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."
It's called reinventing the... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.Re:It's called reinventing the... (Score:4, Insightful)
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: (Score:3, Funny)
http://xkcd.com/357/ [xkcd.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Environmentalists have been pushing for funding for development of clean, affordable technologies for years. Thats the very definition of a huge part of the environmental movement. Now, you clearly disagree with a lot of the ideology of the movement, everyone is entitled to an opinion and that is fine, but you clearly aren't the person who should be telling greenies what sort of "lessons" they should be learning, when, this is just the sort of projects they have been pushing for
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Strapping kites onto oil tankers will only help perpetuate the outdated, unsustainable economies we rely on today.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.
I think I see what you're getting at here, but it seems to me that if the technology were applied to other sea-faring craft such as cargo ships or passenger ferries it could have the same effect. Or if not merely fuel-saving, then it could at least lower power consumption requirements such that a weaker propulsion mechanism based on an alternative energy source would suffice for transportation. I believe that the application of the kite towards oil tankers doesn't mean that it is only applicable to oil tan
Re:We're doing it wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
A kite is a clean and reusable local power generation method. Power is generated on the ship, and delivered to the ship in the form of tension on the kite string.
Re:We're doing it wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We're doing it wrong (Score:5, Funny)
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: (Score:2)
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?
I know that's true for the entire process for certain kinds of sources- tar sands, for example, take a great deal of energy to make a useful fuel- but I was under the impression that it wasn't the case for the majority of fuel.
Even if it is the case, t
Re: (Score:2)
If it's silly but it works, is it really silly?
This company developed something that, while it might seem silly, has the potential to save $$$ in fuel costs, and therefore reduce the demand for oil by at least a bit.
Per the article: a kite costs $775k, and can save $1.6k per day, 'under favorable wind conditions'. Figure that's 100 days a year, that's $160k saved per year, or about a 5 year payoff. An easy sell, in financial markets(as
Re: (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
Re: (Score:2)
Those reasons are...? You can't just throw a potential solution away and say that the reasons for rejection are obvious, without saying what they are.
I'll give you a start: it's probably too expensive right now. However, that'll change as diesel gets more scarce and expensive, and it will change as nuclear power, and the industry around it, gets more efficient. (Remember, there was a time when steam
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, I see I expected a bit too much there. Let me put it this way: The current nuclear powers that be see naval nuclear technology as a weapon technology. If we wanted to run every merchant ship in the world (such was my initial remark) to run on nuclear energy, this technology would have to be freely available to every country, every shipmaker in the worl
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I'd say that, while not huge in proportion, 5% of the world's emmisions certainly deserves a hard look - and if larger kites can cut fuel usage by 40% as the article states, it'd be significant.
Re: (Score:2)
The goal should be, 20 years from now, that we don't need oil tankers anymore.
Which option do you think the shipping company (and backer) would prefer?
Re: (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 b
This is largely crap (Score:2)
This is straight-up BS. Trade is going to pull the world's poor out of poverty, nothing else. Proof enough of that can be seen in the huge drains on world commodity supplies lately; the former undeveloped world is developing, fast, and they've got the money to do it. That didn't come through some five-year plan from the fever dream of
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And apparently developing practical, working examples of alternate forms of propulsion using renewable energy for the ships that we will need in 20 years has no part of that?
GTFO. You're talking about some completely insane timeline to completely change our energy infrastructure -- even if fusion power was perfected today, it would take more than 20 years for us to replace every coal plant on earth, and that still doesn't give
Reinventing the row boat?!? (Score:2, Funny)
Ohhh!!! Wait . . . sorry, my bad . . . it says Kite-Powered Ship Launched.
Re: (Score:2)
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: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'd read that as saving $1.6k per day(under favorable conditions).
Time for research:
Daily fuel cost: 7,900 AUD [vic.gov.au] ~ $6.8k. 20% of that is 1.36K. But then, it assumes heavy fuel oil at $130/ton, current prices look closer to $200 [doe.gov]. Then again, the dollar's value has dropped
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know much about the conditions at see (so potentially over-qualified to talk about it on
So they may have re-invented "the really high sail" by removing the mast and putting it on the end of a rope/tether instead, but not just a normal sail.
Re:It's called reinventing the... (Score:5, Informative)
Power kites are quite hard to learn how to control properly. I think the leap in the technology here isn't the wind which, as you point out, has been done before, but the control systems to keep the kite in the air, stable and effective.
I predict... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Still, $1.6k saved a day could pay for quite a bit of maintenance.
How long to sails normally last under heavy usage?
in other news (Score:4, Funny)
film at 11.
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.
Re:Everything old is new again (Score:5, Interesting)
Not really. It might be closer to a windmill than a sail... The idea of using the wind for power might be millions of years old, but new ways that do it several orders of magnitude more efficiently, and in significantly different ways, aren't the same tech by any stretch of the imagination.
This is a lot closer to a kite or a parachute. The ONLY similarity is has with a sail is that it happens to be powering a boat in this case. Far more differences than similarities, and I don't hear anyone complaining that sailing ships were just rip-offs of kites...
Eliminating the huge weight, manpower, and most of the wear that was inherent with sails makes this a vastly different product that could well have been a revolution in naval technology (exploration, trade, warfare, etc.) if it was around in the 16th century.
With wind turbines and electric cars you have a point that they aren't really new inventions, but they certainly have been VASTLY refined. In other words, a rocket that can fly to the moon and back isn't an over-sized bit of fireworks, but it's easy to oversimplify anything until it sounds trivial... Hey, a 3GHz dual-core computer is just a bunch of electric switches, and they had those in the 1800s.
This 'kite', however, is decidedly new, by any reasonable metric, and I look forward to seeing if it's actually practical for commercial use on a large scale.
Re: (Score:2)
Several orders of magnitude more efficient? That sounds very unlikely, given that sailing technology is pretty competitive these days, with competitions like Americas cup where investors are practically standing in lin
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Wind at higher altitude is more consistent and stronger. Part of the reason americas cup boats have such tall high aspect sails
A kite flies back and forth through the air experiencing an increased wind speed compared to static sail
The center of effort for the force from the kite can be placed very low on the boat so that heeling moment is minimised. So no need for a deep keel or long heavy fragile mast.
With the kite retracted the wind propulsion system is hidden away. So reduced winda
Re: (Score:2)
I didn't object to kites being useful, or even "best" in certain situations. I did object to them being "several orders of magnitude more efficient", as modern sails are already pretty close to the theoretical maximum (and certainly not several orders of magnitude away from it). What you choose depends on a lot of factors, such as how much you want to invest up front, how much you want to pay for maintenance, reliability, practicality, performance, ease of use, legality, contest rules, etc...
Anyway, if th
Re: (Score:2)
Especially if they had had the computers that this design requires
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Sometimes, it seems, there are no new ideas. As others have said, what we have here is a glorified sail. Nothing wrong with that, but as fossil fuels become more expensive, we'll find more and more "old tech" make a comeback.
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-vi
Re: (Score:2)
That's putting it lightly. Until very recently, all but a very small elite in most places lived in squalor and physical discomfort, probably sick (by modern standards) most of the time, either freezing cold or sweating hot, living and dying without venturing much further than you could see today from a moderately-tall building. And based on the
Re: (Score:2)
And the Amish mostly do that by making it an all or nothing affair; IE you're raised to believe that family is pretty much all important, all through their life.
But when you become an adult, you have to make a decision: Either follow the rules about technology and everything else, or be cut off completely from family and the community of your youth.
Even
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If that's the implication, could you lay out an objective proof as to why?
This is a sincere question.
Re: (Score:2)
While I can imagine a more altruistic world through a religious eye, the problem I have with frequently with entities implementing 'social impact' is that their focus is stated in acute terms; "Gotta offer hurricane relief", but quickly shifts focus to chronic; "The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy"
Bureaucratic systems, unlike well engineered physical ones, tend to lack good negative feedback loops, as too many people discover powe
Get off my lawn! (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I predict an increase in the number of yuppies in the crews of ocean going ships.
Am I the only one who feels (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Actually the sooner we get to a Snow Crash-like existence, the better. (Though I'd still prefer the Diamond Age.)
Hope for humanity... (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Great start (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Paul McCready (of Gossamer Condor and Gossamer Albatross fame) mentioned in a talk I got to see that he had created a wind-driven water craft that could carry a person and make double the wind speed... directly upwind. Essentially a turbine driving a propeller, and the craft in general being a hydrofoil.
Re: (Score:2)
Keel? (Score:3, Insightful)
Military usage (Score:4, Funny)
When fighting enemy warships, a kite ship can get close enough to fire a shot, then the kite kicks in and they move away, out of range of the pursuing enemy ship, all the while firing shots at them. Using this tactic they could easily draw an enemy warship far from their lines and away from possible assistance to an area of the sea where additional friendly warships can be brought to bear upon it.
What next? The Trireme and Galley Slaves? (Score:2)
Not sure how much real use this will be. (Score:3, Interesting)
Can't use it when heading into the wind - can't tack with a kite.
Can't use it when theres no wind.
Also in the video it seemed to be moving around a lot on its mounting pole when furled up even in the slight breeze. How you'd unfurl it in a strong wind without damage to it or its cables I shudder to think.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Economics look not so good, like awful (Score:2, Interesting)
Just on general principles, that's going to happen about 1/3 the time times maybe 1/2 the time. So actual savings are going to be around 3% ($266/day) That's about $78,000 per year. Barely enough to pay for one employee to manage the kite. Nothing left over to pay the interest ($60,000), or pay off the principal (another $75K over 10 years).
Re:Economics look not so good, like awful (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Any particular reason you divided by 6 rather than 2 or 3 for your figure?
Re: (Score:2)
Then winds do not always blow at top speed. In fact, to be useful at all with this kite/sail, the wind has to average considerably faster than the forward speed of the ship!
I'm being somewhat generous in estimating that only HALF of the time can you expect th
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
PS: Math is useless when your information is wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
I assume the 20% savings ($1,600/day) is when the wind is blowing good, and in the right direction
That's an amazingly wild assumption. After watching the video, I have the definite impression that that $1600/day estimate has arleady taken this into account and is estimated based on the typical average prevailing winds on their routes.
I for one welcome (Score:2)
Blimp for the doldrums (Score:2)
Germany never was a great sailing nation. So if the Dutch, Spanish, English or French dont want to bite, then there must be a problem with the technology.
Tall ships - spinakers and auto furling sails (Score:2)
Why not use sails? (Score:2)
Am I missing here? What kind of advantage does a kite provide over sails which I'd say are a proven technology. To me it seems that 500 year old technology [wikipedia.org] is superior to what this company has developed.
I can think of a few distinct advantages over the kite. First, the sails are attached to the ship. There isn't this thing blowing around in the sky which might change direction unpredictably when the winds change. Or worse, make a dive for the ocean. Second, the kite is completely useless in headwinds. One
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Zig-zagging the sail wouldn't change the fact that the force from the wind would be pointed in the opposite direction the ship wants to go.
The ship has to be the thing that zig-zags, because the way tacking works is the keel of the ship prevents sideways motion, and
Nuclear power (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If these ships engines were constantly monitor by a government team of experts, on the ship. Then I would like to see more of a push towards nuclear freighters.
I don't think the costs would pan out at this time.
Re: (Score:2)
Why not? (Score:2)
Looks sort of funny (Score:2)
Re:Wow. (Score:4, Funny)
- Cold fusion based power plants
- Jet-packs
- Mars terra forming and subsequent colonization
- FTL travel
and Duke Nukem Forever
Re: (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 $3200/day and so on.
Plenty of scope for some serious cost savings.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
You are too ignorant to talk on this subject. Stop it.
Think about this:
If the trials are successfull. AKA about 1600 a day in saving, the shipping industry is ready to jump on it.
So we can debate about it's plus and minuses, but the real experts want it and say it will be a cost savings.
I have a tiny bit of insight into the costs to run a ship based on some global logistics work I did a few years ago.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
z.B. der Drachen (Fluggerät)
Re: (Score:2)
Do you know what the word "dictionary" means?
TWW
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you really think this project wo
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So:
1. At no point would the ship ever slow down more than it would with current tech.
2. Ships already need to expend energy based on drag so if the path and speed is unchanged so is this effect.
3. With a savings of 1600$ 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
This has solved Global Warming! (Score:2)