this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
231 points (98.3% liked)
Tech
480 readers
1 users here now
A community for high quality news and discussion around technological advancements and changes
Things that fit:
- New tech releases
- Major tech changes
- Major milestones for tech
- Major tech news such as data breaches, discontinuation
Things that don't fit
- Minor app updates
- Government legislation
- Company news
- Opinion pieces
founded 9 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Next they should replace the diesel engines with bigass electric motors, and put solar panels over every top surface of the vessel that they can, and even possibly on the sail-wings too. Wind and solar powered shipping would be a good combo since there are plenty of both out on the seas. Charge the boat batteries at port as needed, cruise while collecting solar power etc
Great idea but a cargo ship has like 2% top surface showing, the rest is containers of future landfill :(
I'm sure they could put temporary solar panels on the containers. It would be more work but would it save enough on fuel to make it worth it? Who knows.
Even without doing the math, I feel pretty confident saying that the answer is "no."
The amount of fuel these ships consume to propel themselves is astronomical. Petroleum fuel has a waaaayy higher energy density than lithium batteries. Around 46 MJ/kg vs 6 MJ/kg...it's simply not practical.
Nuclear ships on the other hand...
Edit: This isnt really a fair comparison because of the efficiency differences between ICEs and electric motors but it does show the energy storage inefficiency per kg of current battery storage technologies. Not sure if there's a better comparison metric to use...
maybe a roll-out top made of those flexible panels that is extended when ship is loaded. I guess securing it though with wind and stuff might be a problem
Could make a solar roof on hinges over the cargo
I have a 4'x10' flatbottomed boat. Of the 40sq./ft. I cover 45% in solar to make a modest trolling motor go 6-7mph. Weight with myself, wife, battery, cells, misc. gear: 300lbs.
Solar ain't gonna get it on a cargo ship weighing 165,000 tons and a couple of football fields long.
Flat bottomed boats they make the rocking world go round.
Maybe something like diesel-electric that they use with trains with solar panels providing some of the electricity is a more realistic thought.
Batteries are part of what I said, which you seem to be ignoring. A ship that huge could hold some huge-ass batteries to power the bigass motors. Sodium-ion batteries would be the ideal solution with presently available technology.
Nowhere near the power density needed to get the job done
Not even close to enough surface area to power them with solar. Even if the entire ship held up a solar array that completely shadowed the ship would it be enough.
They already are propelled by electric motors - but the electricity is generated by massive fossil fuelled generators.
I look forward to hydrogen-fueled ships and hydrogen-fueled planes. That's going to be fun.
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Are you copyrighting your comment?
Against commercial AI, yes.
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Can an instance blanket copyright all of their users comments?
Also, I'm not sure why you're getting down voted, sorry.
They probably get the right to distribute it because that's their primary purpose. But I'm not sure if they get the right to distribute it under another license? No idea... copyright is beyond me.
However, if it gets commercial AI makers in trouble, that's fine by me.
Eh, not a problem. They're just make believe points. Of no importance.
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0