| SkySails Test Results In! 20% Fuel Savings! |
| Written by Hank Green | |
| Thursday, 20 March 2008 | |
|
Then, when fossil fuels took over, sea-travel got a lot faster and a lot safer. But it also became a huge source of fuel consumption and CO2 emission. But the wind...BAH! Who could use it...so slow! Well, finally, someone decided that a boat could, in fact, be powered by both! The result would be a boat that was just as fast, but burned far less fuel. Well, that boat just arrived in Venezuela, and it was a success. Using a parachute-shaped, kite sail the boat travelled across the Atlantic from Germany. The sail was deployed when it was windy (between eight hours and five minutes per day) and was retracted when there wasn't enough wind. The result, a 20% fuel savings on the roundtrip journey from Europe to South America and back again. Once the sales are installed, and a crew trained on their use, they are free. While diesel has to be continually purchased. So, if the cost of the sails isn't too outrageous, shipping companies could be saving money and the environment in very short order. The next steps are to make bigger sailes suitable for larger ships. And to get shipping companies to buy the things... Via CNET Clean Tech
Comments
(11)
How much fuel?
written by sdonham , March 20, 2008
Admittedly, I didn't read the link, but I'm curious how many gallons of fuel were saved and how much fuel these large ships typically use. Are we talking 1000 gallons? 10,000 gallons? 20% seems like enough of a savings to justify the cost of installing these sails but then, I'm not in the shipping industry to make that sort of assessment.
2.5 tons
written by haichen , March 20, 2008 Projected onto an entire day, this performance by the “Beluga SkySails” represents savings of about 2.5 tons of fuel and more than $1,000 a day.
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written by Craig , March 20, 2008
So much sky, such a little sail. Why, oh why aren't there more sails up there?
Energy from kites: Kitegen
written by Simone , March 21, 2008
Regarding energy from kites: take a look at this extremely promising technology
http://www.kitegen.com/index_en.html http://sequoiaonline.com/blogs/index.php (most in italian but lots of tecnical PDFs)
awesome! 724 gallons saved per day
written by sw , March 21, 2008
2.5 tons -> 5,000 lbs / ~6.9lbs/gallon
724 gallons of diesel saved per day. Thats crazy! And they think they can double it with further tweaks
Greenpeace have been doing this for year
written by Jon , March 22, 2008 Well, finally, someone decided that a boat could, in fact, be powered by both! The result would be a boat that was just as fast, but burned far less fuel. Greenpeace, among others, have been doing the motor-and-sail thing for years, there is nothing new about the idea.
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written by Karsten , March 22, 2008
No, it may not be new but now there are more people paying attention and open to hearing what good there is out there to save our planet. Hopefully caring about the environment is not just a short-lived fashion. Anything is possible, but fashion has most likely nothing to do with a sail on a ship like this. Public image does not go that far yet.
Most actions you can do to significantly pollute less or use less energy are not new. But I am sure glad to see that there is some good coming from high fuel prices. Karsten http://www.polluteless.com Practical Advice To Pollute Less
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written by RhapsodyInGlue , March 24, 2008
To add add a punctuation mark to the post. I quote the following from http://www.oceana.org/climate/...free-ride/
Actually, a more recent study says the estimates on shipping CO2 stated below are on the low side and a different study suggests that black soot may contribute even more than stated below as percentage of GW. Shipping is a huge problem and as yet has not been addressed in cap and trade systems. * Only six countries in the world release more carbon dioxide than the global fleet of marine vessels. * This fleet releases between 600 and 900 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, an amount equivalent to emissions from at least 130 million cars -- about the number of cars operated in the United States. * A single container ship emits more global warming pollution than 2,000 diesel trucks. * By 2020, these emissions could double 2002 levels, and they could be triple those levels by 2030. * Ships also are major releasers of nitrogen oxides – contributing nearly 30% of the world’s releases. This amount too is expected to triple by 2030. * Another pollutant released by ships, black carbon, or soot, can warm the air hundreds of thousands of times more than the same amount of carbon dioxide. Black carbon may be responsible for as much as 25% of observed global warming.
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written by ginnywise , March 25, 2008
It's sales they want to make, but sails that will be installed...
not new, but patentable
written by Eric , March 25, 2008
Putting sails on ships may not be new, but SkySails' technology is novel and patent protected:
http://www.google.com/patents?id=t6ORAAAAEBAJ&dq=7287481 | |
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Once upon a time, every ship that travelled from the old world to the new was 100% renweably powered. It was slow, and dangerous, and sometimes lots of people died...but it was GREEN POWER!
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