Jeremy Eades @ 25-03-2008
Sails on boats? Using wind to move ships? My God, what will they think of next!?
Our own Tomas Martin brought up this novel concept back in January. Now that the Beluga has completed the first leg of its voyage and the costs have been calculated, it turns out that the savings estimates of 20%/day (roughly $1500, or 3 euros and a handful of beans on the exchange market) were spot on. To put it in perspective, the normal fuel budget is around $7500/day. That’s a big chunk of change, and a boon to an industry that has been found to be even more damaging in terms of carbon emissions.
(via Dailytech, image from Skysails website)
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Tomas Martin @ 15-01-2008
The Oil Drum has a fascinating article on the new developments by the German company SkySails. Their system flies a kite the size of a football field above a normal cargo vessel or tanker. The kites fly around 1000 metres up, where winds are higher and can help pull the ship along, cutting fuel needs and increasing speed. A German cargo firm, Beluga, will be making the first voyage using a SkySail this month.
“It marks the beginning of a revolution in the way that ships are powered,” said Stephan Wrage, the inventor of the SkySails idea. “We calculate that the sails can reduce fuel consumption by between 30 and 50 per cent, depending on the wind conditions. “The system could be applied to about 60,000 vessels out of the 100,000 or so listed in the Lloyd’s register. Bulk carriers, tankers — they could all benefit from the flying sails.”
The kite is computer controlled to get the best of the wind available and is attached to a rail running around the edge of the ship’s hull. The first test will use a 160 square metre sail and aim to save around 15% of available fuel. In later products the company aims to scale up to sails as big as 5000 square metres able to boost the speed of the biggest cargo vessel. With the kite sail pulling, the ship is able to spend less on the increasingly costly bunker fuel needed for engines. A US company, KiteSail, also produces a similar technology aimed more at the leisure market.
[via The Oil Drum]
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Tomas Martin @ 03-12-2007
Now this is very positive. Last week there was talk of a giant ’supergrid’ connecting much of Europe to wind turbines across the continent, to take advantage of whenever the wind was blowing.
Now the Guardian reports on Desertec, the plans to put hundreds of solar concentrating plants on the North African coasts and in the Middle East. Two thirds of the estimated 100 Billion Watts would stay in the countries producing the energy, with another 30 Billion Watts (around of all of Europe’s use) being pumped via underwater cables to the EU, which would provide a chunk of the funding for the project. With the Bali talks now underway to find a new version of the Kyoto treaty, projects like this could be a major facet of reducing carbon emissions. German energy expert Gregor Czeich reckons with new higher efficiency power lines a 100% renewable powered Europe could be possible in the near future without costing much more than the current fossil fuel system.
[via the guardian, picture by TREC]
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Sails on boats? Using wind to move ships? My God, what will they think of next!?
