Synthetic Sebum Makes Slippery Sailboats 128
sonnejw0 writes "Sea-faring vessels are a major contributor of greenhouse gas production due to a deficit in international laws and inherent inefficiencies at sea, such as barnacle build-up on hulls. Many marine animals avoid the build-up of drag-inducing barnacles through secreting oily residues from their pores or through the nano-molecular arrangement of their skin. Sailors regularly defoul their hulls, removing the barnacles at dry-dock, which requires them to reduce the amount of time they have at sea. Some synthetic chemicals in paints have been used to prevent barnacle build-up but have been found to be toxic to marine animals and thus outlawed by several nations. Now, engineers are trying to replicate the skin of marine animals to produce a slippery hull to which marine bacteria cannot attach, saving fuel costs and improving speeds."
Oh dear lord (Score:4, Funny)
The image of a smegma producing sail yacht is now stuck in my head!
Where's the brain bleach when you need it!
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I was thinking of ships with zits. Of course, as the ship gets older, it will probably grow out of it. It will be bad for the ships that ship chocolate and potato chips!
Damn, beat me to it (Score:2, Funny)
...and no, you don't grow out of it.
Any further discussion would be TMI.
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Tell me about it. Receding hair line, grey in my beard and I still get zits? WTF? And they call this 'intelligent design'?
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Too Much Information.
Get with it.
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Dude, what what would you do if I told you (truthfully!) that sebum is all over your body? It's all over your hair, your skin, etc.
Yeah. That's because sebum is a term that refers to the natural oils that coat your hair and skin. It's what makes your hair and skin waterproof and what protects them from drying out.
Re:Oh dear lord (Score:5, Informative)
The sebaceous glands can recalibrate themselves eventually to this increased testosterone concentration, or the testosterone concentration can descrease with age or activity, or the elasticity of the skin can result in increase pore size, allowing greater flow. Massaging of the skin under hot water with soap could be a preventive measure in done regularly and at a young enough age. I would avoid harsh peroxides as they do not attack the underlying cause, even if caused by a bacterial infection it will probably not be entirely effective. The pores need to be cleansed, and peroxides are very effective at damaging DNA resulting in skin cancer later in life.
I am not an M.D., but a Ph.D. student, and I had horrible sebaceous cysts when I was a teenager. So I can commiserate with the issue. Too bad I didn't realize back then that daily fast food was the cause of my problems and not the 'yummy' solution to my psychological needs I thought it was. Now, fast-food makes me sick that I know what is in it and how my teenage years of indiscretion will probably result in a heart-attack in mid-life, not discounting 5 years of misery, physically and psychologically. I bicycle 6 miles a day, now, and cook all of my own foods at home and I love life and social occasions. It's a lot harder to make those kinds of choices as a teenager, though. Peer pressure and the mental cloud of hormones makes it difficult to think for yourself, even when you think you are.
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Really, just get a good dermatologist, it can become a serious problem very quickly.
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Oh, and definitely don't pop them on your own! That will just clog/infect surrounding pores and permanently damage the pore that's clogged, resulting in more cysts overall. A dermatologist can remove the cystic fluids easily and carefully in ways you cannot on your own. I did not heed that advice when I was a teenager, I wish I had.
Really? Who can afford to go to go to a dermatologist twice a week for zit clearing?
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"as a result of repeated and frequent sexual stimulation post-pubescent,"
'Scuse me?
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I think real bleach works quite well with removing thoughts from your brain... just drill a hole and in it goes. Just don't expect any new thoughts to occur in that area... ever... ;)
too many potential jokes for first post. (Score:1, Insightful)
I would have been the "first post", but, well there were too many potential jokes.
I really like "Sailors regularly defoul their hulls", but then there's the "Sebum"/"Semen" play on words which is always popular.
"dry-dock" change some letters...
oh my goodness I just can't decide, so I've lost my first post chance.
So I guess I'll just RTFA and ponder how OpenBSD would help with this problem without even making a "soviet russia" or "natalie portman" reference
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It's a slippery slope.
It's a start (Score:3, Interesting)
A surface that inhibits barnacles is only a start, for there are other things one can do to make a ship more eco-friendly
One if obviously a more fuel efficient engine
The other is to improve the design of the propeller to make it more efficient while lessen the drag
Then there is the need for a much lighter material for the construction of the ships
Last but not least, new designs of ships are also needed.
Re:It's a start (Score:4, Interesting)
Go Nuke. They did it once http://www.atomicengines.com/ships.html [atomicengines.com], but made it more of a 'show' boat than a work horse.
* The Savannah was designed as a showboat. Her purpose was to demonstrate American technology as part of the "Atoms for Peace" program. Pretty lines and luxurious staterooms were more important than cargo capacity or loading ease.
* She made politically motivated port calls, not economically motivated ones.
* She was a one of a kind ship, required to support a specialized infrastructure by herself.
* There were some difficulties with union negotiations. She spent almost a year tied to the pier because of the deck officers did not want the engineers to make more money than they did.
With the air craft carriers no one seems to have a NIMBY problem. You could move quite a bit of cargo with a few lbs of uranium.
So it'll require hiring some more staff (Like an actual engineer and maybe some armed guards). The US Navy has managed to not have any nuclear powered vessel captured by pirates.
Heck I wouldn't have a huge problem if the US Government wanted to own and operate a super-super cargo ship if it ran on Nuclear energy. The amount of oil those ships burn is measured in thousands of gallons per mile.
Re:It's a start (Score:4, Informative)
I know you're trying to make a point about using nuclear energy to power ships rather than burning fuel, but let's not go overboard on the amount of fuel being burned per mile. According to WikiAnswers, if a cargo ship travels at 30 mph (roughly 26 knots), it burns 120 gallons per mile [answers.com].
Granted, as the second item on that page relates, most container ships burn bunker fuel but the calculation is still the same. Even taking into consideration the size of ultra-large cargo ships, they don't use anywhere near thousands of gallons per mile to move across the water.
GP was correct (Score:1, Informative)
It *is* measured in thousands of GPM:
120 gallons per mile == 0.12 thousands of gallons per mile
See?
Re:It's a start (Score:5, Informative)
The largest container ships in the word operate on diesel engines with about 114000 HP at 25.5 knots. The engines consume (at peak efficiency, not regular operating conditions) 0.260 lbs/hp/hr of fuel. Diesel is around 7 lbs/gal, so the calc works out to about 144 gals/mile... at peak efficiency.
I saw your claim and thought, "What about superfreighters?" After some back-of-the-envelope calculation, I'm surprised at their relative fuel efficiency...
However, they're still dirty, dirty ships. One superfreighter releases the same SOx emissions as 50 million passenger cars. So even though the fuel usage isn't as bad as it one might think, there are other reasons why nuclear would be better.
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I agree that nuclear would be better. I was merely trying to correct the hyperbole the OP said about ships using "thousands of gallons" per mile. If that were the case, the entire ship would be nothing but a fuel tanker and unable to haul cargo.
Go Full Sail (Score:3, Interesting)
We did it once upon a time.
Apparently Supertankers and Cargo ships have cut their speeds down to 10 knots to save fuel, some of the greatest Cargo ships of the Age of Sail managed 13 knots no dinosaur juice needed.
And everything one of the other posters cited about better materials and new designs still applies.
Flettner Rotors are more efficient than conventional sails, they failed because Diesel was just too cheap.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotor_ship [wikipedia.org]
Enercon a Wind Turbine company built a Rotor Assisted
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Not only is there the difficulty of getting into many harbours with large sailing ships, but we should also remember that sailing ships cannot sail directly into the wind, and make some leeway when sailing across the wind. This means that the Suez and Panama canals are effectively impassable under sail, and so tugs would be needed to avoid the much longer journeys around the south. There is also the issue of calms, and the need to follow the trade winds. These will cause massive variability in shipping sch
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With the air craft carriers no one seems to have a NIMBY problem. You could move quite a bit of cargo with a few lbs of uranium.
So it'll require hiring some more staff (Like an actual engineer and maybe some armed guards). The US Navy has managed to not have any nuclear powered vessel captured by pirates.
Ok, so now we'll need to protect cargo ships same way that we do aircraft carriers. Hmm, do we have enough battleships for escort?
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The fleet that accompanies an aircraft carrier is not for pirate protection... they are there to protect against submarines and battleships, and to resupply the aircraft with fuel and munitions.
Forgive me if I'm not giving the pirates enough credit, but until they have modern submarines and battleships, or fighter/bombers... then I think a few armed guards with sniper rifles
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Forgive me if I'm not giving the pirates enough credit, but until they have modern submarines and battleships, or fighter/bombers... then I think a few armed guards with sniper rifles and maybe a large caliber deck gun would suffice.
Many foreign governments frown on (as in its illegal) the possession of so much as a handgun by unauthorized personnel in their territorial waters.
But then the easy solution would be to work out a set of international regulations permitting commercial vessels to be so armed. Countries could elect to sign such an agreement or not. Nuclear powered vessels would only be permitted to operate in international waters, or where they are able to avail themselves of the proper security. If nukes prove to be such a
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The only US battleships left are museum ships or in reserve.
Actually a nuclear powered ship would be well defended from pirates by not slowing down to save fuel and not sailing near dangerous areas to save fuel.
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Wouldn't a better comparison be between Ships and Freight trains?
Mostly going in relatively straight lines with limited (compared to trucks) ports.
Sorry, no car analogy.
Re:It's a start (Score:4, Informative)
ehm, have you ever studied ships?
Large ships already have extremely efficient two stroke diesel engines (even over 50% which is extremely high if you consider the carnot max) They also have many devices to recover waste heat.
Propeller designs are already very sophisticated, difficult to improve there.
weight: the weight of the ship is very low relative to the amount of cargo it carries (compared to e.g. a truck). Also, the ship sails at relatively low speeds and mostly in a straight line so acceleration/deceleration losses that increase with mass are not really a factor.
All in all cargo ships are already the most efficient mode of transport on a fuel/cargo weight-distance ratio basis.
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Well, my farts probably produce 100 times as much SOx emissions as the vehicles I drive. It's not terribly meaningful to compare two different fuel sources.
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The Emma Maersk class freighters carry about 154,000 tons of cargo. Given the earlier ballpark of 144 gallons per mile, that works out to about 1070 ton-miles per gallon. Compare that to a F150 which can make 28 ton-miles per gallon...
I'm sure at the fuel expenses the shipping companies have, saving a percent or two would be huge.
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One other way to increase efficiency of a ship is a Bulbous Bow [wikipedia.org]
Next Up.. (Score:3, Funny)
Genetically engineered whales with a built in cargo hold. You just have to train them well, and take advantage of their natural migration patterns..
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As fun a thought as it is, I occasionally have the opportunity of working with wild bottlenose dolphins - a species that sheds the outer layer of its skin extremely often, and yet we will still see in-shore animals disappear for a few months, most likely going into deeper waters, only to return later with barnacles attached to the tip of their dorsals.
Now either the barnacles are very, very good at attaching themselves to anything - or there's some freaky dolphin/barnacle action going on in deep waters ;)
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How many LoC's ('prox 20 TB circa 2007) can be transported by whale vs. my '70 Impala?
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Genetically engineered whales with a built in cargo hold. You just have to train them well, and take advantage of their natural migration patterns..
Ever watch Farscape? The primary vessel in that sci-fi TV series is a space-faring biomechanoid leviathan, one of a class of spaceships that serve mostly as cargo transport. Yep, that's right, just as you suggest, they are genetically engineered whales!
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Yep, that's right, just as you suggest, they are genetically engineered whales!
Fuck THAT. All it takes is one near miss or a bad storm off the Philippines, and the next thing you know, your ship is spooked and your shipment of Nintendo DSes is sitting inside the whale in the middle of Abbey Road!
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Lemme guess, you'll want to guard them with sharks with friggin lazers!
We have a special this month. (Score:3, Funny)
Errant preachers travel for free! *
* select destinations only.
Won't the sailors slip all the time? (Score:3, Funny)
... stopped reading after the headline...
Careless Composition Creates Confusion. (Score:2)
And don't get me started on how ridiculously long-winded the summary is. By the second sentence, I was thinking, it's a summary, not the actual friggin article. Get to the point already!
Teflon? (Score:2)
Why isn't some sort of non-stick coating such as Teflon not an option?
Re:Teflon? (Score:4, Informative)
The glue that barnacles produce will stick to Teflon.
Here is an old 2005 article [nationalgeographic.com] similar to this concept that talks about using a "skin" similar to shark skin to combat the barnacles.
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Thanks for the link.
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America's cup boats typically are hauled out of the water after every days racing. There is little opportunity for stuff to stick to them because they are always moving, and anything that does stick is washed off. Furthermore there is a ton of work done at low reynolds numbers and boundary layers to ensure the boat bottoms are as efficient as possible - including micro-grooving the bottom material. I am not sure about America's cup, but in many racing series it is against the rules to add any shedding coat
Fire Hose Liner? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Fire Hose Liner? (Score:2)
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Fire hoses are already heat-resistant woven material + a rubber liner. They get wet and have to be dried because they're there when tons of water are being sprayed in all directions at a fire. And, if firefighters are doing their job right, you'll never see a line running through a fire, ever. That would mean they've been cut off by the flame and have bigger problems than a line in the fire. Although, I wonder if that's ever happened and a hole got burned in the line resulting in catastrophic loss of water
easy implementation... (Score:1)
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Invention fail!
They would drown.
Now, baby sharks....
nano-blah blah blah (Score:1)
What does this even mean? Isn't it just the 'molecular arrangement of their skin"? Buzzwords are for business majors
Make the barnacles work for us (Score:2)
Sebum (Score:2)
Sebum is the stuff that, if not properly emitted by your skin, can form a sebaceous cyst. They're pretty disgusting to drain, although sometimes doctors will just surgically remove the whole offending gland.
If you want to be grossed out, have a look:
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/80740591/ [ebaumsworld.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8fsco3C_Zc [youtube.com]
BTW, don't pop them yourself as you can get dangerous infections of you mess up. Doctors can deal with them really easily, so it's worth it to go to one if you can when y
Synthetic Sebum Makes Slippery Sailboats (Score:1)
Sounds Great for Sailboat Racing (Score:2)
... until you realize you'll still have to send someone under the hull to make sure your opponent hasn't ice-picked a towel to your keel.
Those damn fuel-sucking SUV sailboats... (Score:1, Insightful)
Wouldn't that save more fuel in something other than a *sail*-boat?!
Noone saw the Euphamism? (Score:1)
Avast, me hearties! (Score:2)
So it's back to Whale Oil is it? Queequeg [wikipedia.org] will be pleased.
What a first sentence... (Score:5, Informative)
Sea-faring vessels are a major contributor of greenhouse gas production due to a deficit in international laws and inherent inefficiencies at sea, such as barnacle build-up on hulls.
Sea-faring vessels are the single most efficient way of transporting goods we have. The reason they're a big contributor of greenhouse gas production is that our global economy requires that a lot of goods are transported around the world. Try transporting thousands of containers across thousands of miles by truck (please, don't actually try this, it's bad for the environment).
The IMO [imo.org] (wikipedia [wikipedia.org]) is one of the most widely acknowledged international authorities on anything. They've made a lot of internationally respected laws, improving sea transport on many levels, including the environmental effects.
It's true that hull fouling is a problem for ships. It's also true that many (especially large) ships burn Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO), which contains a lot of pollutants (like sulfur) and isn't as clean as, say, diesel oil. It's also true that ships burn a lot of HFO, and it's true that ships further pollute the seas by dumping garbage overboard.
However, while the amounts of HFO burned by, say, the Emma Maersk [wikipedia.org], are enormous (about 300 metric tonnes per day at full operation), this is almost nothing when compared to trucks. Assuming 300mt/day at a cruise speed of 25 knots (over 45km/h), that equates to roughly 30 tonnes per 100 km. A semi-trailer truck pulling two TEU containers [wikipedia.org] runs at around 30 liter per 100 km (that's around 8 mpg, anyone that can confirm this number?). This means the Emma Maersk, carrying 14000 TEU, uses 1000 times as much fuel as a truck carrying 2 TEU, which makes this ship about 7 times as fuel efficient as trucks.
And another thing: with HFO costing 300-400 dollars per metric ton, the Emma Maersk burns up about 100,000 dollars per day when running at full capacity (this almost never happens, especially now with the economic crisis, but bear with me). That's about 3 million dollars a month in fuel. The Emma Maersk is crewed by a minimum of 13 seafarers, but let's take 20 for easier calculations, since it's probably closer to reality anyway. Suppose each of those 20 people earn 10,000 dollars a month (which is a lot - maybe the Captain, Chief Officer and Chief Engineer make this much... just maybe). That means total crewing costs for this ship would be 200,000 dollars a month, with fuel costs 15 times higher. What I'm trying to say here is this: it's in the companies' best interest to improve their fuel economy. A 7% increase in fuel efficiency would save them more money than not having to pay the crew. I'm fairly certain there are no cheap and easy ways to drastically reduce fuel usage, or they would have thought of it by now.
All of this is not to say that there isn't room for improvement in the maritime transportation business, far from it. This research and other research like it can and will do great things for the shipping industry and the environment. I just didn't like how the summary made the industry the bad guy here.
P.S. If you want to read more about the IMO's actions on air pollution: go nuts [imo.org].
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I'm fairly certain there are no cheap and easy ways to drastically reduce fuel usage, or they would have thought of it by now.
They thought of it a looooong time ago. Time to start using it again!:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/22/2143897.htm [abc.net.au]
Barnacles != Bacteria (Score:1)
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Invasive Species Deterrent (Score:1)
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Species travels to new location on it's own, on another animal, on a boat, truck, or whatever.
Species takes root and kicks ass. Weaker species die out. It's just nature doing its thing. I think Disney wrote a song about it.
What you're preaching is segregation.
Unintended consequences (Score:1)
Oh crap! (Score:2)
They've banned tributyltin? We were supposed to haul out my Mom's boat last year. Snooze, you lose.
Contradictory write-up... (Score:1)
It seems, that when it really matters, national laws banning undesirable practices are quite effective...
Old news. (Score:1)
Later on the internaional yacht racing rules [sailing.org] were amended with rule no. 53,
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The Stars and Stripes design was to use microscopic V-grooves alongside
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Yeahbut, leave that expensive, micro-grooved hull sitting in sea water for a year or two and see what the barnacle buildup looks like.
On the other hand, rule 53 doesn't apply to cargo ships. Anything that doesn't poison the fish is fair game.
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But as always, rule 34 does apply.
How about this? (Score:2, Interesting)
Has anyone tried adding the well-known Microban additives to marine paints?
TFA states that barnacle infestation begins with filming of bacteria on the hull, followed by algea eating the bacteria, then barnacles feeding on the algea.
Some Microban additives puncture bacteria and hence kill them. They are used in kitchen and medical equipment and institutional wall paints. Why not attack the root of the food chain rather than the top rung?
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Microban won't hold up in the ocean for more than a few hours.
Nano-Molecular Arrangement (Score:1)
"or through the nano-molecular arrangement of their skin" should be "or through their skin".
Oh wait, we talked about pores already?
The entire sentence should be dropped.
Not everything has to be nano, cyber, 2.0, cloud-based, or other such bullshit, kids.
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I am patenting Nano-bullshit.
Or, the easy way... (Score:2, Funny)
problem solved long ago, environmentally approved (Score:3, Informative)
I guess good news travels slowly. ;-)
The private yachters bane. (Score:3, Informative)
It is a constant battle against marine life which wants to live on any part of the hull in the water.
The main antifouling up to now which has been very effective is hard bottom paints containing Tributyltin. wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tributyltin
This has unfortunately been proven to be fairly toxic to marine life and has consequently been banned worldwide for all craft under a certain length. Not sure of the length but large shipping vessels and somewhat the navy etc are still using it as it really is the only proven way to do a good job keeping that bottom clean.
All modern antifoulings for pleasure yachts are now based one of two things. One is a copper (copper oxide) mixed with various biocides. This is a hard type paint, often merely ground copper mixed with epoxy. This will give you a very smooth finish, and it depends on the copper (which most marine life doesn't like) and the biocides to keep the hull fairly clean. You have to dive under once in a while and scrub the hull down. Small price to pay for sailing around paradise!
The other type used is called an 'ablative' paint which may or may not contain copper/biocides but is meant to flake off itself as the marine life grows on it. This does not work for boats that live more at marinas with little sailing time, and requires bottom-jobs on the boat more often. The upside is that it is much easier to apply and does not require as much hull cleaning.
It all comes down to..if they could invent something that did not require frequent haulouts and kept your hull clean and smooth, they could easily charge $500 per gallon of the stuff and people would be lining up to pay for it.
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The results seem very mixed, but with a slight positive slant. IE, it probably helps but the results are not conclusive.
seems like a lot of trouble (Score:2)
Not suitable for all (Score:2, Interesting)
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So why the hell is a third- or tenth-order minor benefit listed described as the prime reason behind this research?
If you can make ships more efficient in the water, making ships that run on renewable sources becomes more possible. Steam- and diesel-powered vessels were invented to improve speed (and capacity) in the water. The more you can improve the efficiency, the more speed you can get out of less and less energy. Which makes things like wind power (sails) or solar power (electricity) more and more of a possibility.
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So why the hell is a third- or tenth-order minor benefit listed described as the prime reason behind this research?
If you can make ships more efficient in the water, making ships that run on renewable sources becomes more possible. Steam- and diesel-powered vessels were invented to improve speed (and capacity) in the water. The more you can improve the efficiency, the more speed you can get out of less and less energy. Which makes things like wind power (sails) or solar power (electricity) more and more of a possibility.
True, but that's still a second-order benefit at best because shipowners ALREADY wanted more efficient ships long before any environmental concerns ever arose because such ships have always been cheaper to run.
Look at the changes in ships between 1850 and 1950. Do you really think environmental concerns drove those changes? Do you really think the owners of Liberian-flagged and Filipino-and-others-crewed vessels really care one whit about the environment? Yet even those ships have become more efficient a
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While there may be technical merit to what you say, the economics imply the reverse.
If the ship is more energy-efficient, the savings from switching to renewable energy will be lower, which in turn will delay the transition to renewable energy sources.
Energy efficiency is a bit of double-edged sword in this regard, but there is still the big picture. The more time existing ships can spend
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I'm sure that the writeup of the same research in whatever the trade rag for shipping/shipbuilding is is talking all about the possible efficiency benefits over conventional antifouling paint; but that is kind of a niche interest. It's pretty much like any other industry/niche specific tech work. If you are writi
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you go for the cheapest source first
I would rather say you go for the most cost effective improvements first. I assume you mean to go after the low hanging fruit first. There's no point wasting time on optimizations that don't give decent returns for your dollar. Even if they're cheap they're still a waste of money. It may well be possible to spend less on one expensive but effective optimization rather than implementing a bunch of cheap but ineffective optimizations - even if they both yield the same net improvement.
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This is factually wrong. Ocean going transport represents a significant portion of all pollutions, including green house gasses.
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Last I heard, the pollution generated by 8 supercargo ships was equivalent to the total released by every road vehicle in America. That is quite significant.
I don't really care about global warming that much (ok, I do, but its not my primary motivation for my energy policy beliefs). The climate will change, one way or the other regardless of what we do. We are in a warm period of an ice age, sooner or later that ice age will end, it may also return to global glaciation at some point before that.
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Last I heard, the pollution generated by 8 supercargo ships was equivalent to the total released by every road vehicle in America. That is quite significant.
I don't really care about global warming that much (ok, I do, but its not my primary motivation for my energy policy beliefs). The climate will change, one way or the other regardless of what we do. We are in a warm period of an ice age, sooner or later that ice age will end, it may also return to global glaciation at some point before that.
WHAT? EIGHT ships? Eight?
Are you kidding?
Somebody yanked your chain good and yanked it good.
And you apparently didn't even think about it.
If you put 2 20,000 HP diesels in those 8 ships - that's 16 diesel engines. Hell, put four in each vessel - that'd be 32 diesel engins. Just have them spewing raw exhaust into the atmosphere, you'd match what? A few hundred 18-wheeler trucks?
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Last I heard, the pollution generated by 8 supercargo ships was equivalent to the total released by every road vehicle in America. That is quite significant.
I don't really care about global warming that much (ok, I do, but its not my primary motivation for my energy policy beliefs). The climate will change, one way or the other regardless of what we do. We are in a warm period of an ice age, sooner or later that ice age will end, it may also return to global glaciation at some point before that.
WHAT? EIGHT ships? Eight?
Are you kidding?
Somebody yanked your chain good and yanked it good.
And you apparently didn't even think about it.
If you put 2 20,000 HP diesels in those 8 ships - that's 16 diesel engines. Hell, put four in each vessel - that'd be 32 diesel engins. Just have them spewing raw exhaust into the atmosphere, you'd match what? A few hundred 18-wheeler trucks?
For at least some kinds of pollution? probably. "The 15 biggest ships emit about as much sulphur oxide pollution as all cars combined." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_pollution
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