Are Renewable Powered Ships Possible?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
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[1] www.statista.c...
[2] www.vesseltrack...
[3] investor.maers...
[4] preview.thenews...
[5] transportgeogr...
[6] www.maersk.com...
[7] www.matec-conf...
[8] www.mar.ist.utl...
[9] theicct.org/si...
[10] www.sciencemag...
[11] splash247.com/...
[12] cmacgm-group.c...
[13] insideclimaten...
[14] www.mdpi.com/2...
[15] safety4sea.com...
[16] www.energy.gov...
[17] theicct.org/si... Thank you to AP Archive for access to their archival footage.
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Hey all, sorry for the delay with this upload. Having a bit of a rough mental health month, which is the first time in many years it has impacted my work this badly. We had a version of this ready to go for Saturday, but I was so checked out that I missed many problems. On the mend, nothing I can't handle!
damn
converting current combustion engines to hydrogen combustion is the only realistic way forward, and it can be done cheaply and easily
Hope you will get better soon. Hi and thanks for the great educational videos from Spain.
Hope you feel better soon & thanks for the great content ❤️
Keep your head up! The content can always wait.
"I need to do more research on the topic to form an opinion"
most underrated sentence ever.
Not really, most bio fuels are just pork.
SUPRISE! I am the funniest YTer evah!!!! Just kidding, it was no surprise. Everybody knew already. HAHAHHAHA!!!! That was an amazing joke (it was real talk though). WAWAWAWAWA!!!! Good afternoon, dear alex
@@AxxLAfriku are you ok
Most underused sentence ever.
This is what pro-nuclear people say before they realise they are pro-nuclear.
Renewable transportation game:
Select your difficulty:
Causal - Railway
Easy - Cars
Medium - Trucks
Hard - Ships
Nightmare - Airplanes
Actually ships would be the easiest to convert to renewable energy... They aren't concerned about weight as much as trucks or planes
@@anonymousarmadillo6589 They are governed by size of canals and that is another set of issues.
@@cmdr1911 Yes, but they are not sensitive to a couple of kilos as trucks or cars are.
@@anonymousarmadillo6589 See what happens as you increase weight. Ships the same size sit lower in the water, require more power and will force a redesign of weight distribution. By far the best thing would be to use natural gas today and transition to using RNG from sewage and agricultural in the future since ports are typically near major cities and the US alone could produce 30% of today's natural gas demand from waste products.
Hardcore: Rockets
Wind power :
"You could not live with your own failure."
"Where did that bring you?"
"Back to me."
To address the suggestions that sail power is the answer I offer the following. In 1870 a premium sailing vessel entered service, the ‘Cutty Sark’, she could carry around 600 tonnes of cargo at speeds of up to 17.5 knots, dependent on the prevailing wind, to harness the energy the available spread of canvas was up to 2 976m2. To round things out that was circa 5m2 of canvas for every tonne of cargo carried. The ‘Cutty Sark’ was designed and built for employment in the tea trade where time on passage was a large factor in securing the premium freight rate that made her cost effective but as soon as the Suez Canal opened, which the ‘Cutty Sark’ was unable to sail through, she lost her advantage, raw speed, to the steam powered ships of that era. Mechanically powered ships have improved in terms of efficiency, on a freight tonne mile basis, by at least one order of magnitude since then. After losing out to the coal burning, steam reciprocating mechanical ships of the late 19th century ‘Cutty Sark’ was relegated to the Australian wool trade, just about the bottom of the barrel in maritime terms and only one small step up from being a 'honey barge'. The canvas, cordage and extra manpower needed for sailing ships was never a very benign environmental option so please discount any idea of sail as ‘sustainable’. All this is without the problem that if ‘the wind don’t blow the ship don’t go’, when it does blow it often blows in the wrong direction for your cargo delivery needs and sometimes there is rather too much of it for comfort.
@Allen Loser Yes, I fell into the 'other' exam candidates folly; never mind the question display the knowledge you have! Still working on this though. Energy harvest is the key point, where does the energy come form and what is the cost of getting it to where you need it. With the side issue of how much do we need?
@Allen Loser The best resolution to the ‘side issue’ is still reduced consumption, both by reducing the number of individuals and their per capita resource use. WRT establishing a credible correlation between ‘a credible cost versus benefit analysis’ this is rather like ‘count the chairs, measure the table’. With the added difficulty of convincing a sceptical audience, at what stage does ‘evidence’ become ‘proof’? The cost of improvements, such as reduction of sulphur in hydrocarbon fuel, is easier to determine than the balancing benefit, the improved atmospheric environment for which the loss of commercial opportunity is often substituted. A last thought on the ‘Cutty Sark’ illustration is now, but may not have been when I posted that part of the sub thread to you, ‘All this is without the problem that if ‘the wind don’t blow the ship don’t go’, when it does blow it often blows in the wrong direction for your cargo delivery needs and sometimes there is rather too much of it for comfort.’
@Allen Loser Good morning Allen. Something of a days 'work here', to avoid any 'off the cuff' remarks it will be at least 8 hours before I can address all the points you raise. Blue Crude will be a research project all its own, sulphur content in crude oil was usually indicated by how 'sweet' or 'sour' the crude was, sweet (low sulphur) crude did tend to have a premium over sour but often availability and processability tended to be the key factors in crude purchase decisions.
@Allen Loser If they still have LSD & ULSD in your area what is the price differential? I am taking ‘greed’ to be ‘enlightened and socially responsible self interest’. Sulphur is a corrosive and while not a lubricant in and of itself, it can combine with the nickel content in many metal alloys to form a low melting point eutectic alloy that can increase lubricity. The process used to reduce the sulphur also reduces the fuel's lubricating properties. Earlier information from my days hanging about the petroleum labs was that sulphur had some ‘lubricant properties’ which is why lubricity became an issue when in the early 1990’s ULSD was introduced, leading to much chatter about HFRR (high frequency reciprocating rig) performance and 'wear scar' values. If the wear scare was ‘off’ additives were, and still are, introduced into the blend to get the product back ‘on spec’. In Sweden Preem produce ‘bio diesel’ from forestry industry by product which is sold at the same pump price as fossil fuel; but supply of this ‘green’ fuel is limited by forestry production. My own vehicle use is a pre-owned high mileage Otto cycle Ford Focus running on E85, a blend available in Sweden that is 85% ethanol. The ethanol is mainly sourced from the Brazilian sugar industry and surprisingly though common in Sweden this grade is not available in the neighbouring countries; Norway, Denmark or Germany. The previous car I ran was a TDI (Diesel cycle) Ford Mondeo bought from my employer at the end of the corporate lease and again high mileage at purchase but when it stopped being economical to maintain at 17 years of age I downsized; the Mondeo, which ran on ULSD, had no fuel injector or DPF (diesel particulate filter) problems either from my own experience or in the service history.
"I need to look into the subject in more detail, to form a more solid opinion."
Take notes politicians, this is how to create a healthy environment for debates.
Much respect
+
Don't be ridiculous - we need to take action NOW or the planet will cease to exist in 20 years. We must ban all fossil fuels right away, for a start. The time for debate is over. It's settled science.
@@commentsboardreferee7434 May we rest in peace in this case because fossil fuels aren't going away. It's a settled market
@@commentsboardreferee7434 you might be right, the more we drag on this over consumption the more it will impact the entire industrial world, including the fossil fuel industry. We are already in big debt to our environment, one day it will bust.
Politians are skilled lyars payed actors, they will say whatever they are payed to. Do not trust a word they say.
"Nice boat you got there, what's its MPG?"
"207 tons per day"
Hahahah 🤣
Man, never apologise for having a bad mental health month! We care about you more than your content! Please put yourself first! Your content is honestly amazing, and I don't think I'm alone in thinking that it's frankly invaluable! But your mental health is so much more important than your content!
Agreed. It's far more renewable to solve the problems now before rushed choices impact your videos for months and years to come!
@@alexsis1778 no pun intended
Sir, this is a Wendy's.
Energy-related problem: *Exists*
Nuclear Power gang: "Allow us to introduce ourselves"
What could go wrong putting nuclear reactors on ships owned by private companies and sailing through pirate-infested waters?
*collides* with another nuclear powered ship
@@kariminalo979 Not an impossible challenge to solve, in fact, it's quite easy to counter
@@apacheattackhelicopter8185 Most nuclear reactors were designed by private companies, built by private companies and operated by private companies, the private ownership is irrelevant.
well the US did with it s carriers.
Hey Brian,
I'm usually one of the quiet viewers, that never comment on a video but I just wanted to say that your videos and the messages that come with them inspired me to start studying mechenical engineering (this autumn) and I just wanted to thank you for that!
I hope you did more research beforehand, otherwise you are in for a bad awakening. You will not spend your time studying technologies on such a general makro level, however these days you will learn a lot about electronics, and you will spend a lot of time with graphs and maths.
@@MisterJingo93 It wasn't a spontaneous idea and I did some research beforehand. Did you also study mechanical engineering?
As someone who did study mechanical engineering and has been in the field for 30 years, I strongly recommend you to attend a program that has an option for a co-op program. I did, and while it extended my four-year degree to six, I had three years of experience when I graduated (it included summers for both school and work), I had no debt, and I had a better idea of what was important and what was not in my studies in later years. Also, after I graduated, I had *one* interview and was hired within the week.
Good luck, and get many opinions other than mine!
Good luck, Martin! I am 79 and spent most of my life as an Engineer, finishing up as a designer. I enjoyed (almost) every day. Playing with expensive toys, at someone else's expense, and getting well paid for doing it! I once fell into the trap of people management but it meant that I wasn't practising engineering so quickly back-tracked. Best decision I ever made.
I studied ME in the late 80s and spent 2 years in a ME role before branching out due to the lack of job opportunities. I spend more time managing Electrical and IT/Telco projects these days. A great grounding but decent jobs are scarce.
I think there's a mistake in the "world co2 emissions"-chart. The info under 'waste', has also been placed under 'agriculture'.
Also 'the Dutch West India Company' should probably be 'the Dutch East India Company'.
@@edomeindertsma6669 No Dutch East was in the Indian Ocean and the Dutch West was in the Atlantic
@James Smith carbon dioxide also reduces the nutritional value of food.
@James Smith go ahead look it up
@James Smith Sure is. It's also a greenhouse gas responsible for anthropogenic global warming. Many things in the world have more than one effect. Water is nice to drink, but you can also drown in it and if you heat it up to steam, that's also a greenhouse gas.
“Only 780 ships”... that’s a lot of ships for one company,
When you consider that those 780 ships are transporting 17% of all freight by sea. Including oil, containers, etc. It's really not that many.
@@5tr4nge75 You are right. At least how I see it he might be referring to the concentration of wealth and power to a select few companies in the world.
The US Navy has less than 350-500 warships
He did say it was the biggest shipping company in the world, why are you surprised?
But for 17 percent it is less
Been hearing about he mental health struggle you've been going through, glad to see another quality upload but please make sure you get the support you need! Sending love from Canada!
Mental health is so underrated. When you are trying to do something good and meaningfull, you have to ask yourself tough questions all the time. +working primarly by your self on those big projects needs a lot of self motivation.
This is a hard burden to carry.
Nuclear powered ships are very cool. They can drive for decades without refueling and are independent on weather or climate conditions.
Just doesn't seem efficient for what they need
@@Aaron-wq3jz how so?
@@Pyriphlegeton well first you have to develop different reactors for different sized ships. Then redesign the structure of the ships due to weight of the reactors. Then the fuel is gonna cost more as u buy more material if suppliers cant keep up with demand. Then u gotta pay 2+ nuclear engineers 200k per ship. And when the ships service life ends that's even more money safely disposing the nuclear fuel. And the one if you main benifits of nuclear fuel is the ability to quickly increase power output which they really dont need to increase speed that quickly. Not to mention having having multiple companies who vary in how shady or trust worthy being in control of dozens of ships with nuclear fuel on it if mismanaged it could end up in th wrong hands. it just seems that the areas where nuclear fuel is efficient shipping companies don't care about or already have solutions on the way. And where nuclear fuel is inefficient is very expensive and complicated
@@Aaron-wq3jz It’s already been done economically. The Otto Hahn operated profitably using nuclear propulsion for several years. Additionally, there have been substantial developments in compact reactors recently.
@@Aaron-wq3jz a single NuScale SMR reactor module could in theory provide the power for a Triple E class container ship and i doubt it is much bigger or heavier than the two diesel engines
A video on biofuels will make for an interresting future topic. I work at a biodiesel plant in the US and we produce unfathomable quantities of fuel and other products. At our facility, we convert every portion of soy beans into a marketable product with virtually no waste in that regard. The fat is extracted from the solids which are converted into feed for livestock and then the fat goes through a chemical step to turn it into biodiesel and glycerol, which is further refined to a food grade glycerol. This process requires acids, bases, and catalysts at different steps, and we use steam from a central boiler to add heat as needed. As you've said, efficiency is vital when working with the scales that we do, but given all the carbon put into getting the beans to us, the fuel produced is far from carbon neutral. However, given the amount of farmland in the midwest that is best suited for feed products, converting soy into non-food products is a necessity to sustain midwest farming and the livestock producers that rely on the low cost feed it produces. My own conclusion, based on insufficient research, is that biodiesel specifically does not function as a step towards carbon neutrality but does provide a great variety of benefits that are realized in surprising places.
Nah at the rate we use fuel biofuels are also fueling mass deforestation and other issues amongst other things
@biohazardlnf user @Eric Lotze made this comment:
When most people hear "Biofuel" they think soybean oil etc -> biodiesel, corn->ethanol, and MAYBE anerobic digestion->biogas (and optinal upgrading to natural gas specs) This was all generation 1 -ish The recent stuff is much less of a food vs fuel arguement Mainly: - Algae as a feedstock (can grow in many places, grows VERY fast) - HTL and Pyrolysis to produce "Bio-Crude" oil (Which (to a certain extent) can be a "drop in replacement" for refineries - Cellulose etc -> ethanol ALSO There are many other products that will be NEEDED that require some form or refinery: - Lubricants - Plastics - Propellants (in aerosol canisters) - Refrigerents (Butane is a common one) - etc ALSO Biochar / Carbon Black (From methane -> hydrogen + cng, or other processes) can be buried for Carbon Sequestration Also the storage infastructure for methane and liquid fuels allows for energy storage via Power-to-X and Biofuels in all of the current "salt domes"
@Zaky-Bear
RE: ". . . we produce unfathomable quantities of fuel and other products."
I'm sure that the production engineering managers know EXCATLY how much is produced per hour, per day, per week, per month and per year.
@Allen Loser Do you know why most of the midwest grows primarily feed crops? Land and rain are plentiful, so growing at large scale is the best way to increase profits. Relatively few food crops can be grown at the scales that this region can support and none are in nearly as high of demand as feed crops. Soy based biodiesel only uses a portion of the bean. A large portion still is used as feed products. Only the soybean oil is used to make fuel and even then, glycerol is produced as a side product which also has food use. There are some food products that use soybean oil, but once again, fuel has the greater size demand, which has served to drive down the price of the food grade oil as well since more beans can be grown per acre than virtually any other crop.
@@spaceman081447 There is a difference between quantifying and understanding. If I told you that the average railcar carried 200 tons of meal and one customer buys 10 railcars each week to feed their poultry, you would know how many pounds those birds ate each week, but that doesn't mean you can even guess at how large the barns are that hold all those birds, or how many workers are involved in raising them.
This got released literally 15 min before my essays deadline. Topic of the essay "Cargo ships and the enviroment"..........
GOT LUCKY HUH?!
Welcome onboard then ;) , I handed my exam in on Hydrogen-Based Fuel Cell Technology within the shipping industry some days ago
and? Was it a confirmation of the contents/conslusion of your essay, or did it show sometime you'd omitted to write about? Just curious :-)
My assignment spesified to only look at the environmental aspect of a technology, but had about the same conclussion even when not looking at cost
@@MacSvensson I got to the same conclusion though the concept of the Flettner rotor (7:00) was completely new
Great video!
９７％ ｏｆ ｔｅｅｎａｇｅｒｓ ｗｏｕｌｄ ｃｒｙ ｉｆ ｔｈｅｙ ｓａｗ Ｊｕｓｔｉｎ Ｂｉｅｂｅｒ ｏｎ ａ ｔｏｗｅｒ ａｂｏｕｔ ｔｏ ｊｕｍｐ． Ｉｆ ｙｏｕ ａｒｅ ｏｎｅ ｏｆ ｔｈｅ ３％ ｓｉｔｔｉｎｇ ｔｈｅｒｅ ｗｉｔｈ ｐｏｐｃｏｒｎ， Ｓｃｒｅａｍｉｎｇ ＂ＤＯ Ａ ＢＡＣＫＦＬＩＰ＂ ｔｈｅｎ ｃｏｐｙ ａｎｄ ｐａｓｔｅ ｔｈｉｓ
@@bapposp5 no shut up
Ship propellers are also optimized for a specific speed. Changing the ships speed, velocity of advancement and propeller rpm has a negative effect on the overall propulsion efficiency.
I'd almost agree, but if shipbuilders can adapt the propeller designs used in nuclear submarines, the result would be ships that can generate a lot of propulsive thrust but with higher efficiency and more importantly, reduced issues from cavitation (cavitation forces can cause all kinds of problems, especially shortening the life of propellers).
@@Sacto1654 I suspect nuclear subs need to operate at a much greater range of speeds and as such sacrifice high efficiency at a narrow band of speeds to achieve this. Engineering is always about tradeoffs!
Iirc, some of the latest propeller designs are actually able to change the pitch of the blades much like modern turboprop aircraft can, whole still not as effective at certain speeds as something dedicated, it is better then they were. It is an expensive and complex system though.
@@Sacto1654 What you're describing are called controllable pitch propellers. They change the blade pitch based on speed and propeller rpm to keep the efficiency constant within a limited range. These are generally not used in commercial shipbuilding because of higher complexity and cost. Keep in mind military and commercial shipbuilders have very different objectives and requirements. I'd love to hear a military naval architects thoughts on this (if the subject is not classified), but I'd guess that nuclear subs don't have controllable pitch propellers for the sake of efficiency, but to minimize cavitation and thus reduce the acoustic signature.
@@FighterAceee94 The reason why I mention this: you wonder can they build six-blade propellers specifically for large container ships for optimized operation in the 16-20 knot range. Not only for lower fuel consumption, but also to reduce the physical effects of cavitation, which can be strong enough to break not only propellers, but the driveshaft itself.
“It’s important to convert these ships to renewable technologies when their time comes” Is it? It seems like they are barely making a dent. Not that it’s a bad idea but how high on the priority list should it be if they are less than 2% of global emissions?
Well, thats the issue, you can say that for pretty much anything.
Cars, trucks, trains, ships, airplanes, mines, powerplants, factories, offices, datacentres, homes.
If you split it all up, everything only is a relatively small part of the problem and for every part people will say "should this be a high priority?"
It is also why it is such a humongously difficult problem to solve. Solving each of these parts alone are already huge undertakings for humanity. And then to realize that each individually makes barely a dent and we need to fix them all.....
5:25. Ah yes, the USS Deaware. It’s okay. I had a typo on my thesis
@@antondegroot6061 Exactly, net zero means we have to find a solution for all the small parts, so we should work on solutions for every part of it now, instead of pushing it off for the future.
Ships and aircraft are harder than cars and electrical generation. Do the easy stuff first.
Especially when you consider that their carbon capture technology we can us to make up for it
Great video! One thing that is important to consider is to actually reduce the total amount of kilometers traveled. If we can bring manufacturing closer to end consumers by regionalizing industries instead of traveling around the world then we can have large improvements in co2 reduction. Obviously still keep shipping not shift to land transportation.
Reducing economies of scale might actually make it worse.
my masters group project was in designing a zero emissions ferry. I am also potentially doing a PhD in sail powered containerships. im hopefull
Anyway I could contact you sir ? I'm a Marine engineer looking for a decent project topic
Just don't think biogas is answer, shape of lng containers prevents it's high capacity storage on bulkers, roros and ropas
There are always emissions, human sweat at the very least from rowing. I suspect there is going to be an LCA in the project somewhere so once the group decide what the group wants to prove just adjust the choice of functional unit, measured parameters and boundary limits to get the desired results.
If you’re going through rough times, please don’t give up.
Better times are coming ❤️
Lies.
The ships are still coming, so all good 😋
Winston Churchill said ‘if you are going through hell, keep going’. However someone else said ‘if your find yourself in a hole, stop digging’. The real problem is knowing just which sort of mess you are in.
yes death is coming ..
@@hoppy7375 the only certainties in life, death and taxes, some septic said that or ACTAFI.
I am not any sort of engineering genius or fanatic, but I am always going to love your videos.
New Real Engineering video!? LET'S GOOOO
converting current combustion engines to hydrogen combustion is the only way. it can be done cheaply and easily
How did you make it through that entire video without once mentioning nuclear power?
Because its not renewable
@@isakjohansson7134 we that Arguement...the moon won't last to control the tides. The sun will not exist so no photons or atmosphere for earth so now wind.
We can do fusion and fission
@@TheMagicJIZZ fission is hard, dangerous and a long term pollutant.
@@TheMagicJIZZ i didnt mean to sy nuclear was bad, all i meant was that its not renewable and dont think the moon or sun will disappear anytime soon
@@TheMagicJIZZ before moon or sun will disappear there will be a lot more problems... like a lot A LOT.
Maybe we should give Maersk special dispensation to use civilian nuclear reactors. Worst-case scenario, if there's a meltdown, they could eject the reactor core (just like in Star Trek!) and drop it to the bottom of the ocean where it can't hurt anyone. Seawater is a fantastic radiation shield.
I'm so glad channels like you and real science exist. you guys put out some very interesting stuff that's fun to learn about. I think educational channels like you guys need more attention
@Saluki N Fair enough, I was just saying that real science and real engineering should probably get more attention as I like those channels the most
Could we not use Nuclear cargo ships?
Yes we could do that but it is simply to expensive to use commercialy
@@mathias8987 was meaning on some of the largest ships. Ones where it'd be financially viable to have such engines, also supplemented with the wind things mentioned in the video.
@@RobinHilton22367 could probably be used on those huge ships but a sinking would be far more catastrophic in terms of pollution
@@mathias8987 I don’t think it’s too expensive. It doesn’t compete with fossil fuels, but the costs aren’t out of control by any means. We’d have to see what alternative fuels cost to really get a proper impression. There has been interest from shipping companies in nuclear propulsion.
Why not? The ships should be nearly completely safe
5:26 Not trying to sound super critical but you have a typo saying Deaware instead of Delaware
Was about to comment this. Evidently its not considered that big of a deal though, not like its misspelling Californa or Tixas, that would actually be a big deal. But a small, mostly unknown state like Delaware? Eh who cares
I always thought to make ships renewable it would take a mix of hydrogen and wind power, but I never new there was a wind alternative that was not sails until watching this video. Cool.
With the reductions of speeds sailing is becoming competitive as main power for boats.
A French startup called Neoline is currently working with partners to invent the first sail propelled cargo ship for transatlantic shipping.
Can’t wait to see the majestic big sails on the horizon !
Godspeed !
That seems extremely unlikely to ever be used commercially, which is the most important detail.
@@srs6461 Well, its a step.
And maybe we find a combination of all of it.
A Batterie powered Containership, using Hydrogen and Sails, that combined with Flettner Rotors.
Expensive, for sure but i guess its just "slightly" more compared to the overall costs of a Containership.
@@srs6461 why?
0 fuel costs
Even if it takes 5 times as long to cross, the cost reduction could probably make it viable
hey im sorry i gotta spoil something for you - it is not even close to the first sail propelled cargo ship, thats been around for some several thousand years
I remember reading an article proposing that ships could fly kites up into the high altitude winds to act as sails.
I think the company who wanted to do that went bankrupt. But Wallenius - a Swedish ship producer - wants to build the Oceanbird in 2024, a smaller cargo ship that uses wingsails to partially power itself through wind like smaller hightech catamarans are doing it.
What I would love to see is if you could fit a ship already using wingsails with a flying kite wind power plant. Because you could get a bit of acceleration from the kite acting as a sail, but also electrical power from having it fly figure 8s in front of the ship. And I know it wouldn't produce much electricity compared to what the ship would need, only a few megawatts at best, but it could reduce fuel consumption a bit and maybe double as a small power plant in harbour cities once the ship is docked.
@@midnight8341 the flying kite power plant is not possible. A kitesail is typically moved into the best position to provide thrust so there would be no practical way to generate electricity
@@jamesday7339 yet a kitesail is not economically practical in comparison to a wingsail, at least according to the companies. So you could integrate a kite wind power plant into the ship, since the ship is practically stationary compared to the kite, since it is moving pretty slowly. And depending on what method you use to generate electricity, I think a part of it could be used as thrust, even if it would be miniscule.
@@midnight8341 there is no way to generate electricity using a kite sail. They only provide thrust and as for the economics of kitesails vs wingsails kitesails will win in 90% of ship types because the deck space is too congested and there is too much over deck work done when in ports
To address the suggestions that sail power is the answer I offer the following. In 1870 a premium sailing vessel entered service, the ‘Cutty Sark’, she could carry around 600 tonnes of cargo at speeds of up to 17.5 knots, dependent on the prevailing wind, to harness the energy the available spread of canvas was up to 2 976m2. To round things out that was circa 5m2 of canvas for every tonne of cargo carried. The ‘Cutty Sark’ was designed and built for employment in the tea trade where time on passage was a large factor in securing the premium freight rate that made her cost effective but as soon as the Suez Canal opened, which the ‘Cutty Sark’ was unable to sail through, she lost her advantage, raw speed, to the steam powered ships of that era. Mechanically powered ships have improved in terms of efficiency, on a freight tonne mile basis, by at least one order of magnitude since then. After losing out to the coal burning, steam reciprocating mechanical ships of the late 19th century ‘Cutty Sark’ was relegated to the Australian wool trade, just about the bottom of the barrel in maritime terms and only one small step up from being a 'honey barge'. The canvas, cordage and extra manpower needed for sailing ships was never a very benign environmental option so please discount any idea of sail as ‘sustainable’. All this is without the problem that if ‘the wind don’t blow the ship don’t go’, when it does blow it often blows in the wrong direction for your cargo delivery needs and sometimes there is rather too much of it for comfort.
You didn't mention Nuclear propulsion which is way more clean and efficient than any other solution currently available.
I think us nuclear energy fans need to create an alternative "Real Engineering" TH-cam channel, but the channel mainly talks about nuclear energy applications.
@@faragar1791 I think you´ll need to create your own channel called "solutions that could only work if no other factors would play any role"
@@stefan514 other factors, namely "nuclear fermongering".
@@faragar1791 do you know of any channels that do promote nuclear technology? I haven’t been able to find any and it would be nice to get away from the “nuclear is terrible” bullshit spread by uneducated people, like seriously some of the remarks about it on this video have no idea how it works
@@stefan514
Real Engineering already has dibs on that name considering the mountain of factors this channel overlooks when talking about implementing renewable energy sources.
Pretty sure renewable energy ships were first popularized by Carthage in 650 BC so I'll go out on a limb here and say yes.
Hence renewable _powered_ ships. Quinquiremes didn't have motors or turbines.
@@HowlingWolf518 Pretty sure wind and buff dudes are both renewable sources of power, wind was already touched on an as for the buff dudes, well I'm thinking some kind of hamster wheel should do the job
@@HowlingWolf518 people rowing is a renewable source of power lol
@@enricodragoni Somehow, I doubt longships are going to make a comeback.
Nope. They ran on heavy diesel.
12:16 hey thats the boat in the canal right now right?
Not sure on this screen the second part of the name looks longer than 'Given' but may be of the same class (a sister ship).
question : wouldn't nuclear be an answer ?
it works for carriers , why wouldn't it work for cargo ships ?
it's cost isn't it ?
Whilst I’m pro nuclear, people in other comments have pointed out current sea going nuclear isn’t suitable due to the need of such highly trained specialists onboard, but I feel things like SMRs would be perfect for the job
most likely no, its regulations, nuclear is extremely regulated, air carriers are military so getting over those regulations is easier, for a private companies tend to avoid big regulatory messes when they can
A big technical challenge is that Naval reactors use highly enriched uranium (90%+) in order to keep the reactor size small. Anything above 20% is difficult for civilian application because of proliferation risks and regulation. There are those in the shipping industry looking into it though.
@Grace O'Malley yeah I agree, we need to remove all the stupid politics from it
Nuclear naval propulsion has been a solved problem for 50 years. It could literally take over global shipping, at any point. The tool is ready, the engineering is solved. All it takes is for people to get off their superstitious asses and do it.
The main problem with any large scale vehicles like ships or planes being electric is specific energy of the batteries. Unless there is orders of magnitude change in energy density of the batteries which also are safe to use, I think we will have to rely on fossil or nuclear fuel
3:20 I'd love if the grid lines matched up with marks on the graph to make it easier to inspect the graph more closely.
I live in a port city so the scale of these ships is very easy to visualize and man are they HUGE!!!
Where do you live? I also live in a port city but we only get medium sized cargo ships :(
I saw a triple e it was huge
@@KAMZA. I live in the Norfolk, VA area. Norfolk is the deepest natural harbor on the east coast.
@@YHWHsam wow I didn't know that! Thank you for the info 😊
Why no mention of nuclear? Or electric?
the electric option at the end of the day is one way to use nuclear power, as there is simply no other energy source large enough
Electric is being done for very short trips measured in hours, not days. The batteries are simply not good enough for 30 day long ocean voyages.
@Longrangehunter Just to clarify: hydrogen means electric propulsion.
3:13
Is it really exponential? I feel like it should be approximately quadratic function, because power is a quadratic function of speed for air drag right? And water is just a different medium
if it would only be friction drag, then yes. But you have wave drag and other forms of drag too. So that's why it is exponential
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_equation all formulas for drag seem to be quadratic, and if you have different kinds of drags they are just added up. If you think I'm wrong please name a source
@@Beerfazz research for example froude number
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Froude_number
There are several effects which are not quadratic. In aviation for example the wave drag near the sound barrier. And for ships there exists a similar effect with it's own wave created at the bow. That's why the form of the bow is that important as real engineering stated in the video.
@BAT THINK 🤣😂
@BAT THINK Yeah you lost ne at "satanists and occultists".
Pass.
Fun fact: the ship pictured at 7:50 ran aground a few days ago in Mariehamn
those "sails" useing the magnus effect reminded me of something. there is a german company called Skysail that basically makes giant computer controlled air foil kites meant to drag cargo ships along the traditional trade routes that still follow mayor wind paths.
Okay I dont think they can fully drag them along but reducing the fuel consumption is their main goal I think...
they have been doing this for nearly 20 years now
I think you just got me interested in shipping in a single 15 minute video.
Brilliant, Saw your excellent piece on RTE, about Turlough Hill a couple of weeks ago. Great work!
Working to license the footage now to adapt it to my style for TH-cam. Some cringe moments in there for me! Not used to be on camera
@@RealEngineering Cringe is the RTÉ way!
@@RealEngineering I think that's more so RTE's overall style and through line. I've worked with them on a project a few years back and there was a little bit of that cringe. But overall an excellent piece. The girlfriend and I are going to visit Turlough hill once lockdown ends, on your recommendation.
@@paddyokearney Yeah, I'm not sure what it is. They just like the very loud and short shouty pieces to camera that suddenly stop as you turn and walk away from the camera. It just feels super unnatural for me. The interview sections were fun for me and I learned a tonne from the producers. Great team to work with. Just had to let go of my desire for creative control a little.
@@RealEngineering I suppose that's probably down more so to RTE overall narrative style. It's kinda weird, but this lockdown has me watching more 'local' content. Definitely be great to see the likes of your creative influence on the network.
1:40, CTC No.1, built in 1943, she’s a B class L6 Maritimer built during WW2 to haul iron ore to feed the war effort. She’s currently laid up in Chicago IL last serving as a cement Transfer Center (CTC) in 2009. She is owned by Rand logistics/Lower Lakes Towing. She can’t be easily scrapped due to aspestos.
9:37 Also, LNG refueling stations can be extremely dangerous.
Not true. LNG transportation unlike other areas of the industry is incredibly safe and strictly regulated with the industry never recording a serious incident during cargo transfer.
@@jameslane2615 Sure, as long as things continue as they are. But they're massive terrorism bullseyes and if something *does* go wrong, it goes really really wrong.
@@jameslane2615 I would much rather work on a ship with a heavy fuel oil leak, than a gas leak...
I really hope you will eventually do a video on different biofuels! But please, take your time, put your health first and take good care of yourself!
we need to get rid of fuels, they are the main problem, incresing efficiency of an inefficient technology makes no sense, electric is the only viable option that is better ine every way, biofuels are complete nonsense, so is hydrogen and e-fuels, its all nonsense fairytales.
I worked as a merchant marine engineer for a few years before retirement. The ships I sailed on were relatively small 30,000 ton bulk carriers with 14.000 hp and cruising at 14 kts. We burned approximately 200 BARRELS of heavy (very polluting) fuel oil and a few barrels of diesel for the generators every day while underway.
Are renewable ships possible?
Hyman G. Rickover: Hold my beer
And most of the people here have no idea who you are talking about.
@@poppys3728 I saw that name....some unpleasant memories came to the surface.
nuclear isn't renewable its just low emmisions
@@sabotabby3372
Nuclear is renewable on a timescale of millions or billions of years with more uranium leached from the earth's crust. The Sun is going to burn out in 5 billion years anyway.
@@gregorymalchuk272 that comment contributes absolutely nothing of value to this conversation
At 3:20, fuel consuption per distance traveled would be a better choice. But ok, I'll work out the percentages myself for homework :D
I was searching the comments for this, thanks for being faster than me! :D
With respect energy cost per freight tonne mile would be even better especially if there was value judgement of externalised environmental cost.
I've been recently wondering why high altitude power kites haven't been thought about for sea transport. I'm sure it would be an engineering nightmare to get them back from such heights, but using jetstreams seems like a effective way to reinvent the sail.
Joby
The problem i see with wind powered ships is for example
Sail boats are calculated as 1.5hp per sq ft of 60mph wind
So if you have a 100sq ft windmill its taking in 150hp of energy (112kws)
But that doesn't include generation efficiency which is about 70%
But if its a head wind blowing it is putting roughly 150hp of stopping power on the ship, well only generating roughly 105hp of electricity at 70% efficiency exchange
I.e its making more drag, then its making in power, costing more on fuel not less
no mention of nuclear?
Nuclear is not renewable, as there is a limited supply of U-235 in the world and it is irreversibly destroyed as it is used. It is low emissions (compared to coal) though.
its technically not really renewable, its sort of a fossil fuel since its made deep in stars and we cant easily manufacture or renewably harvest it. We have a set reserve on earth we can easily mine, the same as coal, and we can only use it to a certain degree before it gets spent. As technology improves we'll get more mileage out of a set amount of ore, but unlike solar or wind we cant indefinitely harvest it. It's still much better then coal or diesel and i think they should have talked more about it though, but maybe thats why he didnt.
I'm like 95% sure all ships were powered by renewables at one point. In fact, non-renewable powered ships are pretty recent.
@SAMUEL NAUMETS If you are looking just for eco friendlyness on those kinds of ships, then you have better options than renewable.
The way you say "but" is so satisfying. 😄
Nuclear reactors? I mean Russia already has a floating nuclear power plant.
Nuclear ships are nothing new, the Otto Hahn and NS Savannah were build in the 60s but were too expensive. Russia has their Icebreakers run on nuclear power. The technology is not a problem.
nuclear reactors ultimately rely on nuclear material which is once again finite and not renewable. then there also comes the issue of disposal of the used nuclear material which is radioactive. nuclear power can cut emissions but it will bring about a whole new problem if accommodated into such a scale which is why he said we have to choose the alternative very carefully moving forward as it will be catastrophic if we cannot deal with the consequences of the new chain of events it will bring. nuclear power should remain on a small scale like power plants for now.
@@kavikyu8703 there's enough radioactive materials to cover the whole of humanity's energy need for several thousand years, so that's far from being a problem.
Disposal of used material is not a bigger issue than toxic materials from industry that is toxic for all eternity, it's even a lot easier. The quantity is ridiculously low at worst.
Nuclear power should greatly increase, in small and large scale applications.
Nuclear reactors.
Technically not renewable, but it would definitely remove carbon emissions. The other concern is if you really want to place nuclear technology on civilian vessels.
@@parrizzer
Functionally zero fuel cost can help pay for the schooling needed
@@randomuser5443 i was referring to the possibility that governments might not like dozens of ships with nuclear reactors near their country
05:25 Behold, the mighty USS Deaware!
The only ship larger then the state it was named after!
Fantastic video as always Real Engineering, I hope you are feeling better by now. I wondered if you could expand on some of the engineering problems and solutions occurring in the agricultural space. In the graph, you showed from 2016 at 0:48 the industry is 18.4% [which is significantly greater than just the 1.7% of the shipping industry (still significant either way] of the world CO2 emissions and it would be fascinating to see how they are solving their transition to sustainability.
Are renewable ships possible?
Nah, we lost the technology to sew large sails of cloth. Tragic.
5:26 “deaware”
Could you maybe go into the engineering behind freefall lifeboats as found on container ships and oil platforms? They're fascinating pieces of equipment, with some very interesting design compromises.
I love how the Evergreen casually pops up in this video
Yes, it is possible and has been in use in the military since the 50s: nuclear propulsion.
Cleaner=yes. Renewable=no.
Small correction (if I'm not wrong)
3:12 "The fuel consuption rises exponentially with each knot of speed added ". That statement might actually be wrong: it rises with the cubic of the speed :
Power = Force * speed
Force = Drag = constant(depending on fluid, area etc) * speed^2
=> Power = constant * speed^3
And Fuel Consumption is directly related to power (also efficiency is to be taken into account for the calculation but it only add a multiplicative term in the expression).
I mean, we have nuclear and we have recycling nuclear reactors (waste based reactors)
@Papa Stalin
RE: "I mean, we have nuclear and we have recycling nuclear reactors (waste based reactors)"
I'm glad that someone finally brought up nuclear power and breeder reactors.
what we really need here is some portable fusion power and BIG rail guns on every ship. just because i said so.
They said carriers have killed the battleship, but when we get railguns, it will be an era of weapons that cannot be intercepted like missiles, so we will return to big gunned heavily armoured ships, and they’ll be sexy as
@@fraznofire2508 I think the problem there wold be that armor would be pretty useless. So its probably small very stalthy ships with a big gun.
@@thebaumfaeller1477 initially, but doctrine will be adjusted for when ships will be detected, they can’t avoid incoming rounds, and current ships wouldn’t be able to take the hit, then again, you may be right, as the armour might not even save them, and the smallest signature possible, the better
Forget the ships, just big rail guns in China. Shoot the freight across the Pacific!
@@thebaumfaeller1477 technology tends to leap frog like that. The first metal armor made many weapons almost useless, then armor piercing weapons like pikes and javelins came along, but then sturdier shields like the scutum came and made those weapons less effective, until the weapons got better. Later arrows like the bodkin point or crossbow bolts became better at piercing armor until plate armor made arrows and swords almost useless, then guns made heavy armor useless, until tanks became impervious to small arms, so we got anti tank guns. Kevlar made smaller bullets useless so we got larger, faster, stronger bullets. Every time a new defense comes along it takes awhile for weapons to surpass the defense, then it takes awhile for the weapon to beat it.
The answer is probably not. Giant electromagnetic sails initially make sense but they come at some serious downsides mainly that you can't use the deck for storage which severely limits capacity numbers. Generally speaking Shipping is dictated by three things crew cost, turnover time, carrying capacity, and speed. Now there could be smaller bulk ships (i.e. corn, coal, ore, etc) that uses wind sails type system because they need to keep the product in the berth. But you are extremely unlikely to see Container ships or break bulk ships use it due to it screwing with either cranes or carry capacity. We'll like continue to see container ships using diesel until either Efuel or Hydrogen replaces it due it requiring minimal changes.
I took some marine engineering courses before switching to chemistry.
"Betteridge's law of headlines" applies to this video.
2:30 because of the size and lifetime of those ships, they should have a nuclear reactor instead of diesel
Climate folks hate nuclear worse for some reason.
@Jeffery Lifsey
RE: "because of the size and lifetime of those ships, they should have a nuclear reactor instead of diesel"
Good for you! I'm glad to see someone else bring up the obvious solution: nuclear power!
'The truth about biofuels' coming out anytime soon?
love your videos!
The next, least bad, option is ‘alternative fuels’ or ‘bio fuels’ such as Ammonia (NH3), Biogas (basically good old CH4 or Methane) and Hydrogen (H2). All require growing, harvesting and processing which have fiscal, environmental and energy costs or impacts, before you get their energy to the point of use, and the use of which will generate effluents that will impact the global environment one way or another. Thomas Midgley, Jr. (born 18 May 1889 died 2 Nov 1944) was an American (USA) chemist who, as well as developing the technique of putting the lead (tetraethyl (TEL)) additive in petrol, created chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), yes those ozone depleting CFCs, so that the use of NH3 as a refrigerant could be discontinued. NH3 could be the most dangerous and least ‘clean’ clean energy source, it is very bad and probably deserves a rant all of its own; so let’s just leave that for a while (somewhere very far away that is cool, dark and quiet). CH4 lots of it around much of which comes out of the ground as a fraction of the FOGI energy mining; even more can be created (relatively expensively) from anaerobic degradation of organic matter. The organic matter may be algae, raw vegetation, food waste or vegetation pre-digested by domesticated livestock with the right (or wrong, depending on your point of view) sort of diet and gut fauna. CH4 is a lighter than air, vapour at environmental temperatures and pressures and you need to compress it, a lot, or cool it, a lot, to get enough on board your ship in manageable volumes to be useful; also bear in mind that the containment of the very cold (LNG) or high pressure (CNG) CH4 has mass and costs. Carry it as cargo and you can burn the ‘boil off’, when the latent heat of vaporisation has the co-activity benefit of keeping the cargo and the cargo system cold, otherwise more trouble and expense than merit and savings.
To liberate hydrogen (H2) from water you need a lot of energy and while fossil oil & gas, or perhaps coal, will do it and are the most readily available any energy source, wood, photovoltaic, wind, tidal, et cetera, will do. H2 is said to be good for use in fuel cells that will give clean energy when combined with Oxygen (O2) and leave only water (H2O) as an effluent; so as well as the cost of creating the hardware and separating out the H2 in the first place we now have the cost of providing the O2. H2 is very, very light and very, very volatile so this is where we remember the Hindenberg airship disaster and while events of that magnitude might not be likely much smaller H2 fires or explosions can cause a lot of damage. The ‘light’ means that though there is lots of energy per unit mass there is not much mass per unit of volume so all the problems of CH4 but much worse. You need to compress it, more than a lot, or cool it, more than a lot, to get enough on board your ship in manageable volumes to be useful. The alternative to fuel cell use of H2, burning, also generates combustion products which includes waste heat going to the cold sink and a few NOx ‘nasties’. H2 may have a place in the energy mix on land as a storage medium but on a ship where there is a reasonable and constant auxiliary power need the question could be posited, ‘why go through the extra stages instead of using the harvested energy directly?’ After harvesting the energy, from wind, sun or motion of the vessel, as electrical energy better to deploy that energy directly and immediately as heat, light or mechanical work. As with nuclear energy at sea some of the ‘alternatives’ may have a use in littoral submarines in AIP (air independent propulsion) systems but that will be with the same caveats of cost, space and complexity so would not perform in a high volume low cost mercantile situation. The numbers, on any of these, are getting very difficult to show any sort of surplus so is this a case of running hard to stand still?
Just use Nuclear Power Generators like nuclear submarines ,less space for fual,low cost,but we need to carefull 1000%
You think the environmentalists would allow that?
No thanks. Such a massive target for terrorists.
There was like 2 nuclear powered vessels back in the 50s. While the fuel costs are lowered, the cost of running rose as well due to needing more safety measures and people who were certified to work on a nuclear reactor. Those people don’t come cheap, and the added price of construction just made it not worth while for shipping companies to convert over to nuclear. Here is an arrival that discusses nuclear ships: www.flexport.com/blog/nuclear-powered-cargo-ships/
@@Coz131 that's why I mentioned 1000% in comment
@@Coz131 fuel for reactors is not the same as weapons grade fuel
Why not combine more kind of renewable? The wind power generators are cool but you could combine it with solar panels on the whole deck(maybe a blanket covering all the cargo, or new design for shipping containers), and also maybe if we change the shape of the ship a “bit” we could use somehow the tidal forces too.
Even though you put it in real terms, im still trying to figure out 123 million pairs of shoes. thats...a lot
2:04
Real Engineering: to put that into more human terms...
Me: Finally!! A metric system...
That Irish engineer guy: 20 foot container can hold 6000 shoe boxes
Me:
Everyone else:
Offshore Hydrgen refueling stations with their own windparks. Amazing idea
Thats some real utopian future shit right there
That would have to be one enourmous ass windfarm not to mention weather variety
Also how much of those should be in the Pacific. Sea is not a highway. There are hundreds of ports and ships got different routes. How much time would ships lost because they would have to deviate from fastest route to port.
@@ivannovakovic2156 The point is that they wouldn't have to deviate at all from the most efficient shipping lane as the refueling station would be built along it in the middle of the pacific
@@isakjohansson7134 I'm far too lazy to crunch the numbers but I know even a single large turbine can generate an impressive amount of energy. I think the extremely large investment cost and logistics of building it so remotely would keep this ever actually happening IMO also finding a suitable build location would be quite a challenge too I'm sure weather not withstanding
12:14 ah, there it is, the Suez nemesis
While I love the content and how informational this video is, there should really be more distinction when the video stops and the ad for curiositystream starts.
Seamlessly blending those 2 things together can make a huge difference in the number of people who ultimately buy the product. There's tons of research on how to best advertise a product. Relating a topic that someone is already invested in with the product being sold is a big one. Also repeated exposure has been proven to work as much as we all hate it.
@@grn1 And? That's why it's illegal to do it in radio and TV in Europe. As it is really aggresive advertising. TH-cam videos shouldn't be any different.
@@Adures I live in America where the politicians eat out of the hands of corporations so you'll excuse me if I'm not aware of such things though Europe also tends to over regulate in some area's to the point of repressing free speech so I guess we all have out issues.
Most creators do still make it pretty clear when they are advertising and I think there may be some laws on that matter but seamless transitions seems to me a rather petty thing to complain about so long as they are making it clear what they're selling and for who.
I have a Nebula account just to get your amazing series on D-Day, not to mention everything else. Thank you for the best content on the internet!
When you hear "metric tons" you understand that speaker is from US
Modular nuclear reactors housed in the cargo ship might be the future, but ppl are too scared of the word "nuclear."
For the biggest ships yes, for the smaller ones its probably cheaper other sources of energy
I would have to agree that this might be one of the ways forward.
Though the cost of running these would likely be too expensive for shipping companies to incorporate into at least half a dozen ships.
Hence why nuclear-powered ships are mostly confined to military roles.
@@SSA_Pizza the cost would go down significantly as they become more widely used though
@@Jet-ij9zc More than half of all maintenance costs of any merchant vessel is dedicated to salaries and wellbeing of the crew. That is why shipowners tend to minimize the number of crewmembers, feedrates etc (from which we, the seafarers, suffer in the end). Equiping merchant vessels with nuclear reactors would require complete re-training of nearly all existing seafarers as well as developing and introducing completely new regulations for training and certification of seafarers worldwide which would lead to huge bureaucracy issues for years if not decadess, considering how long it takes for even much less significant IMO documents to be ratified and implemented by all of IMO members. This increase in competency requirements would, first, leave most currently working seafarers without a job perspective, and second, require an increase in overall mandatory number of crewmembers competent enough and ready to maintain a nuclear reactor 24/7. Just from an economical side this is ridiculously unrealistic, even without considering the costs and time and effort for retrofitting even a relatively small number of existing vessels with consideration for safety and security measures. In the end, even a "regular" fire on a ship is a very serious and dangerous thing, imagine if their is a nuclear reactor involved, somewhere in a busy Asian port. Accidents at sea happen all the time, seafarers are sometimes not qualified enough to tackle even their competencies, sooo many things happen under the main deck of a regular containership, even within an existing system of rules, regulations and recommendations, so it is highly unlikely that anyone would agree to add some nuclear stuff into this mess.
Biogass from biodigestion of waste, is an improvement...
Not just because it doesn't take up farmland, but because we can filter and refine the output gasses more efficiently than directly injecting it into farmland as is done quite often.
Nuclear would be the best just like the army has
But but but muh Chernobyl
@@blackmesa232323 unfortunately people really think like that....
Naval ships have hundreds or thousands of well-trained crew aboard. Most cargo ships have crew numbers in the low dozens and usually aren't nuclear engineers
Bring back the wooden clipper ship!
The rocking of a sailing ship gently agitated wines, maturing the flavor. A variety of Madiera, Ritorno, was shipped across the ocean twice and commanded higher prices because of it. Also, the addition of brandy as a preservative gave the wines an extra kick, beloved by grandmas to this day. Also, Indian and Chinese tea took on flavor elements the wood and tar of the shipping hold. The baking of the ship in the tropic sun often helped mature flavors as well.
With modern weather and communication technology, wooden sail would be very safe and inexpensive. Sailing dhows are still used in East Africa, even going to India.
6000 shoe boxes... Americans will just use anything except the metric system won't they...
@Real Engineering
3:10 Just because a graph is not a straight line does not mean that it is exponential.
Only beyond the hull speed barrier does the power go up exponentially.
not all ships that produce large emissions are container ships. It's also important to know that the larger the ship, the more environmentally friendly it is
Watching this in april of 2021 and seeing this evergreen ship in one shot 12:15 givs me some flashbacks
Satisfaction delayed but not totally withheld, a mere blip in the JIT supply chain that hold additional stock of material and components should be able to deal with. The Suez Canal has been blocked in the past (1956 and 1967-1975) so do not panic.
are electric ships with nuclear *fusion* reactors the answer?
For those who think that nuclear energy might be the answer I recommend this report. The navy of the USSR might have been under resourced and over extended but it was still generously supported in comparison with the merchant shipping.
www.bbc.com/future/article/20200901-the-radioactive-risk-of-sunken-nuclear-soviet-submarines?ocid=ww.social.link.email
@@BernardLS Don't source the BBC for geopolitical news by the way. Britain has loads of nuclear subs. You should talk about Russia's nuclear ice breakers. Also, you are completely ignorant of his question. Nuclear Fusion doesn't produce radioactive waste per se.
No- we don't even know what a stable self sustaining fusion reactor really looks like. with fusion reactors in general in theory we could just hook ships up to power lines or something. probably just use high speed rail for most of it.
@@carbon1255 we are building a fusion reactor that could be self-sustaining, it's called ITER, more than 30 countries are collaborating to make this fusion reactor. so we do know what it looks like, it's self-sustaining but we can't really get any usable energy from it. a company called general fusion is making a fusion reactor from which you can get usable energy. so it's only a matter of time until fusion power becomes a reality. although the necessary shielding required to stop all the neutrons from reaction might be really heavy so that might be a problem.
@@BernardLS you do know that the term "nuclear energy" doesn't just mean nuclear fission power right?
Thorium micro reactors are being researched pretty heavily. They're planning them for powering grid independent factories, so it makes sense cargo ships would be next once everyone gets used to them
Just think; would you have full confidence in the management of a nuclear reactor under the control of an anonymous entity only traceable, perhaps, via a letter box in a FOC (flag of convenience) nation state? If you are, could you sell that confidence to Japan, the state that hosted the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear detonations as well as more recently the Fukushima ‘event’? Then try that same, or a similar, sales strategy on Ukraine, the nation state that as a part of the USSR (CCCP) hosted the Chernobyl ‘event’.
Modern iterations of nuclear energy, thorium fuel, molten salt reactors, small modular reactors or fusion reactors, will carry the legacy of past problems. It is the global trepidation of anything with 'nuclear' in the name and the economics of nuclear having transitioned from 'energy to cheap to charge for' too 'the costs of remediation are incalculable' that will prevent the adoption of nuclear energy as a means of creating energy at sea. Modern reaction systems may have overcome the safety problems but the general public, having been misled in the past, will be reluctant to believe the fresh new promises. The incident of the ‘Ever Given’ blocking the Suez Canal, March 2021, may also have a little to add to this debate. The cooling water on ships tends to get taken in from near the bottom so when running aground the inlets are in a prime spot to get plugged up restricting, if not stopping, the flow of coolant. One thing that the TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents all had in common was that the supply of coolant, or rather lack thereof, was a fundamental cause. Similarly and only months later, May 2021, had the ‘X Press Pearl’ been nuclear powered then a major port for a populous nation in the global South would have possible been the site of a significant exclusion zone due to a non power plant related incident. If the ‘X Press Pearl’ had on board a fired up but ‘safe’ molten salt reactor and found herself having to dissipate the residual energy associated with the possible 12.5 megaWatt power cycle would a stable cool down have been possible? Would there have been sufficient heat energy contained in the power system to facilitate a hydro thermal explosion? In a casualty ships may capsize, like the ‘Karin Hoej’ off of Bornholm in the Baltic early December 2021, in which situation any safety system reliant on gravity might not work. It might also be worth bearing in mind that part of the TMI near miss the fault of the navy trained operators focusing on not letting the primary cooling system 'go solid'. The actions of the captain of the 'Costa Concordia', Francesco Schettini, may also be relevant; the consequences of his actions, whether due to ineptitude, an isolated act of incompetence or driven by a corrupt corporate culture, illustrates well one of the dangers of releasing nuclear energy into commercial shipping.
As a second point if you fit 'walk away safe' reactors on ships you will need duplicate drive trains as there are seldom salvage tugs around when you really, really need one. A nuclear ‘dead ship’ drifting around NUC (not under command) would be a disaster waiting to happen and duplicate systems increase expense. Land based nuclear power plants have a few issues but are immobile, stable and usually well regulated. Reactors on ships by their very nature are able to move between regulators, bump into each other and roll over. Regulation of ships by both / either flag state or port state has problems and adding any nuclear regulatory obligations on to those already overstretched facilities would be very taxing for all involved. This is not about 'can it be safe' it is all about 'will it be safe'.
Furthermore while merchant ships may be 'taken up from trade', as the RN would say, or may be captured or impressed by non state quasi military entities by way of piracy, cargo ships are not military vessels. They therefore do not have the same inherent level of self protection and internal discipline. Why not use nukes on merchant ships? It is down to engineering, finance, socio-political attitudes and safety.
There's already hundreds of nuclear-powered seagoing vessels.
Of which only 4 are merchant cargo vessels and of those only 1 is still in service...
They're not nuclear powered because it's cheap or green or generally a good idea. They're nuclear powered because military strategy requires them to.
Are you including the Russian ice breakers?
@@SD-tj5dh no, I'm not. Those aren't cargo ships. But there are 4 of those plus 3 being built
@@graealex It doesnt really require them too, but for countries like the US who have massive air craft carriers running constantly, nuclear power makes alot more sense. The UK looked into making the Queen Elizabeth a nuclear ship at one point during planning but decided to go for conventional fuel because it was smaller and was running the massive distances like the Nimitz so it made less sense. It's kind of an "economy of scale" situation, once you go to a big enough ship running for long enough it makes more sense from an efficient design standpoint. Same goes for ice breakers. With subs the situation is trickier, nuclear power does give you much more operational flexibility to the point of being virtually a requirement, especially if your a russian sneaking around the Eastern Pacific or an American sub sneaking around the Western Pacific, or either country in the arctic where going under for long periods of time is essential.
Ah yes the USS Deaware is my favorite ship.
3:54 where's that bridge?? Looks awesome
This video talks all about efficiency of fuel use and a variety of great technologies for achieving more efficiency. It doesn't however talk about sustainability at all.
decrease in fuel costs is more likely to just lead to more ships down the line. More ships only makes the production of goods people dont need cheaper and more efficient.
i dont expect the video to come up with a solution to consumerism, but even mentioning that fuel efficiency and a reduction GHGs are necessarily linked wouldve been a pretty basic thing to put across
May I add my £0.02 worth? The easiest, quickest and most effective way to reduce pollution from marine transport is to move less material and to move that reduced quantity shorter distances. Consumers can directly influence that improvement by consuming less and using locally produced material and products. Jevons paradox illustrates that improving availability and / or affordability of an item will increase consumption while human nature, and thousands of generations of evolution, has produced a 'wants' driven consumption pattern even as science, technology and success has allowed that humanity over proliferate. Our fundamental global problem is excessive consumption by a portion of the global population that is too large. Maulthus was not ‘wrong’ just ahead of his time. The system we have is the best we can do on a freight tonne mile basis; if sustainability is desired much less cargo must be moved over much shorter distances. So that is a 'plan B' but humanity keeps being stupid and there is no cure for stupidity. Profit is a good incentive but sadly it is possible to make 'better' profits by pushing some of the costs onto the wider society; such as atmospheric contamination from fuel use or other energy transformation. The number and greed of consumers on a limited living space may lead to over exploitation and thus degradation. The primary question is 'should the producers and regulators be condemned, pilloried and castigated or should the consumers recognise that they are ultimately responsible for what is happening?'
No, unless you are willing to make them nuclear-powered.
Im all in for nuclear, but that isn't a solution to making ships renewable
Imagine what would happen if a nuclear powered ship were to crash, have a fire, be attacked on or sank? Water is quite a good shield, and it sure cools the reactor, but in large enough numbers (say 1 serious mishap per year for the next 50 years) could have noticeable impact on fish population, and would affect some radiation sensitive industries and equipment (like the nuke tests did)
@@h.e.c.t.o.r. well butt nugget 1hp covers to 750watt. Typical container ship has about 110,000 hp or 80,250,000 watts. A big house solar panel is 300 watts. So you'd only need 265,000 house panels to power the ship for about 6 hours a day. So need another 3 score plus batteries to run that ship for the other 18 hours a day. So something like a million solar panels plus say a 1,000,000 lbs in batteries. Or do you have a stead supply of unicorn farts to make it work?
In other words its going to be nuclear or nothing.
@@GeoFry3 Why are you so mad about me pointing out what was the point of this video? I'll say it once again: Nuclear seems like the most feasable option for switching away from fossil fuels, however, there might be options worth researching in both battery and geothermal science, as they're way easier to get adopted by the general public.
I live right on the coast of one the busiest shipping channels in the world, this year like most others on a period of calm weather early summer there is a thick yellow haze just offshore. Normally I think it’s I combination of pollution from continental Europe and the UK. But this year it was during lockdown, no cars no aircraft or tourism, it could only have come from the cargo ships passing through. It really opened my eyes to the absolutely massive Polluters large ships are 😮
we should be prioritizing the top 3 emitters, although all progress is welcome, tackling the biggest hurdle first will make the most impact, and we really do need that big impact to buy more time on earth
What are your three top emitters? Entertainment, recreation and fashion? They are after all the three global industries with least, if any, useful output.
One option for shipping and rail going forward is going to be bioethanol reformer driven fuel cells. Where a regenerative steam cracker reformer splits the ethanol into the hydrogen needed for the fuel cell + CO2. Nearly the energy density of classic fuel but with almost no moving parts, and higher efficiency. While you still need to grow and process ethanol that can at least be more environmentally conscious than bunker fuel and eventually near carbon neutral.
Can we get the stigma off nuclear power before we go chasing an infant like renewables
nuclear stigma is by far one of the biggest problems we have slowing down progress
Can we not focus on one thing and instead attack this problem from multiple angles? Nuclear powered shipping is a perfect subject for independent development since it requires very little in infrastructure. So develop it independently and prove all the sail, natural gas, biofuel, and hydrogen shipping methods wrong.
Personally I prefer wind powered cargo, all it requires is slowing down transport like the big container ships are already doing. Apparently we can slow down shipping. This is a good thing.
What about thorium reactors? Thorium is almost endless on Earth, so it's a renewable
I think you need to rethink what renewable energy means.
@@tischeishockey2 That's like saying air is not renewable