Electric propulsion in the future

[pas63]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaredan...h=32f4cc84f2f7

"a jack-up vessel (used to install turbine foundations) uses approximately 2,640 gallons per day of marine fuel – or 63 barrels per day - according to guidance provided by consultancy BVG Associates. Constructing a 500 MW installation requires between 200 and 300 days of jack-up rig time, which means between 12,571 barrels (bbls) and 18,857 bbls of marine fuel consumed during construction."

This doesn't count the oil used in the manufacture process, transportation and on going maintenance.

[gonesail]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

no country is banning fossil fuel any time soon

What will be done is to remove it from use in personal transport.

personal use .. please define that for me. and how do you remove something from personal use? that's absurd and would be impossible to enforce. drill baby drill

[AllenRbrts]

Originally Posted by pas63

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaredan...h=32f4cc84f2f7



"a jack-up vessel (used to install turbine foundations) uses approximately 2,640 gallons per day of marine fuel – or 63 barrels per day - according to guidance provided by consultancy BVG Associates. Constructing a 500 MW installation requires between 200 and 300 days of jack-up rig time, which means between 12,571 barrels (bbls) and 18,857 bbls of marine fuel consumed during construction."



This doesn't count the oil used in the manufacture process, transportation and on going maintenance.

Did you actually try to see how much oil it takes to generate 500Mhr?
Hint 1 barrel = 1.6Mhr. So in about a day the wind farm is in the green on the jack-up energy use. The wind farm is operational for 20 years. The energy quoted in this article in breathless terms is completely insignificant.

[pas63]

V, show me the math please. That said, the 12,571 bbl is just to construct the foundation. This doesn't include the fuel to mine the raw materials, energy to produce the parts, energy to transport the parts to the build site. It also doesn't account for the oil used in the operation of the turbine nor ongoing maintenance. It also doesn't account for the end of life removal of the turbine and disposal/recycle what ever.

[AllenRbrts]

Originally Posted by pas63

V, show me the math please. That said, the 12,571 bbl is just to construct the foundation. This doesn't include the fuel to mine the raw materials, energy to produce the parts, energy to transport the parts to the build site. It also doesn't account for the oil used in the operation of the turbine nor ongoing maintenance. It also doesn't account for the end of life removal of the turbine and disposal/recycle what ever.

Humm 24hrsx500MW=12,000MWday. So offsets 8000 barrels a day. So a day and half. Sure there is more energy than just what the article talked about, but it mostly is in the noise for the total lifetime output of the proposed system. Not yo hard to imagine that a number of energy uses you quote could be non-fossil fuel as well.

Few say all oil is going away completely in the medium term, for example replacing fossil fuels for planes will be hard. Just need to be much smarter about were it is used and look for all opportunities to replace it.

[Shaneesprit]

We are all getting a little off topic ��
Boats have 2 choices Hydrogen or Batteries as a future, the question is how far away Hydrogen is from being mainstream in the pleasure boat world?
I would guess 50 years, probably in 20 / 30 years we will start to see some real movement, probably the same for aircraft, unless you want to try one of those battery quadcopters with 100mile range, well that’s 50 miles plus 50 for spare, and that’s probably as new miles instead of the 10 year life expectancy - remember don’t size batteries for day 1, it’s the 10 year old battery that you size the installation for., so good luck with flying on battery power.
Or if batteries are the answer what’s the specification requirements, without resorting to any onboard fósil fuels?
For weekend sails I carry less than 50 litres, and bring fuel to the boat when it’s below 25 litres on returning. Thing is if I am travelling further it’s very easy to add another 100 Litres, you can’t do that with a battery and with hydrogen, wonder if I will one day just be able to carry a spare fuel cell from the car to the tender.

[aqfishing]

Originally Posted by pt49

Now there's a novel idea!

to both of you!

[Shaneesprit]

Originally Posted by Bunji

Nailed it
Stop population Growth or maybe even create a virus?

That is the big question that’s not being asked, although I always thought it was the obvious question.
We know where it came from literally which laboratory also know that it was funded with American Tax payer money but. We don’t know.
Did it escape or was it released to control the ageing population. In China.
I believe it escaped but the question should still be asked.

[aqfishing]

Originally Posted by Shaneesprit

That is the big question that’s not being asked, although I always thought it was the obvious question.
We know where it came from literally which laboratory also know that it was funded with American Tax payer money but. We don’t know.
Did it escape or was it released to control the ageing population. In China.
I believe it escaped but the question should still be asked.

That is very interesting. Do you have a credible source for this information?

[aqfishing]

Apologies if this is off topic!

Lets keep it on topic please folks

Pete 7 Moderator

[seandepagnier]

Originally Posted by sailingchiro

Not yet. But, super lithium batteries are offering some options in the future. But, those batteries need to be charged. Solar or wind will not be able to keep these batteries charged and a generator will be needed.

Solar panels alone is enough to keep them charged. Also hydro power while sailing.

Expect a doubling in storage as lithium batteries under research double energy storage without increasing cost or weigh.

Since even lead acid was more than enough for electric propulsion in the past and many boats have tons of lead in the keel. If this were a lead acid battery it would store more energy than most electric conversions. A range of hundreds of miles with electric propulsion is achievable today.

The biggest issue with electric boats is people today being used to consuming lots of energy and basically wasting it all to accomplish meager benefit such as motoring downwind and breathing the diesel fumes that blow back in the boat which ensures their decision making abilities will continue on the same course in the future. I dont need any form of propulsion electric or engine to accomplish world cruising and neither did the first sailors who didn't have the benefit of gps, synthetic fibers, accurate charts and weather forecasts.

With todays advantages, engine power is simply not needed more so than ever as people in hundreds of years ago needed engines more than today as they didn't have the before mentioned advantages.

[seandepagnier]

Originally Posted by Shaneesprit

We are all getting a little off topic ��
Boats have 2 choices Hydrogen or Batteries as a future, the question is how far away Hydrogen is from being mainstream in the pleasure boat world?

For what use? Hydrogen from water is at best 70% efficient. Hydrogen from urine may yield 240% the energy output as the input however so I am curiously experimenting, however I doubt to reach such yields the output would be significantly higher than from water and possibly other advantages as there is no oxygen to separate.

Once you have the hydrogen, how can you store it?

1) low pressure air bag (this is what i am doing as trimaran has outer hulls that must be empty anyway so plenty of volume) this is efficient but the volume required for the energy is large. This is the lightest way to store hydrogen and has negative weight.

2) high pressure tank - this can achieve similar energy density to liquid hydrocarbons, however, the pressures are extreme (6000psi) It is impossible to recover much of the energy used to compress the hydrogen, but perhaps some of it can be?

3) hydride storage - this achieves similar energy density to batteries, but the cost is much higher (only because of small acceptance probably) but since batteries have much higher efficiency than hydrogen few people use these.

Then once stored, what do you use the hydrogen for? If you convert it back to electricity the fuel cell is quite expensive as it uses platinum and some special membrane materials. The efficiency is not very good either.

If you burn the hydrogen with a catalytic converter, you can use it for cooking, or making hot water, even cutting metal and other uses. This is the only way I am considering using the hydrogen for cost and also as this is ultimately efficient for the purpose. you can build up hydrogen from solar panels for hours or even days, then consume it in a fraction of the time it took to store. This can be hard on batteries but is no problem for hydrogen.

For weekend sails I carry less than 50 litres, and bring fuel to the boat when it’s below 25 litres on returning. Thing is if I am travelling further it’s very easy to add another 100 Litres, you can’t do that with a battery and with hydrogen, wonder if I will one day just be able to carry a spare fuel cell from the car to the tender.

I found that switching from a monohull to a trimaran more than offsets any engine advantages. For example, in 15 knots of wind I can sail comfortably at 10 knots and arrive before the wind dies. Slower boats which then motor arrive after as well as burning fuel. So better to have an efficient sail boat without any engine and it will make passages faster than a slower boat with an engine.

[Shaneesprit]

I don’t think anyone ever claimed hydrogen was efficient.
But it could in theory at least be cleanest of all power, presently remains a dream, the entire globe requires excess wind power in order to produce Green rather than Blue Hydrogen and yes at 6000PSI but let’s remember a modern diesel uses 180,000PSI for injection.
Getting into a Hydrogen/ Battery system is creating double negatives, in terms of efficiency, it has to be a fill at the pump future. The Marine sector will get there decades before Hydrogen is a green fuel

[Sand crab]

Back on topic. I'm not a big fan of electric propulsion yet but Sailing Uma has been doing a good job of it for the last 6 years. They made it to Svalbard so that is really something.

[Shaneesprit]

I have no doubt electric only can work. If you have no time schedule, I don’t think it’s viable if you have to catch a flight to work that’s not a private jet.
So what does sailing UMA have in terms of
1) Total weight of batteries and propulsion?
2) what’s the range under power alone?
3) Solar panels both wattage and surface area?
4) cooking via?
5) Heating Via?
6) assuming no generator so no Petrol or diesel, is that correct?
Just interested in the subject