13 ms·
Michelin Puts Puffy Sails on Cargo Ships
- spodek 5y agoLet's remember that the greatest efficiency comes in not shipping so much stuff. We ship a lot of junk. Buying less stuff would lower emissions with no costs. On the contrary, we'd improve our lives.
- f6v 5y agoWhat is considered junk exactly? I mostly buy groceries and toiletries.
- joshvince 5y agoI wonder how many stacks of containers are no longer viable (and how many more journeys will be needed) on vessels fitted with those two enormous sails.
- bbarn 5y agoThe concept rendering made me ask the same question. I have cargo ships parked out my windows, and that's a lot of space.
- Lex-2008 5y agoTo my inexperienced eye, it looks like a ship to cargo unpackaged grain, not containers - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulk_carrier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulk_carrier
- hef19898 5y agoIt could also be feasible with tankers, gas or liquid.
- Jyaif 5y agoI would imagine that they thought of that! For one, this could be used on tankers.
- gonzo41 5y agoI think the answer to that is to build it into a hightop container and make it the last on top of a large stack. Plug ship power into it and control from the main deck.
- pharke 5y agoI don't think the physics checks out on that one.
- tomatotomato37 5y agoYou could probably mount these on top of some sort of mast so the actual sail clears the containers. You'd lose the space the columns take but that's still a lot less containers lost than the picture suggests.
- darksaints 5y agoThe problem with using it for container ships isn't necessarily the height (although that could be a problem, as retraction for bridge clearance requirements makes mast engineering a lot harder). The problem is heeling due to the wind. We already have a fairly large problem with containers falling off of ships and being lost at sea, and this could only make it worse.
- barbegal 5y agoThe headline is misleading they haven't put anything on a cargo ship yet and likely never will. They have a single prototype yacht which can be seen in this image https://cdn.trendhunterstatic.com/phpthumbnails/454/454358/454358_3_800.jpeg https://cdn.trendhunterstatic.com/phpthumbnails/454/454358/4... It's an interesting concept but I can't really see how it scales to large ships. To propel a larger ship you need a huge amount of force which requires a very sturdy mast and stays (guys) which support the mast. Without those elements the amount of force that can be transmitted will be negligible.
- hownottowrite 5y agoThe article says there are 15 in operation with 5 more coming in the next year. I couldn’t find details on those ships but the MV Afros is a working cargo ship outfitted with wind assistive technology. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/24/magazine/cargo-ships-emissions.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/24/magazine/cargo-ships-emis...
- barbegal 5y agoThe 15 in operation are not the puffy sails that the headline is talking about. They are a rotor design by a different manufacturer. The rotor style sails can save about 10 to 20% of a ship's fuel https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/Rotors_and_bubbles_2019_05_12.pdf https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/Rotors_...
- diydsp 5y agothat's a great paper! I love that it walks the reader through the math! I wish more did that! I often feel papers I read are just a little outside my abilities, but this one actually makes a person smarter!
- pigeonhole123 5y agoI think most papers do this mostly to prevent too much scrutiny of their calculations. Publish or perish etc
- sshine 5y agoIt’s like to know how they deal with presumed extra risk of tipping over. Can you flexibly let go of the sails if it suddenly gets windy, like the gecko’s tail?
- codetrotter 5y agoI think sails will tear and masts will break sooner than the wind would be able to tip the boats over.
- dalbasal 5y agoYou're right. Sail ships are impossible. Too tipy.
- hansjorg 5y agoSailing ships have keels.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mdtusz 5y agoThe presence of a keel isn't necessary - just righting moment. If you look at most very large sailing ships, their keel isn't a large protruding fin keel like on racing boats like you're imagining. A cargo ship has enormous righting moment just by means of its ballast - the windage of their hulls alone is enormous. I still don't think using traditional sails is practical though, and kites are a far more elegant and useful solution. They require far less cost and are easier to retrofit onto existing hulls, can be easily scaled up or down depending on wind conditions, and in the event of even catastrophic failure are pretty safe (i.e. if the kite line were to break). The biggest danger of them is the kite line falling in the water and getting fouled on the propellers, but this is a solvable problem.
- titannet 5y agoThe keel is also required to prevent sideways motion which would eat up any gains made by the sails pretty fast. But I have no idea how well a cargo ship keel works in that regard.
- choeger 5y agoI have the feeling that technologies like this (including these kites and also Flettner sails) are too little too late. While a 20% saving on fuel is great news for the operators of these ships (if the sails themselves are low-maintenance), the world as a whole seems to be moving off carbohydrates in the next two decades. For shipping this inevitably means to switch to green fuels (e.g., Ammonia). Once the production of such fuels has reached a certain scale, sails might not be necessary anymore. The reason here is the extremely low cost of energy from photovoltaics: We see less than $0.03 per kwh [projected prices for some currently planned large scale farms] - that's about $0.3 for the energy of 1 kg of bunker oil. Bunker oil sells for about $300 to $500 per ton, so roughly $0.4 per kg. That means that a replacement fuel with more than 66% conversion efficiency could already be competitive right now. High Temperatur Hydrogen Electrolysis is reportedly available with 80% energy efficiency. As far as I know, there is no indication that solar costs could stop falling anytime soon, so in the next 20 years we will probably see it drop well below $0.01. So if I did not misplace a decimal somewhere, the future should be in relatively cheap large-scale green fuel.
- signal11 5y ago> the world as a whole seems to be moving off carbohydrates in the next two decades. I know Keto and Atkins are popular but I’m not sure the world as a whole will move off carbs… :-)
- choeger 5y agoWell, for a truly carbon-free society, everyone has to do their parts. So no pasta for you anymore after 2030 ;).
- Closi 5y agoThis doesn't have to be instead of Ammonia, and could clearly be as well as Ammonia. If it decreases 20% on the current fuel, I don't see why it wouldn't also decrease 20% of any future fuel. Besides, although it's a possibility that we will have abundant solar within 20 years, let's also build on the basis that we might not and solve the problem from multiple angles!
- mdeck_ 5y agoSure, the technology/design of these sails may be novel, but it feels a bit silly to be in awe of a new way to use sails to propel boats currently driven entirely by internal combustion engines. What will we think of next—a new way to use rivers to drive mills?
- HPsquared 5y agoI have a novel idea for green vehicle propulsion using hay-powered biological machines.
- enjeyw 5y agoToo late for that; the hay-powered biological machine has bolted.
- ItalianPizza64 5y agoI had the opposite feeling: how had nobody yet thought of utilizing sails to improve fuel efficiency for these huge cargo ships? I don't know much of ships and their fuel consumption, but I would guess that any percentage point of fuel saving would quickly add up to a significant cost reduction
- darksaints 5y agoI think the recent innovations in sail technology on commercial ships have less to do with the fact that they use the wind, and more to do with the fact that they're now more reliable and easier to operate. Using traditional sails might have saved just as much fuel, but would have required a large crew always on call to operate the sails. For large cargo ships, you'd probably have to double the crew size, which is extremely expensive. Now the deck officers can control the sails and almost everything can be automated.
- bitwize 5y agoThey even look like Bibendum himself!
- EMM_386 5y agoThis seems so obvious I can't believe it hasn't been invented already. There must be reasons why. The only questions I would have are: - Do the sails automatically retract for height clearance? - What is the cost of installation (how many years to repay initial costs) - What are the ongoing maintenance costs? - Is the 20% the average cost savings per trip, or only while the sails are in use? Outside of that, this seems like an obvious solution for retro-fitting any tanker-type vessel. Cargo container ships may not be able to fit something like this. Still, 20% savings and that is regardless of the fuel used I'd imagine. It's just on top of whatever normally is powering the ship in conditions that would support the automatic deployment of the sails. I'd imagine this is best on certain routes that generally have stronger winds.
- bayindirh 5y ago> Do the sails automatically retract for height clearance? It seems that system automatically deflates and tucks itself away for bridges or if sea becomes rough.
- rmah 5y agoIt was invented around 150 years ago. During the early age of steam, when engines were much less efficient than today and re-coaling/re-fueling infrastructure much less widespread, sail + engine arrangements were common. My understanding is that cargo ships usually operate on rather thin margins except during a occasional fat times (like right now)... If new sail designs were actually economically beneficial, ship owners would adopt them ASAP. As the quip goes, they like money. Color me cynical, but I don't really think they care too much about the environment.
- pseudolus 5y agoRotor sails (large cylindrical sails that use the Magnus effect) have been deployed by Maersk and have been proven to result in fuel savings [0]. Years ago I believe Maersk also ran a test project where they deployed traditional sails on ships. [0] https://maersktankers.com/newsroom/norsepower-rotor-sails-confirmed-savings https://maersktankers.com/newsroom/norsepower-rotor-sails-co...
- fennecfoxen 5y agoExperimental wind-assist sails of various sorts for modern cargo ships have been around at least a decade, and the question has generally been whether the fuel savings is worth the added capital and operational expenses of maintaining the sails. My understanding was that it isn't yet clear that this is the case, which is why they aren't deployed everywhere.
- jeffbee 5y agoThe first article I can remember reading about kites on cargo ships was in the Economist in 2005. These things have been around for a long time and have completely failed to have a meaningful impact.
- lcnmrn 5y agoWhy not build a container with battery inside and solar cells on top? Deploy at the top of the cargo ship. Equip the cargo ship with an electric motor.
- barney54 5y agoBecause cargo ships use massive amounts of energy and a little bit of solar power would do essentially nothing.
- msandford 5y agoWhile you're correct you haven't helped the OP learn anything. The idea is pointed in the right direction but the magnitude of the gain in efficiency doesn't add up to being significant. In order to know this you have to do the math. Large ship engines can be on the order of 10,000-30,000 hp or more. In KW that's 7.5-22MW. A large cargo ship might be Panamax (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panamax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panamax) and thus 950ft long and 105ft wide or have a total top surface area of 99750 sqft. Commercially available solar panels have an efficiency of around 20% and sunlight is often quoted as 100w/sqft so you might be able to generate 2MW of electricity from covering the entire top of the ship in solar panels. 2MW compared with say 15MW is significant but there are problems. That's for a flat array, not something that tilts. So you're only going to get about 6hrs of full power output per day, assuming good weather. Now your 2MW drops to only 500kW of average power or lower. And those panels are going to cost at least $0.50/watt or something like a million dollars, nevermind mounting, inverters, cabling, etc. Could easily triple the price there. Plus the sea is rough on everything. If the panels are rated for 30 years on land you should expect to get less than 10 years at sea, maybe less. Finally the assumption that you can simply cover the top of a ship with no repercussions isn't necessarily true. For tankers and bulk carriers you might get away with it. But on container ships you'd have to figure out how to make the entire array fold away since these ships are top loaded and unloaded. https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/container-cargo-cranes-unloading-red-container-ship-cap-pasley-oakland-international-container-terminal-oakland-california-usa-166128498.jpg https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/container-cargo-cranes-unloa... The idea makes sense if you don't know the magnitudes of things. But once you do it starts to look less practical.
- williesleg 5y agoThey still belch exhaust onto the ocean
- wffurr 5y ago>> ships are a significant source of toxic air pollution in ports and coastal communities Exactly where these auxiliary sail systems are of no use. The only way to address this is short range electric power for use in harbors.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- baltbalt 5y agoI have a hard time believing you can transfer 20% of the power through the upper deck without rethinking the whole structure.
- senectus1 5y ago^this. especially if the ship is loaded with materials.
- bagacrap 5y agoI would imagine the masts travel through the upper deck from their base which is bolted onto the frame, rather than being bolted to the outside deck.
- hypersoar 5y agoIf it's like a conventional sailboat, the mast will go all the way down to the keel.
- Black101 5y agoWe are going high tech...
- patall 5y agoThe company SkySails developed a similar system (not inflatable though) around 2008-12 which reached projected fuel savings between 10-15%. Never fully comercialzed, likely due to similar problems as kite power generators. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkySails https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkySails]
- rozab 5y ago>The white sailboat outside of Michelin Group’s Swiss office doesn’t have a sail at all. Instead, it has a wing. Ugh. A sail, most of the time, is a wing.
- FridayoLeary 5y agoUsing wind to propel a ship? That's a very radical idea. I wonder why no one has thought of that before...
- acidburnNSA 5y agoIn terms of cleaning up and decarbonizing shipping, nuclear power is a more natural fit in my opinion. Very high power density for long periods of time. Proven practicality and appropriate safety for decades by the Navy. To deal with ports not wanting them to come in, you can use ocean-faring nuclear powered tugs that hand-off long-haul cargo barges to electric or fossil tugs for the final 10 km. This was tried in the 1960s (see N.S. Savannah [1], Otto Hahn, etc.). Russia actually operates a nuclear powered cargo ship today (Sevmorput), though it does cause problems e.g. when the propeller breaks on the way to Antarctica and no shipyard will let you in [2]. The key is to mass produce them in such a way that economies of mass production can be used to alleviate the challenges of nuclear costs. Interestingly, this also parallels with options to help decarbonize the world with shipyard-constructed offshore nuclear power stations [3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah [2] https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/nuclear-safety/2020/11/mechanical-failure-leaves-russias-new-antarctica-station-stranded-outside https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/nuclear-safety/2020/11/mec... [3] https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2020-01-26-offshore-power-systems.html https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2020-01-26-offshore-power-sys... (disclaimer: my site)
- foepys 5y agoI'm not sure you want to put nuclear fuel on average cargo ships. What happens when one gets hijacked?
- acidburnNSA 5y agoSecurity and piracy would be a new challenge, but I still think it's worth it to avoid all the current killer air pollution and CO₂ emission. You could make the core basically inaccessible except when in an outfitted maintenance shipyard and have a priority mobile security force to respond to such incidents. The ships should be designed to have a fail-safe sink function where it sinks and maintains the core integrity using seawater convection until a designed salvage operation can occur.
- 8note 5y ago
- davinci26 5y agoI don’t think it’s a good idea. By adding so much surface area so high up you create a lever for winds to create torque to cape size the vessel. The way sailing boats circumvent this issue is by having a big long metallic fin at the bottom of the boat(called keel). The keel counteracts the torque of the wind when the boat rotates and brings it back to a steady position. The problem is that ports have fixed depth so if you modify an existing cargo ship with a keel it will no longer fit into the commercial ports
- Tepix 5y agoWhy do we let the top 50 or so biggest cargo ships get away with the enormous amount of pollution they generate? A few nations should get together and ban these boats until they switch to less polluting fuel.
- 1cvmask 5y agoThis is actually an update of an older idea that was shelved for cargo ships after oil prices dropped after the 1973 oil crisis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DynaRig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DynaRig The fancy sailing yacht Maltese Falcon, commissioned by the deceased billionaire VC Tom Perkins (of Kleiner Perkins fame), was built with that design: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maltese_Falcon_(yacht) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maltese_Falcon_(yacht) Here is a book on the boat: https://www.amazon.com/Mines-Bigger-Extraordinary-Greatest-Sailboat/dp/0061374024/ https://www.amazon.com/Mines-Bigger-Extraordinary-Greatest-S...
- nate_meurer 5y agoI wonder how maintenance-intensive these things will be. Pin holes and tears will have to be patched by hand, and will require the material to be unfurled and checked for leaks inch-by-inch.