The following is a comment left by Apogee on this post. I thought it worth posting in case anyone missed it.
'Hi SR. Al Gore again. How I wish that I had thought of that scam, I'd be rich.
This will never work because to work it needs a means of storing electric power in BULK INDUSTRIAL QUANTITIES. There IS NO large Industrial Storage means for electricity, about the largest batteries commonly used are for BACKUP POWER for telephone exchanges, and they can cover the area of a tennis court,and that's for a couple of hours until they get the diesel generators on line.
Why do you think commerce is in steam or diesel powered ships, because of reliability and you can drive a much bigger ship. Ever seen a 50000 ton sail powered cargo ship? and you won't. Wind power is inherently unreliable, read about the old clipper ships, look at the life on them for the crews,it was hard. And that was the best that could be done with wind power. As soon as the wind stopped, you stopped.
Handbook of Homemade Power. Get a copy from the library or buy a copy, read it fully and you will understand why alternative power can be used for a farm or even a big property, but look at the amount of power your house uses, and then tell me how you would power it by alternatives, and then scale it up to power a small town and tell me how THAT would work. And cost. And remember that all large scale storage is direct current and all your houses use alternating current. Any one with ideas I would like to hear, because I think before long we may need some!
I am not going into the losses on transmission lines, typically 30% on a long line, but would you run your car if it lost that, remember you car loses at least 10 % when you use air conditioning and another 10 % with an automatic gearbox. No one mentions losses, do they.'
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Ever seen a sail augmented cargo ship?
The carbon capture project at Longannet looks like it's about to go belly up.
Loads of other similar projects are going the same way.
Good riddance.
As humans we move forward. We progress. Technology moves on. We respond to need. We overcome. We do this despite governments, great leaders, royalty, hangers on and spivs and con men (step forward MR A Gore.
WE need to make things work now. In the UK we need to innovate and make things people want to buy.
As Jim Royle eloquently puts it "wind my ****. All innuendo meant.
Hi Brian,ever seen a fishing boat with a little 8 HP donkey engine attached to a shaft and a propeller and chugging along at about 7or 8 Knots.Used to be common up till the 2nd world war.And after the war,they wanted to speed them up,so they were fitted with bigger diesels,50-70 HP.
That got them up to 12, maybe 13 Knots. 8 times the power and only an extra 4 knots,and about six times the fuel consumption of the "one lunger".The reason is that a ship hull has a "natural" maximum speed, after that and it is trying to climb its own bow wave. That's why destroyers have the shape they have and the speed they have, and also why cargo ships usually are limited to 16 - 18 knots.It is all about length and width and shape. And Economics! Your augmented cargo ship is a nice Idea,but the back end of the ship superstructure probably generates more propulsion than the sail.Can I suggest looking up some naval design principals, and the principles of sailing a ship,especially into the wind!
Hi Petem,Agree the wheels are coming off the scams, but a lot of our money is already wasted in these "save the world" rip-offs. Its gone and we wont see it again. And when the truth emerges,dont expect an apology, they will be too busy blaming each other, with them all, in unison, "it wisnae me"!
Hi Apogee,
Good point about old fishing boats I wonder if high fuel prices will encourage fishermen to fit a foresail again?
So let's assume the ship cruises at 16 knots. With the sail up generating pull then the Captain can ring down to the Chief Engineer to request fewer revolutions for the same speed. Result is less oil consumption and happy owners. The saving is marginal but remember how much Delta Airlines saved a year by taking two salted peanuts out of the complimentary packets for passengers - $40,000! And if the ship is sailing into the wind the sail is furled on the deck - no need for tacking.
btw it's a good job that IKB knew that cargo volume increases cubically whereas water resistance increases with dimensions squared otherwise he'd never have got his steam and sail powered SS Great Western across the Atlantic to disprove the accepted wisdom of contemporary naval architects.
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