’. Modern iterations of nuclear energy, thorium fuel, molten salt reactors or fusion reactors, will carry the legacy of past problems. It is the global trepidation of anything with 'nuclear' in the name and the economics of nuclear having transitioned from 'energy to cheap to charge for' too 'the costs of remediation are incalculable' that will prevent the adoption of nuclear energy as a means of creating energy at sea. Modern reaction systems may have overcome the safety problems but the general public, having been misled in the past, will be reluctant to believe the fresh new promises. The incident of the ‘Ever Given’ blocking the Suez Canal, March 2021, may also have a little to add to this debate. The cooling water on ships tends to get taken in from near the bottom so when running aground the inlets are in a prime spot to get plugged up restricting, if not stopping, the flow of coolant. One thing that the TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents all had in common was that the supply of coolant, or rather lack thereof, was a fundamental cause. Similarly and only months later, May 2021, had the ‘X Press Pearl’ been nuclear powered then a major port for a populous nation in the global South would have possible been the site of a significant exclusion zone due to a non power plant related incident. ‘They’ say nuclear is cheap, it’s not it is expensive and has a large embedded carbon quotient as well as being complicated, dangerous, not universally socially acceptable and having only ‘no need for refuelling’ as a questionable advantage; actually it does need refuelling just not as often. When ‘they’ do need to refill the warming up stuff it takes considerable longer than pumping tonnes of thick black stuff, cSt380 HFO, or thin runny stuff, MDO, onboard which is one of the reasons HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales are pushed about by ICEs and gas turbines thus using a similar fuel as the aircraft that fly off of them. The Royal Navy (RN) with a high degree of skill and expertise uses, at vast expenses to the UK taxpayer, a current operational nuclear fleet of 11 submarines (also known as ‘boats’) in two flotillas, seven attack subs and four ballistic missile boats. The carbon footprint of all the extra bits of hardware and the fuel, including processing thereof, from ground to propeller, are the external costs that never seem to get considered. Disposal, once it wears out, of both the machine (that was a ship) and fuel is another can of worms best left unopened. The 26 RN nuclear powered boats no longer in use are laid up (some in Rosyth and some in Portsmouth) awaiting long term deconstruction including dealing with the fuel rods and other irradiated material. The USN is not, as far as I know, a commercial organisation working to very tight margins and also has the skill and expertise to handle the complexities of nuclear power; so as well as submarines their aircraft carriers are nuclear powered and each of the current iteration has a build cost three times that of QE/PoW, bigger crews and more generous funding. For those who still think that nuclear energy might be the answer I recommend this report: - www.bbc.com/future/article/20200901-the-radioactive-risk-of-sunken-nuclear-soviet-submarines?ocid=ww.social.link.email. The navy of the USSR might have been under resourced and over extended but it was still generously supported in comparison with merchant shipping.
@@gg-gn3re WADR you are applying logic to a situation that will be determined by emotion. Everywoman loves babies so they risk their life giving birth, low risk but either they survive or they die; very binary.
Oh Dear, I had thought about kite propulsion some time ago and was waiting the chance to test it out and now you go and dash my hopes by showing it already in action. Ah well back to the drawing board. Just wait until i get another quill ready to write my ideas down with.
In response to you contribution to your response this morning post here as I am at present unable to trace the original thread. Starting with a quote from Richard Green’s post ‘Mass-produced compact modular thorium-based reactor systems’, so ‘why not use nukes?’ It is down to engineering, finance, socio-political attitudes and safety and my response is many people have legitimate, or otherwise depending on your point of view, concerns about nuclear energy and shipping so combining the two may well more than double the level of concern. Taking a view that nothing can go wrong neglects the well known 'Murphy's Law' position sometimes called 'The Precautionary Principle'. It is not that I do not want things in my own back yard, just I would rather they were not inflicted on anyone who was unaware of the risks. The last time I postulated that my then correspondents’ response was basically ‘use nuke’s or fry’. So all I could do was offer option 'C'; reduce consumption, localise production and limit reproduction to replacement level? Go for 'needs' not 'wants' and be satisfied with 'comfort' not aspire to 'opulence'. The ‘mass-produced compact modular thorium-based reactor systems’ may be an option on shore but marine operations come with an additional suite of issues, as highlighted by ‘Ever Given’, ‘X Press Pearl’ et al. You mentioned ‘molten salt reactors (E.G. thorium-U 233 reactors) is that they are inherently stable and are in a different ballgame of safety that don't use water cooling (water is itself a dangerous material inside a nuclear reactor) and if they fail the liquid fuel automatically drains into cooling tanks where the reactions stop.’ The problem on a ship is that independent of the reactor situation the ship may sink and my concern is what will happen to any residual energy in the power train? How much residual energy would a 60 megaWatt reactor system contain when scrammed and what would be the anticipated run down period? Is nuclear 100% safe when ships are run by the lowest bidder occasionally regulated by a bunch of religious fanatics in pursuit of inflicting their brand of totalitarian governance on humanity? For FOC shipping flag state regulation is limited, it is one of the means by which costs are kept down together with lower levels of taxation. Thus the need for port state regulation and that is, in many cases, both underfunded and overwhelmed; even in countries like the UK & Sweden. The low hanging fruit, to reduce the environmental burden of transport, IMO are improved fuel quality, shortened & lightened supply chains and willingness to accept increased costs.
100% wind powered ships is a non starter unless fuel becomes absolutely cost prohibited. There are bands of ocean near the equator that have often have zero wind called the doldrums. Crossing them would require some powered production without dealing with long delays in shipping.
@@orkin2525 You're right, I had forgotten that it was proposed to be 100% sail powered. But the example they gave was of it crossing the Atlantic, which doesn't (if talking of Europe to North America) involve crossing near the equator. Granted it is much slower than an ICE, but for some cargo types speed isn't essential (such as the cars used as an example in the video), and in any case it might become preferable to subsidise the use of this sort of technology for the environmental benefit it gives, or conversely tax diesel much more severely to represent the environmental cost using it brings. I don't imagine it could ever replace the majority of cargo transport, but the other two designs could help mitigate the polluting nature of most shipping.
@@danyoutube7491 the 12 days is best possible speed. The average is likely to be in the 15-20 days. If something doubles or triples the transit time, the number of ships to produce the same thoughput needs to increase by almost the same factor, all with their own pollution/GHG during production. The other option is to just build nuclear powered cargo ships that go 20-30 knots, need fewer ships, produce no real GHG, and not punish productive parts of society.
The problem with all these novel and hi-tech 'solutions' is that they don't address the fundamental underlying causes - in the case of climate change: population increase, consumerism, remote manufacturing, and an economic system that is based entirely on increasing growth. All those things (and more) have created the current emergency and will continue to make the situation worse - and they will ultimately cancel out all the tech sticking-plaster 'solutions'. We are trying to contain and reduce a fire, when what we really need to do is remove the things that are causing and feeding it. These sexy tech 'solutions' also have the additional disadvantage of making it look like we can beat the problem with science and engineering, so we relax and forget to sort out the basic things that are causing the problem. Electric cars are a very good example of this. They cut down pollution and noise, and, as long as the source electricity is green, they help us to reduce emissions. But that only addresses some of the problems with our over-reliance on cars. All the other problems - for instance, traffic congestion, the carbon footprint of manufacturing them (and the environmental impact of extracting and manufacturing many of the products used to build them), the concreting over of our countryside and urban environments, road deaths and injuries, out of town shopping, obesity and other health issues, and even noise and pollution from non-fuel sources (eg tyres) - not only continue, but will increase, as the switch to electricity makes cars look less of a problem and encourages even more of us to buy and drive them. Ultimately, the only way we are going to avoid catastrophe (and if you think that is exaggeration, just imagine the world with a badly affected, or even redirected, Gulf Stream) is to change the way we live. Control and reduce the population, ditto consumerism, and start judging the success of economies on how they impact people and nature positively, not on how fast they grow. If we don't make these critical changes, even if we manage to avoid or mitigate the current crisis, we will create further problems for ourselves in the future. The Earth is finite, and our only home, we can't keep abusing it the way we do.
Apart from any cost-saving, silent forms of propulsion benefit marine life, cetaceans, etc. Top of nobody's agenda, but certainly a useful side-effect.
Whales can hear each other talk again!
That's a good point. Not only from a compassionate, wildlife loving standpoint, but because whales are one of the keystone species in the oceans, and generally speaking the more whales thrive, the more all life in the ocean thrives (and therefore the more food for us to eat and more oxygen producing phytoplankton to keep us breathing- the oceans account for at least half the oxygen emitted on Earth).
Thank you for pointing this out. Sound travels much better through water than air. Navy sonar testing is causing brain hemorrhaging in thousands of Whales and dolphins miles away. (230 dB signals!) Anything we can do to quiet the oceans helps ALL of us. Shipping is a good start.
Also the crews (and passengers, if on people movers). Going snorkeling from Cairns, FNQ on the Great Barrier Reef, I always preferred gliding along on a sailboat to the smelly noisy vibrating motor boats.
For Cetelogists (is that a word, if not I just made it, but honestly is sounds like it would easily be confused with SETI so not so great) I'm sure its quite high.
Another thing people need to understand about ship speed is that even though large diesel freight vessels CAN cross the ocean much more quickly, they often (probably usually) don't travel near their maximum speeds because fuel efficiency means it's cheaper to go slower. So that issue may not be as pronounced as you'd think for shipping companies.
slow steaming keeps vessels sailing below 20 knots. more vessels are looking to reduce down to 15kn or so. a well make windjammer could make 12kn in perfect condition with 10-8kn being typical.
Ideas 1 and 3 would work perfectly together. #1 handling sailing conditions where the wing is blowing across deck while #2 handles sailing down wind.
I mean, even if the 90% carbon footprint reduction numbers don't hold up, even a 75% reduction is far better than a 0% reduction (and with the associated savings in fuel cost, it should be economically viable as well).
It kind of depends on if the ROI is good enough once purchase price and maintenance and consumables are taken into account. None of these solutions are maintenance free and will cost extra because now the shipping company will need to find and pay crew with the skills to operate and make best use of the technology.
There are many other questions for the first option. What is the upfront carbon to total load compared to traditional cargo ships, and how long would we need to operate it before we break even? Chances are they are more complexities/materials in this new design, so I can’t image the initial carbon footprint per capacity is lower, but I could be wrong.
Retrofitting look like the biggest real world win at the moment, especially if the the 3rd option can be fully automated and not need a special crew to manage.
Ocean shipping per kg of shipment is so damn efficient, that considering wind power is plain stupid.
@@JDrwal2 At 300$ per ton of fuel and 2 tons per hour saved in the kitesail test you are getting a decent cut.
@@Angel24Marin That’s nothing. Extending the passage time costs you way, way, way more.
Check just how much they pay to go thru the Suez canal to cut that time.
The future is not wind power but nuclear power from thorium reactors e.t.c.
Wind and solar is just snake oil.
The tire maker Michelin is also developing an inflatable sail for cargo ships. The concept looks quite promising.
As a recreational sailor, I think 12 days across the Atlantic is pretty darn good, and unlikely under most conditions. However, this is not a replacement technology, it is a way of reducing emissions though wind assist. If there is any approach that is commercially viable that reduces emissions 20%, that is huge. 40 or 50% would be incredible. BTW, one of the great proponents of the Flettner rotor was Jacques Cousteau.
Currently they use the worst part of diesel, the side product that cannot be used for vehicles - a ship is slow and steady so any fuel will do. That is why they create so much pollution (relativ to what they burn). They burn the crap that no on else burns.
@@xyzsame4081 Marine diesel is way lower grade than "auto diesel" and way more crap producing. It is the worst of the lighter parts of the crude- you should look into the fractions that become wrapping for your butcher's products! Or the cups and straws that your last big soda came in. FR
So Lets UNDERSTAND this... CARGO SHIPS would have to have Both WIND SAILS.... and a normal Combustion Engine? And would take TWICE as Long to complete a Journey,....? LOL! Yup... what could possibly go wrong with that BUSINESS MODEL in the highly competitive and commoditized Cargo Logistics Industry?
in other words: LIBERAL IDIOT SAYS: "I have an idea for a new Eco-Friendly Ship... it can only do HALF the number of Journeys that normal Ships do... and We'll have LESS CARGO space, and cost much more to have an ENGINE and some SAILS!
@@annoyboyPictures I THInk you ougHT to get YOUR CAPS LOCK KEy fiXeD. Also Fuel costs?
@@mosschopz156 My CAPSLOCk Key seems to be Working fine...? Hence why I am ABLE to use it.
Or when the price of fuel is jacked up, ie 2008, everyone jumped on the efficiency game ie "super slow steaming" for immediate fuel savings, while the kite idea launched around the same time.. Then fuel prices eased and it was goodbye to the efficiency drive
Yeah capitalism is a shit show
'These are sailing ships, Jim, but not as we know them.'
Brilliant.
:-)
Is that the Jim from Treasure Island? Appropriate maybe since renewables is the new treasure, and Jim was a young person.
@@projectmalus I think it’s science officer Spock reporting to captain Kirk from old school star trek.
The original is from Star trek Trekkin. The quote is original “its life Jim, but not as we know it», but latetly ppl uses the saying when the first word is not explaining directly what is, even though it is.
@@mariusj8542 Now I know, thanks.
This silliness was in the Popular Science magazine 30-40 years ago.
That may be true... but costs were a different thing back then... not to mention there are other bits of "silliness" that you use on a daily basis without even thinking about it... Point being... useless commentary from one "lost to any reason" ... I guess the name says it all, doesn't it?
What issue number ?
Underling: We have 3 options to improve our ships
Boss: Yes.
I want to see that ship, with all 3
I see no impediment for the combination of the first and third solutions presented.
The 2nd option seems like a different version of a vertical axis wind turbine, could power the existing azipods of big ships.
But if we have a green field start, how much Co2 is used to build this. Assuming in a zero Co2 World we would even still consider digging stuff up out of the ground or using ant heat to shape it and build that rotating mechanism, which surely would need to be very strong. But even in the Era of those "Classic" sailing ships, they still required mined metals to make parts strong enough to allow materials to withstand a force 6 gale, Let alone a force 10 gale which most large ships now would use their IC power to sail around.
@@BrianHunt1911 soooo we just regress to the stone age and produce nothing ?
@@MrBizteck we seem to have protests in the street that wasn't that,',tongue in cheek,we tried that in the 1800',s and before and it didn't provide us with a standard of living we could tolerate. So, I'm. Saying; I don't think`we could have a green field start on wind turbines and solar panels, assuming some survived the initial spoke out event event. I'm saying, let's not say start from nothing with green energy without providing the roadmap of how that could happen. Everyone promoting a totally green future, conveniently omits that that technology presupposes that there is millions of tons of mined minerals and rate earths just waiting to be cast into the required shapes by sunlight.
A couple of thoughts:
Large container ships are not that energy efficient. They are logistically efficient, however.
For their size, they have a huge amount of windage that the engine must overcome. This is because the containers are like bubbles. Each has its ration of cargo weight packed inside, but often less. A 20 ft container weighs about 5 tons empty, and it can hold about 20 tons, so even if it has its full weight ration packed inside, it's only 80% efficient. Add to that the fact that the containers have to be stacked on top of one another, and you have huge pockets of empty air taking up space. This is why container ships are bulky when light (as all ships are), but even bulkier when loaded. These ships will likely be powered by nuclear reactors, if they survive past mid-century. Then, putting sails on them will not be worth it. They'll continue to steam at 20 + knots.
Otherwise, ships will once again be loaded for maximum weight and space efficiency, not logistic efficiency.
Medium size ships (200 to 100 m) will have wind assist, such as what this video showed us. Smaller ships (less than 100 m) will likely be sailing ships with engine assist.
The notion that we can keep our fast pace, high energy consumption life styles, with an ever growing population, and while going "green", is what I consider to be the big green lie.
Some high carbon emitting technologies will have to stay. I don't know of any more efficient way of transporting people across oceans other than jet airliners. But that may end up being all they're used for. Over land, everybody Wil go by train.
Convenience will be the first casualty of the "green revolution".
nuclear really is the best solution by far tbh.
Two main changes will make that viable.
Ditch the instant gratification of non perishables. If you want something and it's in stock, you are lucky. If it isn't in stock, you can order it, you'll get it when it arrives (whenever that is)
For perishables, local production.
2:48 Lift generated by an airfoil is more complex and involves "both downward deflection and pressure differences" in the air above and below the wing. The wiki page on Lift (force) does a nice job of explaining misconceptions about wings and lift. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_(force)
Really its all about deflection, lift is always proportional to deflection and a surface not creating a deflection makes no lift but will still experience pressure differences, but these differences will cancel out fully because force is pressure TIMES area which is what EVERY one of these bad pressure explinations neglects as they pretend the areas are equal and flat to simply the forces to be directly proportional to the pressure differences.
TL;DR: The Bernoulli effect isn't anywhere near strong enough by itself. Air deflection is a big part of practical lift. (Is that what the wiki said? I really DR.)
Interesting stuff! I have never thought about this in such detail and always took the simple explanations out there as sufficient...Gotta tell more people!
edit: Here is a Veritatisium Video (ua-cam.com/video/aFO4PBolwFg/v-deo.html) summarizing the misconception - not a lot of detail but getting anybody with more interest started...
Indeed, the myth about contoured top surfaces would mean you could not fly up side down and any fighter jets with flat wings would not be able to take off at all. Hell, even paper planes would defy the laws of nature. A contoured top does help reduce the critical angle of attack.
Indeed, one needs only to stick a hand out of a car window at a decent rate of speed to realize that the deflection on your decidedly *NOT* airfoil shaped hand is decidedly more powerful than the differences in shape or curvature, although those **DO** play a part overall...
here we concede that the most important aspect of modern life is we MUST consume more stuff ! any reductions of cost or increase in efficiency is appreciated. as long as we consume more STUFF !
Jevon's law! yaaaaaaaay...
I would say it was a critical aspect. Even if everyone consumes the minimal amount, population growth will still cause us to consume more and more. And the only way to stop population growth is with draconian use of force.
Any living organism is growing or dying.
Good news: sales of horseshoes, razor strops, and ladies’ hats have decreased greatly over the last 100 years.
There typically is no one solution for an operational problem, so being objective and incorporating one of these solutions as an environmental option is a win-win solution that demonstrates commitment...
To clarify a statement of moving on from the billowing sails to aerofoil - Traditional sails work using the exact same principles as an aerofoil.
You beat me to it. The only difference aerofoils are more efficient. Cheers.
Yes, and those new-fangled kites are better known as "Spinnakers".
@@petemiller519 nice but I cannot find anything on efficiency between aerofoils and traditional sails. Real question - any links or resources I can lookup? Thanks.
@@user9b2 There's no inherent advantage, sails are aerofoils. Ridged airfoil sail wings can be double sided (skinned), so can be tuned a bit more in geometry. The other application advantage is the tall wide shape (aspect ratio). Sails often taper more at the top, as they aren't self-supporting in low wind. A ridged structure has application advantages, but both are similarly efficient. Thin wings can provide more lift than thicker wings, and traditional sails are some of the most efficient airfoils ever designed.
So advantages? It's a matter of maintaining shape and aspect ratios in various conditions.
@@onebylandtwoifbysearunifby5475 Thick wings provide more lift than thin wings, specially are low speeds.
Can I suggest more regional production to eliminate the need to send so much crap around the world.
You can suggest it. A global carbon tax would surely help get there.
need a mandatory world minimum wage first then and this only works where the resource is abundant everywhere
@@HELLBENDER77 not necessarily. The resource just needs an alternative. Food being a particularly obvious culprit. In the UK we've foregone many of our native species to either plant or import alternatives. To the extent that we create food homogeneity across the world and lose any identity our localities may of once had. There should be a way that we can retain our local food production for the vast majority of our needs and use the ingenuity of cooking to create new recipes and local variation of foreign favourites. For example Carlin pea falafel instead of imported chickpeas, that sort of thing.
@@HELLBENDER77 Money talks, use the carbon tax money to lower prices of low carbon product and transportation of it.
Yes. We definitely need that too. I agree
that is EXACTLY what i had been posting to all those electric yacht manufactures (eg: Silent Yachts) on a combination of Kite Sails and Vertical Axis Wind turbines to augment power and charging batteries.
Also think about the possibility of using thin film solar panels on these Kite Sails.
I really hope we get there with Perovskites.
I suspect that the kit surfaceis far to dynamic for anything other than a strong fabric. Of course, the top of the ship is also catching full sun, so that is an option.
Kites can pull a lever that can spin a flywheel generating electricity...
@@shishkabobby
Kitesails can generate electric power by using some of the force to turn a turbine.
ua-cam.com/video/vMTchVXedkk/v-deo.html
@@Angel24Marin I agree that you can generate electricity by turning a motor attached to the cable. The electric power should nearly equal the applied force time the velicity of the cable. There may be a clever way to use the change in angle to generate power, but that seems more complex.
Perovskites are barely better than current solar panels, are prohibitively expensive and have a short lifespan. Forget about Perovskites.
The advantage of a Kite is also in induced wind…. when you fly the kite in a figure 8 downwind .. you almost double the Force it produces …. F=V Squared ….
And also I would guess the cost + maintenance should be much lower than the other solution mentioned...
@@dominiqueridoux2073 just watch out for kite eating trees
@@stephenrickstrew7237 the ever dreaded ocean trees. They will get ya every time if you let them.
@@bodhisfattva7462 those dang Mid- Atlantic Mangroves
Thank GOD that Container Ships only sail on smooth wave-less Oceans on CLEAR SUNNY DAYS with Lots of Wind...
I’d like to see the America’s cup competition be evolved so that each boat would need to transport a 40’ container. Just as the AC pushed hydrofoil design ahead it might do the same for small scale shipping.
OMG that's an epic idea!!!
Lets just start a new competition where moving the container the fastest using all renewable energy is the entire purpose. Hell, get Sir Richard Branson to put up a series of prizes and sponsor the race.
This has already happened .. as far as the design of the wing sail is concerned in fact its old news . If you want to see these in action you should check out the sail GP series (F50s) where the wing sails are powering those yachts to over 50Knots ! Of cause those designs are impracticle for freight ships but the main "sails" are being improved all the time and they show how well this idea is working.
Improving the Kite sails by adding a generator to the base ( similar to what Skysails power are doing on land) would allow additional power to be harvested.
Or, fund a new Cup, but with a much richer prize.
Elon Musk enters chat "I can ship it with a giant fossilfuled rocket or use ∞ amout of energy to reduce most of the air resistance in a rediculusly long tube" AND OFCOURSE! You can only send one at a time trains is not hipster enough!
THE most informed comment thread out there. I've learnt a lot. Thanks to all.
These look promising. ...with the potential added benefit of reducing disruptive underwater noise pollution etc....
This is the Walker Wingsail system from about 20 years ago!!
Vertical sails that rotated around to take advantage of any wind direction and speed.
Many claimed he was put out of business by many means (leading to his bankruptcy) allowing other interested parties to obtain his system on the cheap but at that time it was to stop his system being adopted on commercial shipping which was seen as a threat to those who did not wish to see this change come in.
Walker has all the tech and spec details for his system at that time.
It was being deployed on Yachts of all sizes at that time.
Those rotating sails make me feel sea sick, excellent video, quite objective, I look forward to see additional films
I like it very much. Thought provoking and credible developments in the pipeline. Graham W ps Have to admit to real love for the era of the tall-ships and have a particular attraction for HMS Victory at Portsmouth :)
Produce consumer products locally and bypass shipping them across the oceans.
Check. We shall return to the 1960's. If only it were so easy.
I'm boycotted Walmart and Amazon my entire life You see how that works
@@hammerdon1962 I'm from the UK don't know anything about Walmart, but I'm with you re Amazon and other larger companies like that.
The space and mass liberated by removing the engines should be at least 50% recoverable. Part of the deck space lost to the vertical wings would be available below decks in the now empty engine bay.
I would use that space for batteries to power the ship when maneuvering in port. Some solar on the sails themselves would provide electricity for operations a d slowly recharge the batteries out at sea.
It makes more sense to make more use of tugboats in harbor than to sacrificing possible cargospace for what is only a fraction of a percent of the journey.
It is a system already in place that basically all ships of these sizes use anny way.
the engines won't be removed, they still have to be there for times when the wind isn't blowing like you want and for navigating into port as well as many other times. Sails could conceivably do the bulk of the work most of the time but never will replace engines entirely. Battery electric could conceivably replace fossil fuel engines but would incur a tremendous weight penalty with the way batteries are right now.
And fuel tanks
Nobody is going to dispatch their freight on a ship with no engine. There's no way to be sure when it will get to its destination.
Thank you as ever. Lots of research brought together in fine style. Those "slightly expensive" sailboats are in recent years Foiling . I guess there's people working on autonomous (Robot operated America's Cup style Multihulls) Foilers for the delivery of perishables etc
When I see these things the first idea that comes to my mind is: That's a lot of surface area that you could put flexible solar panels on.
I doubt that you would be able to get enough energy to make much difference in powering the boat itself But even if all you get is enough to run the ship's electrical systems it's still an idea worth looking into.
My first thought too. We're probably both daft :)
The issue there is solar cell efficiency is based on flux density, therefore very dependant on angle to the sun. These will only have a good angle to the sun in elevation at dawn and dusk, when the sun is at its weakest due to all the extra atmosphere it has to go though. Before even accounting for the wind deciding if the other angle points sunward. If cells get much cheaper it might be worth it. Might be something in wind turbines feeding electric screws.
Add batteries to the former engine bay and you can maneuver in port. This of course would also power the ship during the voyage as well.
On the first two, with physical objects, they could be skinned with photovoltaic cells. The kite whips around so much, I think it would thrash the pv into trash in a matter of months, while costing triple the non pv kites in use now.
@@docwatson1134 What you say is right.
Put the PVs on the inside of the inflated tubes where they will be less exposed to higher-order stress forces. Use transparent outer/upper surfaces and reflective inner surface to concentrate light onto cheap and lightweight PV strips protected by the air tube.
Concentrating troughs and aerofoils have similar-enough shape characteristics.
Jacques Cousteau had wings on one of his exploration vessels years ago.
Excellent update as always Dave. Please come back to this subject in future.
Cheers. I will do.
The Cousteau Society's research vessel "Alcyone" uses "Turbosails" and launched in 1985.
I actually thought it would be much more than 2%. Considering the amount of good that are transported by freight ships that is extremely efficient!
Those are great numbers for beginning! Technology is constantly evolving, so they may still make those ships even more efficient in the future and arrive faster. I'm excited about this =)
I first saw images of Magnus Effect (rotating cylinder) ship prototypes in the 1970s
Yep, I remember them too.
The reason they never took off was because wear and tear on the rotors was too high to be practical.
50 years on, we have improved materials technology, so definitely worth revisiting the concept. :)
With sails you have to tack and jibe to use the wind, whereas if you convert the wind to electricity you can sail a direct route. Q: Is converting wind to electric more or less efficient that using a sail but travelling a longer route?
This depends. With a boat that heavy, a spinnaker ("kite sail") could be run anytime you are moving with the wind (downwind). Vertical foil sails rotate, so they still get decent propulsion when not downwind. The only real no-go zone for sails is directly into the wind (say 20 to 30 degrees of true).
So the course changes may be negligible when there is that much inertia. Seems you would want a strong keel/rudder system though. But for supplemental propulsion, it's probably a computer-assisted answer. Ocean currents play a role too.
Wind power applied to forward thrust should be more efficient than wind-to-mechanical-to-electrical-to-mechanical thrust conversion chain.
Well obviously converting wind to electricity will be less efficient than using wind directly.
The problem is mostly with power output. These kite systems can produce a steady amount of electricity, but it will never be enough to actually power the cargo ships engines. They just don't have the peak power output.
Whereas when you use them to literally pull you ahead, each Newton of force they apply to the ship is exactly 1N less your engines have to provide.
@@midnight8341 it's still feeble and won't make much impact.
I was in large diesel engine business before and got also deeply interested in kite propulsion. The deck part of the kite system is strong but I can't imagine a sail to last more than one or two years. The concept works and has a lot of advantages but my rough estimate is that it will not spread unless the crude oil goes persistently over 80-100 $/bl. Liquid fuels are just too convenient to use and too damn cheap at the moment.
If that kite sail saves 1000$ on fuel per 8 hours a day it is well worth its costs even if it should only last 2 years unless it costs more than 730000$. The cost efficiency can also be increased by extending operstions time. In other words it would be straight out stupid not to use them unless the the regular route makes it impossible to use.
i think not! ur point about using market forces to arrive at solutions of most any kind, is just capitalist nonsense, it'll never werk!
@@ahsimiksnabac6576 ... not really, if government mandate a tax on a product it can manipulate the market to an effect. in ireland cigaretes cost 4 times what they cost in italy to disincentivise use. the same can be said for fuel as a whole in europe, having higher running cost made european cars more efficients and kept them small and light, at least realive to the US.
basically this "capitalist nonesense" can be used to stir a freemarket economy in a more sustainable direction.
@@herlescraft in Italy the fuel cost is one of the highest in the world because there's a fuel tax that goes almost entirely to Ethiopia for paying the atrocities committed on them in the '900. Immagine a similar tax on Britain, France and USA, the prices would skyrocket and help deincentivize the use of fuel
Btw the cigarettes cost is low because the government tried to stop the mafia from importing secretly way shittier ones from Albania
@@alfredorotondo wrong there are many different cost added to it, the smallest one is the going to ethiopia.
0,000981 euro: finanziamento per la guerra d’Etiopia (1935-1936)
0,00723 euro: finanziamento della crisi di Suez (1956)
0,00516 euro: ricostruzione dopo il disastro del Vajont (1963)
0,00516 euro: ricostruzione dopo l’alluvione di Firenze (1966)
0,00516 euro: ricostruzione dopo il terremoto del Belice (1968)
0,0511 euro: ricostruzione dopo il terremoto del Friuli (1976)
0,0387 euro: ricostruzione dopo il terremoto dell’Irpinia (1980)
0,106 euro: finanziamento per la guerra del Libano (1983)
0,0114 euro: finanziamento per la missione in Bosnia (1996)
0,02 euro: rinnovo del contratto degli autoferrotranvieri (2004)
0,005 euro: acquisto di autobus ecologici (2005)
0,0051 euro: terremoto dell’Aquila (2009)
da 0,0071 a 0,0055 euro: finanziamento alla cultura (2011)
0,04 euro: emergenza immigrati dopo la crisi libica (2011)
0,0089 euro: alluvione in Liguria e Toscana (2011)
0,082 euro (0,113 sul diesel): decreto “Salva Italia” (2011)
0,02 euro: terremoto in Emilia (2012)
plus taxes
and these fund do not actually go finance what their name would emply, no, thwy were temporaly measures that ended up staying and providing the government with revenue while at the same time having the side effect of disincentivise car usage.
Nice presentation of interesting material…which is why I support this channel as a PATREAN.
Great video as always, thank you.
On topic of sailships what about hybrid everything ( eg. Use category): mixing small specialty niche market freight with yatch adventure tourism and carbon offsets. Maybe sailships could get preferential treatment at ports and lower tariffs.
Some of this is already a thing in some areas, especially for shorter trips around Europe with small batch high value goods like wine and spirits. Look up Fairtransport, Greyound, and Sailcargo. And, Charlestoen harbour in Cornwall (where Poldark was filmed) is sometimes a destination that only allows traditional sailing vessels in.
"as our global population grows". There's the fundamental problem right there. I'd also question why we need to ship so much stuff around the planet. For a time it might be cheaper to have goods made on another continent but that's only temporary and a sizable percentage of what's being shipped will ultimately end up as landfill.
We should put the factories closer to the landfills.
ROTFLMAO
Great video. Thanks. And you just got yourself a new and excited subscriber.
Given the consistent/continuous temperature delta between sea water and atmosphere that ships/boats would be the ideal candidates for sterling engine applications
I've seen where they experimented with a kite system to generate electricity why not use it for both. To save deck space mount spinning cylinders to sides of ships where they can be raised or lowered even be telescopic, again also capable of generating electricity...
I have no idea why some sort of wind-power mechanism hasnt been used for freight shipping and *oil tankers* until now.
It is not about totally relying on with but taking help from it.
Whatever boost from wind is saving and free money for the company.
The space over the command house is free space and also oil tankers have the entire deck free.
For the first idea here imagine if you have two rows instead of one.
Thank you it was an interesting episode.
Oil tankers might be tricky (flammable) and hopefully the demand for oil tankers will soon disappear.
@@Curacars I dont think the wind wings would increase the fire hazard nor the demand for oil tankers would disappear anytime soon.
@@drpk6514 I thought you were thinking of adding solar panels on the flat part of oil tankers, not wind wings. Btw, new oil tankers are built to last 30+ years. I wouldn't put my money into a new oil tanker since I think the oil demand will shrink dramatically over the next 10 years. Just like last year when oil prices went negative, things can changes faster as you think.
@@Curacars Did you pay attention about the technologies that can be retrofit on the ships in one day time?
As usual, great video.
Anytime I see an artist's renderings of what something would look like, I consider it a pipe dream that has a low chance of ever becoming real.
Nuclear power would be a true zero-carbon propulsion system.
Using mass-produced compact modular thorium-based reactor systems, we could have systems that are reliable, fueled once, and replaceable if the vessel outlasts the energy source.
We would also have a fuel cycle that is not suitable for producing plutonium. Of course, you would need some inspectors to keep everyone honest.
The upfront cost would be astronomical through; not to mention the hazard of recovery in case of shipwreck. While the fuel cost is pretty low, the maintenance cost (including the inspectors cost) would be higher than conventional ICE engine. I love nuclear power, but I do not thing this will be feasible in near future.
Just think; would you have full confidence in the management of a nuclear reactor under the control of an anonymous entity only traceable, perhaps, via a letter box in a FOC (flag of convenience) nation state? If you are, could you sell that confidence to Japan, the state that hosted the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear detonations as well as more recently the Fukushima ‘event’? Then try that same, or a similar, sales strategy on Ukraine, the nation state that as a part of the USSR (CCCP) hosted the Chernobyl ‘event’. Modern iterations of nuclear energy, thorium fuel, molten salt reactors or fusion reactors, will carry the legacy of past problems. It is the global trepidation of anything with 'nuclear' in the name and the economics of nuclear having transitioned from 'energy to cheap to charge for' too 'the costs of remediation are incalculable' that will prevent the adoption of nuclear energy as a means of creating energy at sea. Modern reaction systems may have overcome the safety problems but the general public, having been misled in the past, will be reluctant to believe the fresh new promises. The incident of the ‘Ever Given’ blocking the Suez Canal, March 2021, may also have a little to add to this debate. The cooling water on ships tends to get taken in from near the bottom so when running aground the inlets are in a prime spot to get plugged up restricting, if not stopping, the flow of coolant. One thing that the TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents all had in common was that the supply of coolant, or rather lack thereof, was a fundamental cause. Similarly and only months later, May 2021, had the ‘X Press Pearl’ been nuclear powered then a major port for a populous nation in the global South would have possible been the site of a significant exclusion zone due to a non power plant related incident.
‘They’ say nuclear is cheap, it’s not it is expensive and has a large embedded carbon quotient as well as being complicated, dangerous, not universally socially acceptable and having only ‘no need for refuelling’ as a questionable advantage; actually it does need refuelling just not as often. When ‘they’ do need to refill the warming up stuff it takes considerable longer than pumping tonnes of thick black stuff, cSt380 HFO, or thin runny stuff, MDO, onboard which is one of the reasons HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales are pushed about by ICEs and gas turbines thus using a similar fuel as the aircraft that fly off of them. The Royal Navy (RN) with a high degree of skill and expertise uses, at vast expenses to the UK taxpayer, a current operational nuclear fleet of 11 submarines (also known as ‘boats’) in two flotillas, seven attack subs and four ballistic missile boats. The carbon footprint of all the extra bits of hardware and the fuel, including processing thereof, from ground to propeller, are the external costs that never seem to get considered.
Disposal, once it wears out, of both the machine (that was a ship) and fuel is another can of worms best left unopened. The 26 RN nuclear powered boats no longer in use are laid up (some in Rosyth and some in Portsmouth) awaiting long term deconstruction including dealing with the fuel rods and other irradiated material. The USN is not, as far as I know, a commercial organisation working to very tight margins and also has the skill and expertise to handle the complexities of nuclear power; so as well as submarines their aircraft carriers are nuclear powered and each of the current iteration has a build cost three times that of QE/PoW, bigger crews and more generous funding. For those who still think that nuclear energy might be the answer I recommend this report: - www.bbc.com/future/article/20200901-the-radioactive-risk-of-sunken-nuclear-soviet-submarines?ocid=ww.social.link.email. The navy of the USSR might have been under resourced and over extended but it was still generously supported in comparison with merchant shipping.
@@BernardLS
I think that there are answers to this comment. Yes, most of the disasters to nuclear power plants are associated with loss of their cooling systems but the whole idea of molten salt reactors (E.G. thorium-U 233 reactors) is that they are inherently stable and are in a different ballgame of safety that don't use water cooling (water is itself a dangerous material inside a nuclear reactor) and if they fail the liquid fuel automatically drains into cooling tanks where the reactions stop. The older reactors were all built with an eye on manufacturing fissile materials for weapons and whilst I know that it is necessary to persuade people away from their fixed views about their fears of nuclear fuels, one of the advantages of these later generation reactors is that they can utilise many of the waste products of previously stored spent fuels that would have to be stored for thousands of years. This is a good reason to encourage certain types of nuclear reactors. I must admit that they are not as immediately practical on ships but try to be a little more open-minded about their general use. I used to be anti nuclear but have been persuaded by the facts about the later ideas about nuclear power generation.
Sky sails have far less waste… especially for modular container solutions. Great Episode as always David!👍👍👍
A gennaker is really difficult to handle even froma couple of meters from the ship
Being totally in the sky and made like a parachute is only worse
@@alfredorotondo a gennaker or a balloon is a drag device for reaching.
A kite is moving and creating lift.
Skysails deploy and operate automatically.
Be sure to check out Skysails Power. High altitude wind can operate at 6000 full load hours. It's basically wind baseload.
@@heavyweather oh, I didn't knew that
Thanks for correcting me
@@alfredorotondo I hope I didn't correct you, just wanted to point you to high altitude wind energy. It's a fascinating technology. Check out skysails power, KiteGen and Ampyx Power.
Wish just have a think would do a video about it.
Thanks for the video, nicely done!
Very interesting. Shipping uses around 300 million tonnes of oil per year which is about 7% of global petroleum production of 4 billion tonnes per year. Biofuels only total about 80 million tonnes per year and are currently nowhere near able to replace the petroleum used in shipping, road freight and aviation, but it's not impossible. Improved efficiency will definitely help. Can we burn ammonia without making NOx? You have to wonder why we need to move so many things around the globe like we do. One of the things on the ship that got stuck in the Suez canal was garden furniture. International freight rates are currently very high which begs the question of whether with efficient manufacturing techniques we couldn't make our own garden furniture and many other things.
Here's an idea. Let's make stuff where we need it and not ship stuff back and forth. That would save a lot of steel and fuel from being produced and used.
So you mean everybody wouldn't have to work for low wages without health insurance? That's insanity!
Global economy with one single currency and equal pay & living cost.
Dump the market economy as it demands constant increase.
@@jarigustafsson7620 stick your commie dreams where the sun dont shine.
@@jarigustafsson7620 a good description of hell.
Well done.
Cool! Moonraker sails like this were used on clipper ships in the 1840's and 50's, I hope this has a computer control because otherwise it takes skilled sailors.
In reality small sailboats already have sometime a computer control or a mechanic-helped control so it would not even be difficult to implement
really informative, thank you, once this is widely adopted the tech can only improve.
Thank you for the work you do.
Cheers Kelly. Much appreciated :-)
Using the last two wind sources in combination may not replace the internal combustion engine, but, imagine using the turbines to charge batteries as needed and see when electric ships could be practical. As far as the extended time of sailing, change the delivery date to account for the vessels speed.
@patriot 945 If you double the time of transit, you need twice as many ships to earn the same revenue. Tough on your bottom line.
@@pauleohl Find the perfect answer and solve the entire problem. The true answer will be a combination of technologies, some we know about, some still in process of discovery and development. I have seen pictures of ship engines, some are over 20 feet tall and 30 feet long. pistons bigger than the largest cast iron frying pan I have even seen. They run at less than 125 RPM's. Even as a mechanical marvel, I would not be sad to see them out of service, maybe put in a museum. They seem beyond human scale, but the propellers ( screws) seem like that in pictures.
@@patriot9455 we have subs that can run screw-less, MHD...
Having spent most of my working life at sea and being involved with various propulsion systems from diesel to gas turbines and my last vessel was electric propulsion with diesel generators, solar energy plus batteries may have been of some assistance , but emissions are a major problem for the shipping industry. Hydrogen could be a possibility but to be honest all the technology you put forward, some of which has been around for some time, does not produce enough propulsion for a large commercial vessel. Some major “blue sky thinking “ as you say is going to be carried out to solve, what is a global problem for the shipping industry.
We are a long way from commercialism in Hydrogen, it is to energy intensive to separate. When we can do that, that might be the game changer, but we’d need the infrastructure which will take decades once we can do it
So basically you're saying that a bunch of sailships cannot achieve the efficiency of higher capacity ICE vessels? What about niche markets instead of generalized container ships: eg. Yatch adventure tourism combined with coffee trade?
At last another voice of reason in the comments!
@@williambreen1001 Thomas Midgley Jr. (born 18 May 1889 died 2 Nov 1944) was an American (USA) chemist who, as well as developing the technique of putting the tetraethyl lead (TEL) additive in petrol, created chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), yes those ozone depleting CFCs, so that the use of NH3 as a refrigerant could be discontinued. NH3 could be the most dangerous and least ‘clean’ clean energy source, it is very bad and probably deserves a rant all of its own; so let’s just leave that for a while (somewhere very far away that is cool, dark and quiet).
@@williambreen1001 Methane is the flavour of the month for clean burning. Fluidity in the Fossil Oil & Gas Industry is a thing so reallocation of middle distillates from road fuel to marine, as you suggest, could be carried out relatively easily.
Again, a really intersting video...thanks!
Already "hearted" this in Patreon this morning! The topic delights me!
Cheers Mark. Glad you liked it :-)
Another great video. I love these efficient engineering solutions. One thing to keep in mind though (and this could be a topic for another video) is the rebound effect. If all ships we're 30% more efficient, there wouldn't be a 30% drop in emissions. This is because fuel costs would drop, so shipping costs drop, so more shipping happens. Often this effect more than outweighs the efficiency savings (see Jevens paradox) There are upsides to this, especially for people in poorer countries who can sell more goods to richer ones, but if we want to reduce emissions there has to be some sort of disincentive such as higher fuel taxes or regulations, not just greater efficiency.
Shipping is about supplying demand. Cheaper goods doesn’t have to mean more demand for those goods. There are only so many blue jeans or washing machines a person can buy. Humanity biggest problem is population explosion. Remember that thing that scared us in the 70’s and 80’s that globalists don’t want you to talk about anymore?
@@TheBooban It's amazing you can see past a common market argument but have no update on the population numbers in decades
I'm a sailor myself but the solution to this is nuclear. These ships are plenty big enough to accommodate it.
i agree i think the solution to energy globally for first world countries is Nuclear
Why is everyone touting a technology that has 100 years of fuel left at the current consumption rate? There are only about 200 nuclear generators globally right now... If folks like you had their way we'd run out of uranium, plutonium and thorium in the next 10 years.
To replace fossil fuels an absolute minimum of 2000 nuclear power stations and 500 nuclear reprocessing plants would be needed. That's before you get to nuclear powered ships.
Do that and you wouldn't even have time to build 20% of them before running out of fuel.
@@mickelodiansurname9578 no. You need to study harder. Using fast breeder reactors, which extend the use of uranium by a factor of 60, the uranium could last for 300,000 years. Thats plenty of time to find a alternative, eg fusion.
Very hopeful. Thanks for the info.
Love the kite idea, that's got lots of room for all sorts of interesting design ideas. Might be able to generate considerable amount of electricity as well as wind assist. Also deployment on existing bunker fuel ships can happen quickly too.
Skysails is now developing high altitude wind power plants. It's a very beat idea saving lots of energy and material thus with a huge EROEI.
KiteGen had the idea to generate electricity to power ships.
Call me cynical but the most efficient ship is the one that doesn’t sail. How about making stuff locally rather than shipping materials around the world. The “Planet Money” documentary on making a T-shirt comes to mind.
You are of course right, making and consuming stuff locally is paramount. But where am I going to get my coffee from, here in Austria?
Any volunteers in the West to be the poorly paid textile workers?
@@useodyseeorbitchute9450
automation
@@therealzilch
coffee isn't the problem
It's not only about trade, we will always need the means to deliver emergency supplies to overseas disasters and famines. Thank you Lockheed for the Hercules.
A ship with a combination of all the technologies with hydrogen fuel cell/combustion engine and I think we're there?
Great video. Always very interesting. (from Costa Rica)
Inventors, you are the only ones that can get us a real solution to our problems. Keep plugging away, there is an answer out there.
this picture of a wind turbine driven vessel is hilarious fiction - don't you know anything about the amount of power required to move a massive cargo ship? Sailing ships reached their full potential eons ago - to get to the next level required serious horse power from driven engines - Wind Turbine driven ship travel is a disastrous idea - just when you need it the storm overwhelms the mechanisms and they have to be latched down - the ship would be adrift at the mercy of the seas ...that wouldn't work out
I like the ZBeluga Skysail system. With huge oil, tankers add solar panels across the deck since it is a relatively flat aspect of those types of ships and you have extra power generated! There are many possibilities we just need political and corporate will to change their dinosaur attitudes!
Not a bad idea, but somehow the idea of saving a few thousand tons of potential emmissions while delivering millions of barrels of oil to be burned to produce tens of thousands of tons of carbon footprint seems a little out of whack. Just my thought! FR
@@fredericrike5974 You are spot on!
I can see it now, ship docks at destination: Captain: "These solar panels on the deck and our Skysail allowed us to release 400 Tons less CO2 into the environment during our trip." Dock worker: "That's excellent! How much C02 will the oil in your holds release when burned?" Captain: (Face Plant)
@@larrybolhuis1049 I do see we must become much better stewards of our planet. And for a time, we may need to seriously limit our "negative outputs". The latest UN reports are not just scary, they are real facts and events occurring now, not a decade or two from now.
We should have begun much sooner- this was one of the subjects first deeply effected by the "misinformation syndrome"- and it has stymied much of any First World response.
We need to do the "right thing"- survive and survive well. We need a plan that can do a big chunk of both or as much as possible. We need that plan yesterday, or better, last month. FR
Love your work sir!
Fascinating. Saves money. Can be retro-fitted to a very small number of vehicles (compared to cars), and a climate benefit established extremely easily using tried and tested technology. Someone call Evergreen and pitch them (once they stop crashing into the sides of canals).
The great thing is that many of these techs stack. Low sails, a kite and solar (also on the kite?) all stack together to reduce fuel requirements in an additive way. 10% here, 10% there, and a swift, zero fuel super carrier suddenly looks possible.
The more technologies you add, the more maintenance costs you pile up. The technical requirements for th crew also increase. It's not as straightforward as that.
First step is to remove ALL subsidies to the oil industry. Second step, painful taxes for fuel oils of all types.
We can do that, sure. International trade would largely cease so there wouldn't be much need for ships, sailing or otherwise.
@@Withnail1969 If we can start at the COP conference on Glasgow, with international agreement to terminate subsidies for the oil industry, there would be price increases, and competition to bring them down again. A win-win situation for everyone except Big Oil. No damage to international trade, except in oil. They need to adapt, not resist.
@@theotherandrew5540 there are no alternatives that can power the size of ships we have. international trade will simply cease for almost all goods. that will happen anyway of course as oil becomes more scarce.
@@Withnail1969 Goods that come from afar aren't on the "just in time" schedule. Sail and electric power take longer than diesel power, and we don't need ever larger ships. So the only extra cost (paid from the savings in fuel) will be the wages of the crew. It is now clear, even to the greediest of fat-cats, that we can't carry on as before. The human race is now quite capable of self destruction, and doing very well. Capitalism is doing a good job, the end is neigh. Will we humans change course in time to avert disaster? I very much doubt it. But under the scorching sun, it's just possible that the survivors will make the necessary, obvious, already available changes.
@@theotherandrew5540 I agree that one way or another, the world of consumerism is going to come to an end. In fact I believe the collapse started in 2019/2020. I think there are going to be further supply chain breakdowns and shortages and they will get worse. Global oil production peaked in late 2018. Without increasing oil production, there is no more growth.
Sailing vessels have been around for a long time. Their limitations are well known which is why we use powered ships now. Turning back the clock won't work.
An excellent topic I'm sure you will develop. I'm a retired naval officer and master mariner. Over recent years weather software has been used in planning wind favourable routing for large container vessels; the slab-sided vessels can, optimising the angle of the prevailing wind, reduce fuel usage that can provide a fuel cost reduction per voyage. Noting the longer voyage duration, it is not uncommon to consider goods in transit effectively being warehoused in these vessels until delivery. This practice is already in use for bulk raw material kept afloat until market prices suggest a favourable discharge. I like the telescopic rigid sails. Great topic.
@joseph blansjaar stated "...container vessels; the slab-sided vessels can, optimizing the angle of the prevailing wind, reduce fuel usage...". Sounds interesting; can you expand on that premise. Are you suggesting that as the wind direction turns during the passage of a weather front, that the vessel will be steered to keep the wind smoothly running parallel to the large slab side?
What about some cutting edge sea shanties?
Or there is a future where countries try to be more self-supporting. Sure large+densely populated islands are in a bit of pickle when they have the need for goods yet have done away with the means and only rely on imports for 80 to 99% by mass/vol. The silver lining is that these islands are often by larger land masses (New Zealand is only a short boat ride from Australia whilst Singapore is near enough to the mainland). Even the UK didnt have to exit; in that they could enjoy mainland Europe's support.
This is all to say that China doesnt need to supply the usa or the rest of the world. Shipping can be reduced to focus on certain goods. In that there is absolute madness in shipping furniture/cabinets across oceans.
#NATO, #WTO, #UN, #EU and like bodies need to agree on limiting excessive goods. It takes time to change people’s perception and move industries but we cannot hope that an innovation solves the battery and nuclear problem. Instead we can be more proactive. Using less and being more thoughtful how we use goods.
Sure that'll fly with some species or other on some planet someplace. Find them & let them know.
@@grindupBaker It is ok to have some optimism, otherwise why live if you have to be a realist?
To most people a 10% reducing of fuel might not sound a lot. But it wouls make a huge difference. These idea's could be attached to the outside of the decks instead of taking up deck space.
I worked with a Swedish backer for new mineral carriers, using these rigid sails. What I focused on was reducing drag, a completely new way to get more performance which will allow much higher speeds and much more reliably. Using bubbles.
What I never see in these cargo ship designs is what they did for the worlds fastest aerofoil catamaran (the company my father in law works for produced some parts for it), where they had tiny wings mounted underneath the two bodies of the vessel. The faster they'd go, the more lift these wings produced and the higher the catamaran was lifted out of the water, reducing drag and making them even faster until what's normally considered the boat wouldn't even touch the water anymore.
And I know that it doesn't scale 1:1, but what if we made such a system for cargo ships that just lifts the entire vessel up by a meter or so when it gets up to cruising speed. If it reduces drag, the wind assisted system and the lift could work synergistically.
I like the idea of putting a molten salt thorium reactor in a 40' container, and burning nuclear waste.
So much talk of how economic and great they are, yet no one builds any?
Why?
what happen if no wind for days, weeks ?
What happen if to much wind ? :/
"what happen if no wind for days, weeks ?"
Then there's no reduction if fuel consumption for those days or weeks.
Excellent report.
Oh, I love the airplane-wing idea! Probably because somewhere in my wee little scientist's, guerilla-engineer's heart, there is a secret sailor lurking. The speed of shipping for some items is crucial; the speed of shipping other things is not all that relevant. How fast does the car for the September roll-out have to travel from Japan to New York? In time for September's roll out. If the cost of shipping is down significantly, it wouldn't be a disadvantage to manufacture the car so that it's ready 6 days earlier than previous scheduling.
Sadly, the thing you mentioned at the start is the greatest obstacle to all of this: "Increased demand for shipping of goods." More goods means more heat in the atmosphere, unavoidably and unsurvivably. In the time before we all cook to death, though, we can really have some fun inventing better sailing-ships for cargo hauling--because it's fun!
It's difficult to sail a brick!
Nuclear MUST be considered for the longest distance heaviest cargo ships! This technology is already mature in the military space too.
yes the world needs to get over its fear if it really wants to go green
Mature but nowhere near economical. Also nuclear ships have more restrictions on where they can dock
I mean it is currently happening but with ice destroyers. To make it economical the journey would have to be very long, but that isn't economical when it comes to route planning, so you are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Definitely, but preferably thorium fuelled reactors.
@@ladyselenafelicitywhite1596 I don't get it, if thorium is so good, why isn't anyone using it at scale?
I met a man on the side of a volcano, who had been a merchant seaman all his life. I asked him if it would be possible now to scale up huge merchant sailing ships. He was convinced that is was very possible.
Anything is "Possible"... you just try doing it for a Year or Two.... TWICE the time to complete a Shipping Route means HALF the Number of Journeys... see what that does to your Bottom Line as a shipping company, and see how you cannot COMPETE with Cargo Carriers that can get there TWICE as FAST as you can.
Another great video!
Cheers James :-)
I think its Sweden or Denmark that have petra glyphs of boats etched in to rock,that was submerged 5-6 thousand years ago(sea rise).and aborigines of Australia had to have got there by boat.i think there is an incentive to pausade shipping companies to install complex filters for the crude oil engines ,the world's boats/ships uses,but this is only gonna pan out to 5% of the worlds ships in 10 years(not gonna ever work),the same can be said for the building or conversion of the worlds biggest most sophisticated steel constructions,the cost of the old engines rip out alone,is unfeasible for evan a fraction of a fraction of the worlds ships,never mind refurbishing them with expensive mega tech installations for all different shaped ships.just building a 1% replacement of green mega ships will cost trillions.there might be a handful of hydrogen ships in the future,but that will do little for the atmosphere or fish.as always a combination approach is essential,combining wind and self mounting to the Hull and deck green powered wheels/submarines/turbines/green tug boats/para sails
Building sailing ships denuded the worlds forests. Looking at the final product disregards the materials and energy that has gone into the product, ie electric cars, windmills etc. Reduce the need to move all that unnecessary stuff, much greater savings.
Another amazing video. Please do not stop, these are fantastic summarizations. I would ask, and perhaps I have just overlooked them, that you provide links to the sources you cite within the videos. I would love the opportunity to quickly access and read the articles.
Can I put the kite sail on a bungee cord? Then if I sail from new york to london the kite can be half way there before the energy is transferred to my ship?
The rotating cylinder solution isn’t all that effective, only reducing fuel consumption a very small amount. The wing solution paired with solar power would be extremely efficient. And even the use of Hydrogen (Methanolic/Ethanolic/Proanolic/Butanolic) Fuel cells are a likely beneficiary thus becoming a carbon sink simultaneously. The kite solution might be a great solution for when other engine/propeller propulsions fail.
The flettner rotors generate a lot of lift if rotated fast enough, but they also generate a lot of drag, which is often ignored in discussions like this.
@@macrumpton The "drag" is part of the propulsive force when the wind is in the right direction. The "drag" on the "oncoming face" of the Rotor directlt contributes to forward momentum at all wind speeds after of the beam.
Don't confuse the "rotor drag": with "airfoil drag". Not the same thing at all.
www.boatdesign.net/threads/everything-old-is-new-again-flettner-rotor-ship-is-launched.24081/page-38#post-913676
Also. You can't increase the drag without a greater "lift" effect".
Hi Dave, We could also see marine transport reduce CO2 emissions by greater use of nuclear power, a totally tried and tested technology.
The amount of wind available for marine transport is tremendous, any time of the year, ability to harness this source will definitely come in coming years.
Cost is likely the issue there. Currently, ships burn the cheapest (and dirtiest) fuel in existence. We will need to impose costs on the shipping industry for their CO2 and toxics releases.
@@incognitotorpedo42 You won't be imposing cost on shipping industries but on the buyers of whatever goods they are transporting.
From what I've read (admittedly just a BBC article and a wiki page, today) nuclear power is not viable for merchant shipping for reasons of high capital and operational costs of running and maintaining ship nuclear reactors, despite the advantage of not having to refuel as often as an ICE ship (there is currently one ship that I am aware of, a Russian ice breaking merchant ship, which does use a nuclear reactor). And of course we know that ships do sink from time to time, causing pollution. If it was nuclear reactors rather than diesel fuel being lost beneath the waves, it might be a massive disaster. Then there is the issue of decommisioning, an expensive process for which the current best method is to cut the reactor out of the ship and bury it!
@@danyoutube7491 Economics of nuclear powered ships are way above the current costs.
We can expect some innovation wherein nuclear fuel is benign, non weapon grade and available in plentiful, maybe thorium or maybe something else.
As for accidents, that no doubt is the greatest concern for which Govts and Authorities need to approve a framework which is absolutely safe under any eventuality.
Thanks for your inputs.
Interesting stuff - thanks!
Awesome! Thanks! 👏
I kind of doubt the kite version will really get used that much, the cylinder and aerofoil ones, I could see a future where those get used a lot.
Actually, they get used a hell of a lot - there is a good video on them on YT somewhere. They are fully automatically deployed and retracted and are used something like 85% of the journey. There are quite a lot of them in use already.
@@piccalillipit9211 I suppose with them being retractable, it doesn't increase the size of the vessel at all, which is significant for entering harbours and passing under bridges. Whereas the other two designs in this video, while they can reduce their size to enter such areas, do nevertheless increase the size of the vessel in those reduced states.
@@danyoutube7491 - I cant find the documentary - its really clever cos it is fully automated, it stoors below the deck. It is linked to the weather report so if bad weather is coming it puts its self away, it can fly at different heights to be in the best wind speed and direction at all times. This is A video on it - but its 10 years old, there was a much newer one.
ua-cam.com/video/pYv6k5A-kHg/v-deo.html
Any movement on board a Ship can be converted into Electrical Energy the Sea itself can be converted into a propulsion system with Magnetohydrodynamics MHD. So combined Solar and Wind you can come up with a trifecta of alternatives...
@@piccalillipit9211 Cheers for the link Pit, I'll watch it now.
Should make more nuclear ships like the navy has. Sad they're still using diesel..
Just think; would you have full confidence in the management of a nuclear reactor under the control of an anonymous entity only traceable, perhaps, via a letter box in a FOC (flag of convenience) nation state? If you are, could you sell that confidence to Japan, the state that hosted the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear detonations as well as more recently the Fukushima ‘event’? Then try that same, or a similar, sales strategy on Ukraine, the nation state that as a part of the USSR (CCCP) hosted the Chernobyl ‘event’. Modern iterations of nuclear energy, thorium fuel, molten salt reactors or fusion reactors, will carry the legacy of past problems. It is the global trepidation of anything with 'nuclear' in the name and the economics of nuclear having transitioned from 'energy to cheap to charge for' too 'the costs of remediation are incalculable' that will prevent the adoption of nuclear energy as a means of creating energy at sea. Modern reaction systems may have overcome the safety problems but the general public, having been misled in the past, will be reluctant to believe the fresh new promises. The incident of the ‘Ever Given’ blocking the Suez Canal, March 2021, may also have a little to add to this debate. The cooling water on ships tends to get taken in from near the bottom so when running aground the inlets are in a prime spot to get plugged up restricting, if not stopping, the flow of coolant. One thing that the TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents all had in common was that the supply of coolant, or rather lack thereof, was a fundamental cause. Similarly and only months later, May 2021, had the ‘X Press Pearl’ been nuclear powered then a major port for a populous nation in the global South would have possible been the site of a significant exclusion zone due to a non power plant related incident.
‘They’ say nuclear is cheap, it’s not it is expensive and has a large embedded carbon quotient as well as being complicated, dangerous, not universally socially acceptable and having only ‘no need for refuelling’ as a questionable advantage; actually it does need refuelling just not as often. When ‘they’ do need to refill the warming up stuff it takes considerable longer than pumping tonnes of thick black stuff, cSt380 HFO, or thin runny stuff, MDO, onboard which is one of the reasons HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales are pushed about by ICEs and gas turbines thus using a similar fuel as the aircraft that fly off of them. The Royal Navy (RN) with a high degree of skill and expertise uses, at vast expenses to the UK taxpayer, a current operational nuclear fleet of 11 submarines (also known as ‘boats’) in two flotillas, seven attack subs and four ballistic missile boats. The carbon footprint of all the extra bits of hardware and the fuel, including processing thereof, from ground to propeller, are the external costs that never seem to get considered.
Disposal, once it wears out, of both the machine (that was a ship) and fuel is another can of worms best left unopened. The 26 RN nuclear powered boats no longer in use are laid up (some in Rosyth and some in Portsmouth) awaiting long term deconstruction including dealing with the fuel rods and other irradiated material. The USN is not, as far as I know, a commercial organisation working to very tight margins and also has the skill and expertise to handle the complexities of nuclear power; so as well as submarines their aircraft carriers are nuclear powered and each of the current iteration has a build cost three times that of QE/PoW, bigger crews and more generous funding. For those who still think that nuclear energy might be the answer I recommend this report: - www.bbc.com/future/article/20200901-the-radioactive-risk-of-sunken-nuclear-soviet-submarines?ocid=ww.social.link.email. The navy of the USSR might have been under resourced and over extended but it was still generously supported in comparison with merchant shipping.
@@BernardLS Yes, since nuclear has the lowest deaths per watt it's pretty easy to sell confidence.
@@gg-gn3re WADR you are applying logic to a situation that will be determined by emotion. Everywoman loves babies so they risk their life giving birth, low risk but either they survive or they die; very binary.
Oh Dear, I had thought about kite propulsion some time ago and was waiting the chance to test it out and now you go and dash my hopes by showing it already in action. Ah well back to the drawing board. Just wait until i get another quill ready to write my ideas down with.
In response to you contribution to your response this morning post here as I am at present unable to trace the original thread. Starting with a quote from Richard Green’s post ‘Mass-produced compact modular thorium-based reactor systems’, so ‘why not use nukes?’ It is down to engineering, finance, socio-political attitudes and safety and my response is many people have legitimate, or otherwise depending on your point of view, concerns about nuclear energy and shipping so combining the two may well more than double the level of concern.
Taking a view that nothing can go wrong neglects the well known 'Murphy's Law' position sometimes called 'The Precautionary Principle'. It is not that I do not want things in my own back yard, just I would rather they were not inflicted on anyone who was unaware of the risks. The last time I postulated that my then correspondents’ response was basically ‘use nuke’s or fry’. So all I could do was offer option 'C'; reduce consumption, localise production and limit reproduction to replacement level? Go for 'needs' not 'wants' and be satisfied with 'comfort' not aspire to 'opulence'.
The ‘mass-produced compact modular thorium-based reactor systems’ may be an option on shore but marine operations come with an additional suite of issues, as highlighted by ‘Ever Given’, ‘X Press Pearl’ et al. You mentioned ‘molten salt reactors (E.G. thorium-U 233 reactors) is that they are inherently stable and are in a different ballgame of safety that don't use water cooling (water is itself a dangerous material inside a nuclear reactor) and if they fail the liquid fuel automatically drains into cooling tanks where the reactions stop.’ The problem on a ship is that independent of the reactor situation the ship may sink and my concern is what will happen to any residual energy in the power train? How much residual energy would a 60 megaWatt reactor system contain when scrammed and what would be the anticipated run down period?
Is nuclear 100% safe when ships are run by the lowest bidder occasionally regulated by a bunch of religious fanatics in pursuit of inflicting their brand of totalitarian governance on humanity? For FOC shipping flag state regulation is limited, it is one of the means by which costs are kept down together with lower levels of taxation. Thus the need for port state regulation and that is, in many cases, both underfunded and overwhelmed; even in countries like the UK & Sweden. The low hanging fruit, to reduce the environmental burden of transport, IMO are improved fuel quality, shortened & lightened supply chains and willingness to accept increased costs.
Great interesting video 📹 👍. Cheers
100% wind powered ships is a non starter unless fuel becomes absolutely cost prohibited. There are bands of ocean near the equator that have often have zero wind called the doldrums. Crossing them would require some powered production without dealing with long delays in shipping.
That's not what this video is about though! Why are so many people commenting about something that hasn't been suggested?
@@danyoutube7491 the first ship is attempting to do exactly that.
@@orkin2525 You're right, I had forgotten that it was proposed to be 100% sail powered. But the example they gave was of it crossing the Atlantic, which doesn't (if talking of Europe to North America) involve crossing near the equator. Granted it is much slower than an ICE, but for some cargo types speed isn't essential (such as the cars used as an example in the video), and in any case it might become preferable to subsidise the use of this sort of technology for the environmental benefit it gives, or conversely tax diesel much more severely to represent the environmental cost using it brings. I don't imagine it could ever replace the majority of cargo transport, but the other two designs could help mitigate the polluting nature of most shipping.
@@danyoutube7491 the 12 days is best possible speed. The average is likely to be in the 15-20 days. If something doubles or triples the transit time, the number of ships to produce the same thoughput needs to increase by almost the same factor, all with their own pollution/GHG during production. The other option is to just build nuclear powered cargo ships that go 20-30 knots, need fewer ships, produce no real GHG, and not punish productive parts of society.
The problem with all these novel and hi-tech 'solutions' is that they don't address the fundamental underlying causes - in the case of climate change: population increase, consumerism, remote manufacturing, and an economic system that is based entirely on increasing growth. All those things (and more) have created the current emergency and will continue to make the situation worse - and they will ultimately cancel out all the tech sticking-plaster 'solutions'. We are trying to contain and reduce a fire, when what we really need to do is remove the things that are causing and feeding it. These sexy tech 'solutions' also have the additional disadvantage of making it look like we can beat the problem with science and engineering, so we relax and forget to sort out the basic things that are causing the problem.
Electric cars are a very good example of this. They cut down pollution and noise, and, as long as the source electricity is green, they help us to reduce emissions. But that only addresses some of the problems with our over-reliance on cars. All the other problems - for instance, traffic congestion, the carbon footprint of manufacturing them (and the environmental impact of extracting and manufacturing many of the products used to build them), the concreting over of our countryside and urban environments, road deaths and injuries, out of town shopping, obesity and other health issues, and even noise and pollution from non-fuel sources (eg tyres) - not only continue, but will increase, as the switch to electricity makes cars look less of a problem and encourages even more of us to buy and drive them.
Ultimately, the only way we are going to avoid catastrophe (and if you think that is exaggeration, just imagine the world with a badly affected, or even redirected, Gulf Stream) is to change the way we live. Control and reduce the population, ditto consumerism, and start judging the success of economies on how they impact people and nature positively, not on how fast they grow. If we don't make these critical changes, even if we manage to avoid or mitigate the current crisis, we will create further problems for ourselves in the future. The Earth is finite, and our only home, we can't keep abusing it the way we do.