New Cargo Ship Is 488 Meters Long 116
An anonymous reader writes: The BBC reports on the construction of Prelude, a new ship that will be the world's longest vessel. It is 488 meters long and 74 meters wide, built with 260,000 tons of steel and displacing five times as much water as an aircraft carrier. Its purpose is to carry an entire natural gas processing plant as it sits over a series of wells 100 miles off the coast of Australia. Until now, it hasn't been practical to move gas that comes out of the wells with ships. The gas occupies too much volume, so it is generally piped to a facility on shore where it is processed and then shipped off to energy-hungry markets. But the Prelude can purify and chill the gas, turning it into a liquid and reducing its volume by a factor of 600. It will offload this liquid to smaller (but still enormous) carrier ships for transport.
Displacing five times as much water... (Score:5, Insightful)
It'd be hard for it not to given that it weighs five times as much.
Re:Displacing five times as much water... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh stop with the physics already. What do you think this is, a technology site?
Re:Displacing five times as much water... (Score:5, Funny)
It'd be hard for it not to given that it weighs five times as much.
Archimedes? Is that you?
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You could at least read the Wikipedia page you're linking :
for an object floating on a liquid surface (like a boat) or floating submerged in a liquid (like a submarine in water or dirigible in air) the weight of the displaced liquid equals the weight of the object.
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Eureka!
Seriously, tell most people it "displaces 5 times as much water" and they're going to be thinking volume, not weight.
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It'd be hard for it not to given that it weighs five times as much.
But that's not "given" - it's not stated in the story, and I don't personally happen to have any idea how much an aircraft carrier weighs off the top of my head, so the story pointing out that it displaces as much water as six aircraft carriers - that's what the linked article says - is useful information. Though a direct weight comparison would probably make more sense to the average reader.
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Well, when it comes to weapons of war, the question is how big a bang will it make after a few years of corporate bonus pumping short cuts cut into safety. I would hope BP, Halliburton and Transocean having nothing what so ever to do with it. You would think with that volume of gas you would be up there with a nuclear sized detonation. Rather than too big to fail, it is so big, greed to drive up profits will inevitably result in failure.
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It has a capacity of some 430 million liters of LNG. At an average density of 0.463 kg/L at -160C, that's 199 million kilos of liquefied methane. At 22.2 MJ/L, that's 4.42 billion MJ, or a shade over a megaton of TNT if it were to all go off at once.
Though I doubt that's possible. The storage facilities will have separation, so at best there would be a chain that would dampen the impact somewhat.
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you could only detonate that gas if you managed to breach all of the holds, then bring in a very large tanker full of LOX, then vaporise both the liquefied gases (spilling them onto the sea wouldn't work too well - they'd crust it with ice and then run across the ice while the gas clouds disperse - you'll need to pump heat into the mix for a while), and then finally put the spark to the mix.
That's not impossible -
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I see that the art of satire is lost on you. It really is about corporations routinely bragging about greater ways of generating more profit and always hiding the inevitable criminally negligent short cuts and then using public relations to cover up failures, until final eventual total collapse. This as a matter of modern psychopathic routine.
Re: Displacing five times as much water... (Score:2)
Prelude to what? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Prelude to what? (Score:2)
Macross
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The Prelude will be replaced in a few years by the Civic Si.
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That is correct. This is supposed to be the first ship out of many designed around the concept of having a large ship as a mobile gas extraction platform with its own power.
The idea is that they want to extract gas from underwater wells that are much harder to access than before and in much greater numbers. This is supposed to be just a first ship in the fleet of such ships. Hence hte name.
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I'm going go to with Rorqual.
Not a cargo ship (Score:5, Informative)
The headline is wrong. This is not at all a cargo ship. It's more like an free-floating platform on which a gas refinery has been built. It will stay in place during its entire lifetime.
It should not even be compared to ships.
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Exactly. This thing isn't navigating cramped harbors on a regular basis.
Re:Not a cargo ship (Score:5, Interesting)
It should not even be compared to ships.
If it can move under it's own power it's a ship.
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It should not even be compared to ships.
If it can move under it's own power it's a ship.
Uh, we also label those things flying around in zero gravity "ships" too.
This logic is fucked no matter how you look at it, but hey let's keep inviting the Navy to steer those nomenclature meetings across every industry...
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I think it's okay, as long as those naval nomenclature steering invitations are, um...shipped electronically.
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Re:Not a cargo ship (Score:5, Informative)
Well, is it going to go there on its own power or will it have to be towed? If it can go there by itself, then it's a ship.
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From the photo, this new cargo ship does look like a ship.
Re:Not a cargo ship (Score:4, Interesting)
Well,technically it's a ship, I think. A quick search did not answer the question as to whether it is self powered. If it is, it's a ship (certainly not a 'cargo' ship). If it isn't it is a barge according to maritime right-of-way rules.
It's friggin large whatever you want to call it.
Funny, Shell is going to spent $20 BILLION or so on this thing for a 25 year lifespan (and perhaps another 25 with a whole lot of refurb). That's a lot of solar panels, insulation, wind mills and hell, even a nuclear plant or two.....
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Looks like it's generally recognized as the world's largest ship, even if it does not have the power to move itself: http://www.arcticgas.gov/flng-... [arcticgas.gov]
"Shell hopes to tow the vessel to the site — it won't have its own propulsion — and produce the first LNG cargoes by 2017."
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And the difference between a ship and a barge is a bit pedantic here. It's going to fit under the category of 'restricted mobility vessel' which means that , if you are captaining another ship, you have to give this monster right of way.
Of course, you would be perfectly insane to try to play chicken with it, no matter what you are piloting.
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Unless of course it's a lighthouse [snopes.com]. ;-)
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Dunno. A fully loaded LNG carrier (or processor) vs. a pile of rocks. Something you might want to see on a YouTube video. From a distance.
Re:Not a cargo ship (Score:5, Funny)
"I am captain of the world largest ship, change course at once and give us right of way"
"I am a lighthouse bulb changer, your call"
Re:Not a cargo ship (Score:4, Interesting)
That's a lot of solar panels, insulation, wind mills and hell, even a nuclear plant or two.....
But, if they are thinking $20 billion is worth it, you can be it is going to process a LOT more than that number in gas. My guess is they are looking at around $10 Billion/year return from their investment which gives them a 5 year payoff with operational costs. This beast will likely produce $250 Billion in revenue with about half that being profit.
No "green energy" installation of the same price would come close to this kind of profit.
Re:Not a cargo ship (Score:5, Informative)
You're numbers aren't even close:
3.6 million tonnes a year, projected.
http://www.bbc.com/news/scienc... [bbc.com]
1 million metric tons LNG = 52 trillion Btus
http://www.extension.iastate.e... [iastate.edu]
3.6 * 52 trillion
that's about 175 trillion BTUs.
Current price ~10 dollars per million BTU.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/his... [eia.gov]
1.75 Billion a year, BEFORE cost of operation.
Once again, when not using made up numbers, Green energies are the same.
Re:Not a cargo ship (Score:4, Interesting)
Which is a very odd claim - since you produce no numbers whatsoever for "green" energy.
And you forget that natural gas isn't just a source of BTU's - it's also a major feedstock for a variety of industrial processes. (A significant portion of "oil derived" plastics are actually derived from natural gas.)
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It sounds like the plan is for this ship to be the first of several, so the question is how much of that $20 billion investment is for upfront costs (design, shipyard upgrades, construction equipment) that will not be duplicated in subsequent ships. As it is, the first ship looks to probably at least break even or even make a decent profit (provided it works as expected) with bigger profits hopefully to follow. I am sure these numbers have been gone over very carefully. You don't make an investment this
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Based on mentions that they will tow it into place, that's a billion dollars for something that would be used for a few weeks and then left to sit for the next 25 years. Better to spend a few million dollars towing it into place. Less cost, and less machinery to go wrong over time.
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1.75 Billion a year, BEFORE cost of operation.
Once again, when not using made up numbers, Green energies are the same.
Thanks for the information.
I'd like to point out though, I made no secret of the fact that I was guessing based on sound business practice. If you don't make your money back in 5 years, there are better investments out there. Big Energy companies may be able to stretch this out to 10 years if they have enough cash flow, but if your numbers are correct, they are going to loose their shirts.
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If you don't make your money back in 5 years, there are better investments out there.
Low interest rates have been pushing timelines out. At 10%, 5 years makes sense. At under 5%, 10 years makes more sense.
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If you don't make your money back in 5 years, there are better investments out there.
Low interest rates have been pushing timelines out. At 10%, 5 years makes sense. At under 5%, 10 years makes more sense.
Hadn't thought of that, but what you say is correct, lower interest rates do mean longer ROI is possible. Personally, I think we are at the very end of low interest rates right now. Russia's latest rate hike is going to bite. Low energy prices will spur economic activity in pretty short order. All this will conspire so the Fed will be tightening the money supply.
I'd stay out of a 10 year ROI unless I can get bond rates under 2.5%. About the best a corporation can get is just under 4% for a 20 year, 10
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Personally, I think we are at the very end of low interest rates right now. Russia's latest rate hike is going to bite. Low energy prices will spur economic activity in pretty short order. All this will conspire so the Fed will be tightening the money supply.
Oh, I agree. The way I look at it - you look at any project, figure out the payoff, how long the payoff will take, the risk, etc... This results in an expected return percentage - it'll return the equivalent as though the money had been invested in a savings account of return X%.
The money flows to the highest returns first. Stuff that returns 100%. Today we're investing in things with 4% expected returns, because money is flowing so easily. It won't last, but it's happening.
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How on Earth can you just imagine numbers and so confidently make assertions based on them?
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It's called "sound business practice" and a few rules of thumb.
1. ROI must be break even in less than 5 years. So if you don't break even in that amount of time, you are wasting your investment dollars. If you are paying cash (not borrowing) to fund the project, you can possibly go longer, but you still need to show an annual return of better than 10% to make money over 10 years.
2. Manufacturing usually charges double the production cost for the product. Add up, labor, materials, energy, maintenance and
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How on Earth can you just imagine numbers and so confidently make assertions based on them?
You must be new here...
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The headline is wrong. This is not at all a cargo ship. It's more like an free-floating platform on which a gas refinery has been built. It will stay in place during its entire lifetime.
It should not even be compared to ships.
It may be freed from having to think too much about propulsion, but it still has to float, weather storms, and keep the crew alive and comfortable with water treatment, sewage treatment, laundry, cooking, etc. Not to mention providing all the functions of a refinery on an island made out of steel. It's an FPSO [slashdot.org] but for LNG. That kind of vessel is considered a ship, and not an rig, for the purposes of most class societies such as Lloyds or the American Bureau of Shipping.
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It's a ship if that affects in which countries it can be registered [wikipedia.org].
Not a cargo ship, a landing strip (Score:1)
Something this size would be hard to miss.
SpaceX to Prelude: Incoming!
What could possibly go wrong?
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This is specifically a ship. It's entire point is that it can move on its own power like a ship, instead of having to be towed to a new location as it is with platforms and barges today.
What is true however is that it's not specifically a cargo ship as much as a platform that is designed for extraction and temporary storage. LNG carrying ships are supposed to get gas from this ship and then handle the transportation part.
That's pretty cool (Score:5, Funny)
162 C below zero
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What I wonder is how long it will be before some mega rich person(s) decides to build a semi-permanent offshore city, not so much a rig, more a case of a huge boat that is actually anchored to the ground and you take boats TO it.
There'd be loads of technical hurdles, but given the sheer size of such a construction, the issues of waves would be lesser, more so if it is designed properly to deal with them. (not to mention the use of large-scale wave guides similar in design to metamaterials, which is being tested on some oil rigs last I remember)
Somebody even wrote up a technical manual [wikipedia.org] about this.
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What I wonder is how long it will be before some mega rich person(s) decides to build a semi-permanent offshore city, not so much a rig, more a case of a huge boat that is actually anchored to the ground and you take boats TO it.
It will happen approximately 47 years ago [wikipedia.org].
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Sealand isn't exactly a city, or visited by the mega rich.
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What I wonder is how long it will be before some mega rich person(s) decides to build a semi-permanent offshore city, not so much a rig, more a case of a huge boat that is actually anchored to the ground and you take boats TO it.
There'd be loads of technical hurdles, but given the sheer size of such a construction, the issues of waves would be lesser, more so if it is designed properly to deal with them. (not to mention the use of large-scale wave guides similar in design to metamaterials, which is being tested on some oil rigs last I remember)
I'm not sure what the benefit of that would be over the very large mega-yachts the super-rich currently use - they're mobile, so they get the benefits of going to places around the world in luxury, plus being able to move out of the way of bad weather, etc.
I suppose the possible sheer _scale_ of a floating city has an appeal as a display of wealth to some.
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It's not worth it because of maintenance costs. Large ships have extremely complex structures which require constant ongoing maintenance and stops for significant maintenance once every few years at the very least.
Modern large yachts that billionaires own are typically the "optimal" in terms of size in that they're big enough to basically have about as much room as a city block without being prohibitively difficult to maintain and require consistent downtime.
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To things explode, you need combustible and oxidant. You have only the combustible, and the oxigen from air is not enough to make the shipo explode. And if you look closely, the well are deep underwater.
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what could go wrong with a fire nozzle like that attached to a natural gas well?
Here you just might have an earth shattering 'kaboom'.
BBC is stuck in the dark ages (Score:2)
"You need to install Flash Player to play this content."
Is this 2004?
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You want to bet the video is already in H.264?
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Interesting end... (Score:2)
I can imagine Falcon 9 mistakenly trying to land on that ship. A not so happy end for both the ship and the rocket.
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And the controllers who somehow managed to land the rocket on the OTHER side of the planet.
I'm sure 'ol Elon is worried about this particular scenario.
Something new for my oldest to get interested in (Score:4, Interesting)
A big boat! (Score:4, Interesting)
I live in a port city and see lots of ships, but I'm not sure this baby could even enter the harbour here.
It's far bigger than what the Panama Canal can handle (maximum 290 meters long) [wikipedia.org], as well as the Saint Lawrence Seaway (225 meters) [wikipedia.org]. The Panama Canal was designed for the largest ships of the day, RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic.
...laura
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The Panama Canal is being expanded to handle larger ships. These are "superpanamax".
In the US, harbors are in the middle of legal entanglements by environmentalists to deepen harbors by 5 feet to handle them, 7+ year battles, longer than the canal took.
Meanwhile, China is building an even bigger canal for even bigger ships.
The center of empire has shifted. The empire that keeps the trade routes open prospers. An empire that turns to lording over its own people falters.
Goodnight, Irene. Your kids will li
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Built by Samsung (Score:3, Funny)
There's quite a bit of rounded edges on that ship. Watch out, Apple might sue.
Because what we need is more gas!!! (Score:1)
because it's too damn cold on this planet.
Couldn't the brilliant engineering minds and business minds who built this put their brains to work on some technology that is actually going in the right direction?
Please remember we need to be substantially off fossil fuels by mid-century. Time is ticking.
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So what's the answer? And don't put it on "brilliant engineering minds" to figure something out for you. Tell us what a good, economical, and environmentally sound option should be.
1. Renewables? A massive decrease in the cost of petroleum does not make the economics of renewables, especially solar, more attractive.
2. Nuclear? Good luck convincing regulatory bodies, the population, and environmentalists that's the best way to go. Besides, nuclear waste is a real problem, and we are in the perpetual state of
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Solutions (so sensible that they are guaranteed political suicide):
1. A carbon tax, starting off modest, but with a growth escalator built in and known in advance to assist planning of transition.
Note: Since we know the economy did ok with oil priced double what it is now, the carbon tax need not start out so modest. It could be adaptive, so that for example retail gasoline prices are made roughly what they just were over the last 5 years (average), as a starting point for the tax to kick off system-transit
KaBOOOOM!!!!! (Score:1)
nt
Alien (Score:2)
Sure hoping for a better outcome.
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Except about twice the size. I love reading this stuff, it helps me extrapolate the possible cost for spaceships in RPG games.
It is so big ... (Score:2)
Putin (Score:2)
I bet these guys couldn't beleive their luck when Putin anounced he was cancelling the European gas pipleline a few weeks ago.
Hmm (Score:1)
Be interesting to see some pollution metrics for this things processing.
Video (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
another (Score:2)
Yeah... but.... (Score:1)
It is 488 meters long and 74 meters wide
Yeah... but, how many football stadiums is that?
Energy in perspective (Score:2)
This ship is a marvel, and showcases the truly impressive capabilities of modern shipbuilding industry. What isn’t mentioned, but is equally impressive, is the rate at which such shipyards can turn out new ships, and the surprisingly low cost. However, one can’t help but lament that this capability isn’t being used to produce ThorCon reactors [thorcon-energy.com], instead of draining resources for a quick profit. (Do have a look at the white paper, it provides fascinating perspective.)
This LNG ship extracts
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...and it will be depleted if we continue to pump it out of the ground. We need a sustainable and carbon-neutral replacement, and synthetic carbon-neutral fuels can be created with nuclear heat. Today, ammonia is produced using natural gas as a feedstock, but it can also be created with nuclear heat. With abundant energy, most anything can be produced, and LNG is no exception.
Either way it would be better to look for alternatives, rather than heating our homes and producing fertilizer with something that
What does this mean for Australia? (Score:1)
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One typhoon later Deepwater Horizon will look like child's play in comparison.
Well its a good thing that this floating facility is not in the pacific then.
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Tasman sea (where it is going first) still has 'cyclones' I believe.
It's supposed to be able to deal with a 100+ year storm (185 km / hr winds IIRC). Not that I want to sitting on untold tons of explosives and and things that spark when they break in a hurricane / cyclone, but that's just me.
Re:An enormous natural disaster waiting to happen (Score:5, Funny)
Gob forbid all that natural gas leak into the water? Who will clean up a natural gas slick?