Kite-Powered Ship Launched 211
The Grand Poobah writes "The big-kite technology we discussed last month has officially launched in Hamburg, Germany. Reuters has a writeup of the new technology, which aims to cut fossil fuel use on sea voyages by an estimated 20% by means of a huge computer-controlled kite. The link includes a video."
Re:It's called reinventing the... (Score:5, Insightful)
- it can be used at these cargo ships normal cruise speed,
- it saves the shipping company $1600 per day
- and it utilizes higher altitude winds,
I would say they have succeeded.Everything old is new again (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest deal in alternative energy right now is the windmill, which have been used for what, 1,200 years? [wikipedia.org] Now we have a (gasp!) sailing ship! Pretty soon we'll go back to using the electric car [toyota.com] which was very popular in the early days [about.com] of the automobile.
No, basic technologies are not new - what's new are refinements. For example, Linux is a re-implementation of a 35 year old Operating System [levenez.com] having the chief innovation of a license change [gnu.org]. I'm not knocking the quality that Linus has put into the Linux kernel, but Linux is written to be POSIX compliant, so while drivers are nice, Linux is basically no different than any other UNIX but for the license difference.
Innovation can come from some incredibly low-tech, unlikely places. For example, this guy has won numerous awards for sticking a pot inside a pot and filling the middle with wet sand [boingboing.net] - managing to solve a serious problem in Africa for low-cost refrigeration.
I guess what it comes down to is this: Technology is valuable when it works, not when it's complex. There's lots of very, very, very simple technology that nonetheless works very, very, very well.
not a great value (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:not a great value (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:not a great value (Score:5, Insightful)
$725,000 / $1600 per day gives about 450 days before break-even.
Ships have a useful life of 20 to 30 years, so in the end, you wind up about 12 or 13 million ahead, even factoring in a total replacement at mid-life. And this rough calculation is just at (presumably) todays oil prices - when oil is double the price, you're now saving $3200/day and so on.
Plenty of scope for some serious cost savings.
Re:Everything old is new again (Score:2, Insightful)
The industrial revolution and the age of enlightenment led us to overconsumption. Defoe's Crusoe is an exemplary of a human being getting in control with the nature - everything is possible with ingenuity and sufficient resources. Sadly the western societies especially have since declined to self-worship rather than co-operation, because we generally are weak before our needs and desires. Combined with individual freedoms the nature was lost into artificiality, and many aligned with a mechanical world-view of self-preservation at all cost, and for profit. It's interesting how the global awareness has been on the rise recently, but it's good to keep in mind that this wouldn't necessarily happen if there wasn't need for it financially. Scarce resources show us that our lifes (businesses) are and can be finite, and it would be optimal to be more balanced to spend the time here fruitfully or profitably. In that sense the trend you have observed is a natural way of seeking harmony that was lost, although the idealized modern view of the historical times tends to forgot the sorrowful and filthy side of the past reality. Maybe we are more mature now, however?
We're doing it wrong (Score:1, Insightful)
We (humanity) will face far more serious problems in this century, than suboptimal efficiency in our use of fossil fuels.
Hauling vast quantities of cargo around the world simply to exploit cheaper labor elsewhere, while consuming vast quantities of nonrenewable resources, is not sustainable.
We need to solve the energy problem NOW. We need to learn how to extract most of our energy from renewable resources (solar, wind, tidal [and nuclear as a stopgap]), and then work out the bioengineering we will need to regulate the atmosphere, prevent undesirable climate change, and produce additional energy and the materials for 21st century manufacturing.
The information technology revolution of the past few decades (at the expense of the environment) is what will have made all of that possible.
Strapping kites onto oil tankers will only help perpetuate the outdated, unsustainable economies we rely on today. Developing technologies that save the shipping company $1600/day is a waste of time and effort.
The goal should be, 20 years from now, that we don't need oil tankers anymore.
Then we can work on undoing the environmental damage caused by the industrial and information revolutions, and get started fixing the rest of our social problems.
Keel? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:We're doing it wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:We're doing it wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We're doing it wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We're doing it wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose that some of those predicting the end of the Roman Empire were correct.... but it took several hundred years to happen. In that case, I suppose it gave legitimacy to those doom and gloom experts too.
We don't even have an energy problem. Indeed, all of the problems you are complaining about here is due to an over abundance of energy, not a lack of it. The fact that a doom sayer of the finality of the world like yourself can name off at least 4 different sources of energy that can be tapped and transformed into useful forms needed in modern industrial societies speaks volumes about how much effort is going into identifying useful energy forms.
The one huge problem, if there is one, about energy production is not how to extract the most out of the energy sources, but how to keep idiots from extracting too much from those energy sources at once. You may ask "Huh?" here, but pay close attention.... an explosion is just the rapid release of large quantities of energy at once at a point source.... aka a "bomb". And those kill people == very bad technology (to some people's thinking). This is the primary reason why nuclear energy (both fusion and fission) is the big evil bad guy, in spite of the fact that a nuclear future really is the best way to protect the environment in the long run. Not only for waste disposal, but even for mineral extraction costs (including intangible costs like environmental damage) nuclear fission is several orders of magnitude more efficient than petroleum and coal production techniques. For crying out loud, the typical coal electric generating plant produces far more toxic nuclear waste per kWh than a typical nuclear fission power plant. That is completely discounting silly things like CO2 that are now getting everybody's panties in a bunch. Fusion sources, if developed, are just the icing on the cake and make the argument undeniable.
This still doesn't solve the problem of how you can concentrate energy into a useful and portable source that can be tapped by ordinary people, for things like transportation and commerce. And mass transportation isn't always the solution, as there are legitimate reasons why many people don't want to be in a herd and travel the same route and to the same places that 90% of the rest of humanity is at.
FYI, did you know that when you throw a gallon of gasoline into your automobile, that at the refinery more energy was consumed in the processing of the gasoline than is available for you when you burn that fuel? Most of that processing energy comes in the form of electricity, which the oil refineries get from the same sources that power your light bulbs... but the point is that most fuel sources are just energy concentration mediums. And it is important to separate energy production from energy storage. Until you can develop an energy storage medium that is more efficient than petroleum, we will continue to require petroleum or something very similar for a very long time to come. Lithium ion technology looks very promising at the moment, as are some other interesting energy storage devices. Ethanol is, IMHO, a horribly wasteful energy storage form but at least it is a semi-viable replacement for common uses of petroleum if you absolutely must stop the black fluid mineral extraction processes. And most alcohols don't
Re:We're doing it wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
While I agree that some "hybrid" (as in hybrid car) solutions are useless for tackling climate change, I have to disagree with you here. Ships have a similar problem as airplanes in that they can't be powered on batteries (too heavy) and thus cannot be powered by electricity produced elsewhere. Also, we don't want every merchant ship in the world to have a nuclear reactor on board, for obvious reasons. So sails are indeed an interesting idea, especially as they are proven to work, don't create any emissions and could, as the technology matures, be scaled up to supply much more of the needed thrust, maybe nearly all of it. This new system actually looks like it does exactly what you are asking for (extract energy from renewable sources).
Also, ships don't only carry oil. They bring us all the nice little cheap stuff from all over the world, allowing producers to exploit huge economies of scale (which, in the long run, might well benefit the environment, too). I don't think we will be able to live without them any time soon.
Re:It's called reinventing the... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's called reinventing the... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) $1,600 / day *per ship* savings on fuel costs sounds pretty good to me -- nearly 600k a year. Of course that's a significant saving for a shipping company, look how they've borne down on crew costs to save relatively smaller sums. Assuming an installed cost of $750k, there's a payback time of just a year and a quarter, and that's conservative: fuel prices are heading up which increases the savings, the costs of production will head down due to economies of scale if the tech takes off, and the article notes that larger kites would -- in principle -- deliver larger savings.
2) Why on earth would you make the kite the bridge of the ship? The tether is about 300m long, what's the point of it being 240m instead? When you pull objects along, you attach the tether to the front of them, not the middle -- it's more efficient and it's more stable. Watch a child pull a toy dog along to see this principle in action.
3) They have their own solution to rough weather, and it's simpler than a frigging autonomous flight capability.
4) Lifting a fifty thousand ton ship bodily out of the water with kites doesn't sound like a terribly feasible solution. The hydrofoil idea might possibly be worth pursuing, but I suspect there are good technical engineering reasons for why large freight ships don't currently use this design that would preclude its use even with a kite.
Re:We're doing it wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Totally uneconomic (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you really think this project would have reached the stage it has if it DIDN'T ACTUALLY WORK? Do you really think that a little detail like that could slip unnoticed past all of the professional engineers, experienced and knowledgable in the appropriate fields, temployed by the kite's manufacturers? Do you really think you know better than people who do this for a living, and have now proved themselves by designing, building, testing, selling, delivering and launching a functional system?
Dumbass.
(capcha: damning)
Re:We're doing it wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey, I'd like it if nuclear power took off in commercial vessels. Considering how much fuel those guys burn it would be worth it.
Your thought process precludes incremental improvements, and denigrating this while promoting windpower in the same comment is silly. It is windpower, and some windpower is better than no windpower, isn't it?
Or are you of the opinion that we should hold off on buidling more windmills until we can power THE ENTIRE NATION from windpower?
Progress is progress. The five steps foward this represents isn't the leap you want, but we've still moved forward.
Re:It's called reinventing the... (Score:5, Insightful)
The lesson for greenies is of course to find cheaper, more environmentally friendly ways to achieve the same output as fossil fuels.
Raising costs with punitive 'carbon taxes' will earn revulsion and support theories that global warming hysteria is really just a power and money grab.
Developing environmentally friendly AND cheaper, effective solutions will earn their developers lots of money and save the environment at the same time.
You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. This kite- it's environmental honey. Develop more things like it.
Re:Totally uneconomic (Score:3, Insightful)
So:
1. At no point would the ship ever slow down more than it would with current tech.
2. Ships already need to expend energy based on drag so if the path and speed is unchanged so is this effect.
3. With a savings of 1600$ per day the cost of replacing a kite is probably trivial after a few months. The kite is not the primary cost Instillation costs are dominated the cost to retrofit the ship, control software etc.
PS: Kites tack in a different manor than traditional sailing craft because the can move around much faster so it's their average position that's important not the instantaneous force vector.