3 ms·
Imagine a ship sitting in the middle of the ocean Ships are expensive to operate, difficult to keep running, break a lot. Why not park this ashore and then pi
by bdunbar 15y ago
Imagine a ship sitting in the middle of the ocean
Ships are expensive to operate, difficult to keep running, break a lot. Why not park this ashore and then pipe or ship the fuel where needed?
A giant array of mirrors, individually small, but in total much larger than the hull of the ship,
You're going to have problems with balance. Such a large array might unbalance your ship and capsize her. Sail area should not be discounted: the wind is going to push on the array and kick your ship around.
Once the ship is full of natural gas, it folds up its solar array
Where do they stow the array? If it's on deck the salt air is going to corrode everything, quick. If it's inside where do you store the fuel?
- gerad 15y agoAll good points! In terms of parking it ashore, ships have access to plenty of water, which isn't necessarily the case in other desert areas. Maybe a desert near the ocean though, like in Somalia, but then you still need a ship to transport the liquified natural gas to market (or a pipeline). If the economics worked, I guess either would be fine. The reality is that if the idea were viable with a ship, it'd almost certainly be (probably more) viable without one too. If land use were the issue, then you could also imagine a flotilla of permanent rafts instead of ship. Though other commenters have noted that the ships could move to the Southern Hemisphere in the winter to get more solar exposure.