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By harnessing wind power, high-tech sails can help cut marine pollution
- greentext 2y agoWhy don’t we have over-ocean cables to ferry cargo/cargo ships?
- doctorwho42 2y agoCable would get too heavy to hold up by both ends
- zardo 2y agoYou could have some floating supports.
- toast0 2y agoCable ferries exist, but the longest cable ferry route is 2 km [1]. Ignoring material science conerns, energy efficiency concerns, and the difficulties they add for other navigation, cable ferries tend to be quite slow even compared to intercontinental shipping, have a single vessel per route and have a two point route. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Baynes_Sound_Connector https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Baynes_Sound_Connector
- ohmyiv 2y agoArchive: http://archive.today/2024.06.08-060650/https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2024/05/21/a-new-age-of-sail-begins http://archive.today/2024.06.08-060650/https://www.economist...
- Panino 2y ago> The ships in service show a reduction in fuel consumption, and thus a similar drop in emissions, of between 5% and 25%, says Tuomas Riski, the firm’s outgoing ceo. Each rotor costs around €1m, which he says can be repaid in fuel savings over three to ten years. > After six months at sea the WindWings have cut fuel consumption by about 15%, although the company reckons three sails could cut average fuel use by 30% or more. > Oceanbird reckons the sails could deliver 50-60% lower emissions compared with conventional vehicle-carriers. > Airseas tested a Seawing last year on a k Line cargo ship. They are expected to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by some 20%, says k Line. These are consistently good results across a range of carriers. If the industry moved to these sails, the aggregate emissions drop would be significant.
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y agoI think the trick is that assuming everything holds up, it's just cheaper to run. Therefore, if it really works in the general case then the industry will move to these out of sheer naked self-interest unless there are major caveats (I dunno, maintenance issues? Seems unlikely but this is hardly my area of expertise).
- cess11 2y agoThey probably need to be tiltable to allow passage under bridges, as well as stable in pretty harsh conditions, such as storms, saltwater mist and ice buildup. Probably don't want to rely on it until you are very, very sure there is a stable supply of replacements for wearing parts.
- tuatoru 2y agoIf demand for shipping is elastic, cutting costs will mean more than proportionately more shipping happens. So will marine pollution be reduced?
- luplex 2y agoNaively yes, it will be reduced, because these sails are not free.
- kefabean 2y agoJevon’s paradox? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
- tuatoru 2y agoThat's what I had in mind. Thank you.
- aetherson 2y agoShipping by container ship is already pretty cheap, and of course shipping isn't itself a good that people care about, it's a way to get some other good. It also seems like the supply bottleneck for shipping per se is probably more "number of ships" or "capacity of ports and big canals" than "fuel costs." We should of course assume that ceteris paribus lower shipping costs produce more shipping on the margin, but I don't see a lot of reason to believe that this is the major supply bottleneck for most goods. I wouldn't expect to see a dramatic change in demand for shipping as a result of 20% lower fuel costs.
- openplatypus 2y agoESA uses sail assisted ship to transfer Arian 6 to launch destination https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Transportation/Ariane/Shipping_rockets_Ariane_on_board https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Transportation/Ar...
- xchip 2y ago"can help", that's the sentence everyone uses to describe negligible results