Electric cargo ship

It’s cool, but if you think about it, you could store your batteries in cargo containers for easier exchanges and retrofit much of the existing fleet rather than build a bunch of new ships. You could also add a gasifier specialized to consume plastic fishing nets and pick them up en route for free, while cleaning up the ocean. Not criticizing, brainstorming… 😊

Interesting. But no consideration is given to the vast quantities of additional, hard-to-recyle material involved. Besides the expansion of mining, usually considered undesirable, there's the energy efficiency question to ponder. Batteries don't get lighter as they're drained, and the lifecycle energy consumption embodied in such massive projects makes it unrealistic for more than a demonstration. It's scary to contemplate what would happen when a battery catches fire, considering that putting out a flaming Tesla is a challenge.

We need to think about the big picture rather than only runtime CO2 emissions. Conventional ships have gotten more energy efficient and are highly recyclable.

If electrification is to be a solution, then iron/salt flow batteries would work far better than conventional batteries:

The charge is held in liquid solution.
The solution can be pre-charged on land, and then pumped into the ship's tanks. When exhausted at end of voyage, the discharged solution can be pumped back to charging facilities on land.
Iron/salt flow batteries, like those of ESS (https://essinc.com/), use benign abundant cheap ingredients.  Materials are easily recyclable.
Flow batteries easily scale.  Want more capacity?  Add more tanks.

-- Upgeya

Interesting battery, fluids!!

Upgeya Pew wrote:
Iron/salt flow batteries, like those of ESS (https://essinc.com/), use benign abundant cheap ingredients.  Materials are easily recyclable.
Flow batteries easily scale.  Want more capacity?  Add more tanks.
-- Upgeya

But did you notice what ESS calls long-term storage?:
By combining easy-to-scale technology with low-cost chemistry, ESS delivers the lowest cost across 4-12 hours of storage.

How can that work for shipping? This whole idea seems quite fanciful. My tool collection -- and my ability to accomplish things with them -- would be greatly reduced without modern shipping.

I don't understand the ecological advantage to electric anything, cars, ships, trucks, whatever. It takes a given amount of energy to move a vehicle along its way. I can't figure out why it's better to produce it in a big powerplant to charge individual batteries than to have individual engines doing it. Plus, from what I understand there is a lot of extra issues that go along with manufacturing the batteries.

Am I missing something? Does an electric vehicle somehow need less energy to push itself along than a diesel vehicle does? Does building a battery have a smaller impact than building an engine? Because, if not it seems to me that batteries might be even worse than engines.

Mark Reed wrote:It takes a given amount of energy to move a vehicle along its way. I can't figure out why it's better to produce it in a big powerplant to charge individual batteries than to have individual engines doing it.

Yes, that is exactly it. Large conventional power plants extract around 90% of the available energy as electric, compared to a car engine which would be lucky to extract 30% of the chemical energy as useful work. Both systems have other loses as well - producing and transporting petrol to pumps, EVs running power through cables. EV wins on efficiency by a considerable margin.

Plus, from what I understand there is a lot of extra issues that go along with manufacturing the batteries.

Some of these are real, most are massively overblown. Technology is evolving rapidly to make these issues go away, because those issues are also where a lot of the expense is. Manufacturers are highly motivated to make batteries cheaper, which in practice means finding alternatives to the expensive and problematic rare minerals.

Does an electric vehicle somehow need less energy to push itself along than a diesel vehicle does?

Yes - much more of the available energy goes directly to driving the motor, rather than being wasted in heat etc…

Does building a battery have a smaller impact than building an engine?

Sort of. If you lift the hood of a conventional car there is a huge complex engine full of moving parts. The equivalent engine of the EV is much smaller and simpler, with fewer moving parts. They basically don’t wear out so the lifetime cost of the engine is much less than for a conventional engine.

The battery tech itself is now largely recyclable.

Because, if not it seems to me that batteries might be even worse than engines

This analysis has been done to death by manufacturers, governments, independent environmental organisations etc… you can certainly point to individual aspects of the system that are not great (eg current use of small amounts of rare metals in batteries) but on balance the system is undoubtedly better than the conventional engines.

On top of all of the above, EVs allow the transport sector to be powered by the renewable entertainment sector. If we want carbon neutral or carbon negative economies we emphatically need this to happen. The alternative of a decade or so ago - biofuels - was an environmental and human disaster. Subsidies for biofuels drove deforestation, reduced crop area for available for food growing, drove up food prices globally (impacting the poorest people most heavily), and was actually still heavily carbon dependent as the crops used lots of fossil fuels in production (tractors, fertilisers, processing etc…).

The bottom line is that if we agree we need to have a carbon free transport system, then we need this, regardless of any harms. And the harms that get pointed to tend to be massively overblown.

Thanks, Michael, for your answers and clarification on that. That one point about efficiency, 90% versus 30% goes a very long way in countering my skepticism about electric.

Going off on an adventure in fantasy land, what we really need are very large, very high-tech batteries that are charged by lightening.

Mark I am with you to a certain extent I call them coal powered in Australia and people are not happy.
Still if we stick with fossil fuels who knows where things will end.
But in my experience, nobody really cares in Australia, my view is changing from a view I formed in the 1970's to one where I dont care, because the people I want to help
dont care.

John C Daley wrote: But in my experience, nobody really cares in Australia

Shower thought - likely totally wrong...   I wonder if the amount someone cares is possibly greatly dependent upon how crowded their area is?  Here in the US I don't see many jacked-up pickup trucks in the bigger cities.  But in the countryside it's very common.  Might it be that if you have a whole bunch of open air around you and not many people, your concern about pollution and wasting resources is less since there seems to be more air, trees, water and dirt to go around?

perhaps using shore power to start a Hydrogen Generator that converts seawater to combustible fuel, could power conventional modified engines, driving generators to power the ship and the fuel cell system, or also power the ship with fuel cell technology. An option with many fewer batteries.

Michael Cox wrote:

Mark Reed wrote:It takes a given amount of energy to move a vehicle along its way. I can't figure out why it's better to produce it in a big powerplant to charge individual batteries than to have individual engines doing it.

Yes, that is exactly it. Large conventional power plants extract around 90% of the available energy as electric, compared to a car engine which would be lucky to extract 30% of the chemical energy as useful work. Both systems have other loses as well - producing and transporting petrol to pumps, EVs running power through cables. EV wins on efficiency by a considerable margin.

Plus, from what I understand there is a lot of extra issues that go along with manufacturing the batteries.

Some of these are real, most are massively overblown. Technology is evolving rapidly to make these issues go away, because those issues are also where a lot of the expense is. Manufacturers are highly motivated to make batteries cheaper, which in practice means finding alternatives to the expensive and problematic rare minerals.

Does an electric vehicle somehow need less energy to push itself along than a diesel vehicle does?

Yes - much more of the available energy goes directly to driving the motor, rather than being wasted in heat etc…

Does building a battery have a smaller impact than building an engine?

Sort of. If you lift the hood of a conventional car there is a huge complex engine full of moving parts. The equivalent engine of the EV is much smaller and simpler, with fewer moving parts. They basically don’t wear out so the lifetime cost of the engine is much less than for a conventional engine.

The battery tech itself is now largely recyclable.

Because, if not it seems to me that batteries might be even worse than engines

This analysis has been done to death by manufacturers, governments, independent environmental organisations etc… you can certainly point to individual aspects of the system that are not great (eg current use of small amounts of rare metals in batteries) but on balance the system is undoubtedly better than the conventional engines.

On top of all of the above, EVs allow the transport sector to be powered by the renewable entertainment sector. If we want carbon neutral or carbon negative economies we emphatically need this to happen. The alternative of a decade or so ago - biofuels - was an environmental and human disaster. Subsidies for biofuels drove deforestation, reduced crop area for available for food growing, drove up food prices globally (impacting the poorest people most heavily), and was actually still heavily carbon dependent as the crops used lots of fossil fuels in production (tractors, fertilisers, processing etc…).

The bottom line is that if we agree we need to have a carbon free transport system, then we need this, regardless of any harms. And the harms that get pointed to tend to be massively overblown.

This is the most coherent, simplified, and convincing argument for electric vehicles I have heard, and it's the first time I've heard it without condescension and negativity toward the sceptical listener.

Great Job Michael, in your explanation and, if the warrants you used are true and sustainable long-term(provided they someday find a solution to the rare metals issue, and the battery recycling remains profitable, this is great news for the environment and the world.

Mike Haasl wrote:

John C Daley wrote: But in my experience, nobody really cares in Australia

Shower thought - likely totally wrong...   I wonder if the amount someone cares is possibly greatly dependent upon how crowded their area is?  Here in the US I don't see many jacked-up pickup trucks in the bigger cities.  But in the countryside it's very common.  Might it be that if you have a whole bunch of open air around you and not many people, your concern about pollution and wasting resources is less since there seems to be more air, trees, water and dirt to go around?

Maybe. I'm not sure.

I don't think that is a valid argument in Australia though. Yes there is lots of land area, but the population on the whole live in sprawling cities where you can drive considerable distances through heavy traffic in suburbs before you reach that country side.

Hopefully something worth investing our kids futures in will come along to replace fossil fuels, this electric car certainly isn’t it though.

Michael Cox wrote:
EVs allow the transport sector to be powered by the renewable entertainment sector

What in the world is the renewable entertainment sector?

Don Fini wrote:Hopefully something worth investing our kids futures in will come along to replace fossil fuels, this electric car certainly isn’t it though.

That's a strong position to hold. What's your reasoning?

In any case, isn't an imperfect solution that can be put in place now, better than "something" that doesn't exist yet, even on paper? You have already indicated that you support replacing the use of fossil fuels. What direction would you take instead?

To replace fossil fuels would require something that isn’t dependent upon fossil fuels to create or maintain.
The electric car, along with solar energy as a whole require fossil fuel for these purposes.
I don’t have an answer for replacing them but always hold out hope.
The electric car debacle is nothing more than a bandaid to the problem that really doesn’t help much, just kicks the can and allows feel good profit for some.

Don Fini wrote:To replace fossil fuels would require something that isn’t dependent upon fossil fuels to create or maintain.
The electric car, along with solar energy as a whole require fossil fuel for these purposes.
I don’t have an answer for replacing them but always hold out hope.
The electric car debacle is nothing more than a bandaid to the problem that really doesn’t help much, just kicks the can and allows feel good profit for some.

So your issue, as I see it, is that some fossil fuels are still used at various places in the process? Mining, manufacturing, producing energy etc... I agree that that is problematic, but there is also progress being made on those fronts all the time.

Personally I reached the opposite conclusion to you. I see the ongoing transition to greater electrification in general (and cars in particular) as being a fantastic step in the right direction.

We currently have an infrastructure that is acknowledged as terrible; extravagant use of fossil fuels, with the accompanying environmental harms and CO2 contributions is bad thing. If I were in the position right now of buying a new car I'd be faced with choosing a car that runs off fossil fuels, and one that charges from the grid. In my situation it is utterly unambiguous which is better for the environment. I live in a country that has made great progress towards increasing the proportion of renewable energy in our grid. I've thoroughly studied the evidence of vehicle lifetime usage, CO2 per mile driven, embodied energy and CO2. In my situation it is clear that electric cars are better for the environment in the ways that I am most concerned about.

Rejecting them wholesale as a "debacle" because some non-existent alternative hasn't been invented yet seems to miss the point. If I need to buy a car NOW, I have to base my choices on what is available NOW.  We can surely acknowledge the limitations of electrification, while still recognising that they are better than the other alternatives out there?

It may come to pass that in 50 years time there is another revolution in technology and the current EV style becomes obsolete. If it has the benefits of needing no fossil fuels in the process at all I would welcome it. But action on climate change needs to happen now, not in 50 years time.

2 sides to every coin that’s for sure.
From the plastic to make solar collection possible to the wire coatings, to the battery’s, ect ect ect.
I don’t view it as solving any problems, just spinning them.
No worries! It’s just how I see it and I hope everyone looks at it for what it is.
I would sure like to see the money being spent on this endeavor routed to finding sustainable energy sources instead though.
 

Michael Cox wrote:We can surely acknowledge the limitations of electrification, while still recognising that they are better than the other alternatives out there?

Actually no, we can't all acknowledge that the drive to electrify everything is better. Not only does mass electrification of transport require even more massive mining and refining of metals much less abundant than iron and aluminum, but it's not clear there's enough that can be practically acquired to achieve the level of electrification that's proposed.

Already ICE technology has become much cleaner than it was 50 or more years ago, and it seems realistic that further progress is possible. As far as I can tell, the push to greater electrification is based on the fear of carbon dioxide and the notion that electricity is a CO2-free energy source. But what's the truth? The topic is so fraught with activism and political posturing and interference with discussion that much of the relevant information is buried.

An unresolvable disadvantage of electric transportation is the need to haul heavy batteries everywhere, even when they have run down. Fossil fuels are so abundant that we have centuries before needing to worry about running out. Unless we put more faith in simplistic models than in measurements, the fretting over hydrocarbons seems unnecessary.

Carbon dioxide is a relatively new reason to move away from fossil fuels.
To me, the best reason is particulates.
Burning fossil fuels leads to particulates.


The second best reason is freedom.
Electrification will rely on fossil fuels until the point where mining, refining and manufacturing can be powered by some other means of generating power, like solar, wind, or nuclear.
It will rely on dealing with materials from other countries , involving questionable methods, until it materials can be provided in country using better methods.
All of these things are technically possible and both opponents and adherents of electrification are driving it in this direction.
Fossil fuels has all of these drawbacks of electrification but the proponents of fossil fuels have historically fought against attempts to improve it in any of these realms, and ultimately, it can never be free from itself, whereas electricity can be.

Concern over the drawbacks of a power source are legit, as long as they are equally applied.
Being concerned over the drawbacks of  extraction of minerals for batteries makes sense if you are  equally concerned with drawbacks of extracting fossil fuels.
I think fracking in the U.S. is at least as worrisome as the lithium extraction in China, but fracking has the backing of an existing industry and lithium extraction has the backing of an emerging one, thus, lithium extraction gets  hard look and fracking more of a free pass.

Making hydrogen has long been a potential way to fuel a clean burning IC engine, but the potential danger and the conversion losses involved have been holding it back.
Renewables produce really cheap electricity, just not when and where we need it.
This addresses the conversion loss, leaving the safety issues to be conquered.

Can current gasoline powered vehicles and fossil fuel power stations live up to all the standards that their proponents demand of electric cars and, solar , and wind?

I don't think they can, and furthermore, their history is one of resisting any such demands.
Just think about the introduction of lead into gasoline, when the effects of lead poisoning were known, personally , by the person who introduced it.

William Bronson wrote:
Making hydrogen has long been a potential way to fuel a clean burning IC engine, but the potential danger and the conversion losses involved have been holding it back.

Renewables produce really cheap electricity, just not when and where we need it.
This addresses the conversion loss, leaving the safety issues to be conquered.

My degree was chemical engineering. Hydrogen is a nightmare from an engineering standpoint. It leaks from everything, it dissolved into steel causing hydrogen embrittlement, it's highly explosive when it does leak etc... It is non-trivial to engineer storage and distribution systems that can cope with switching to a hydrogen fuel system.

But worse than that, is that the actual production of hydrogen is most cheaply done directly from fossil fuels. A lot of the push to hydrogen in the early days came from the fossil fuel industry, because they saw it as way to tap into the "green" market while still extracting and burning fossil fuels.
---
As for storage systems, there is a huge ecosystems of technologies being developed to cope with these issues on the whole-grid scale.
Everyone is aware of battery technology, but there are others.

I recently met someone who works for a UK based company that is using a liquified compressed air system. They take cheap electricity and use it to run compression pumps to liquify air and store it in tank. Compressing air generates heat. They use a molten salt system to extract the heat and store it in highly insulated subterranean tanks. When electricity prices rise (eg a cloudy day) they pump the liquid air through heat exchangers in the molten salt where it flashes back to air and drives a turbine.

Once they get to full size they estimate their system will run at about 90% efficiency of energy stored/energy returned to grid. Scaling up the store is trivial. You just design a modular system and build more modules. They can store energy over the days to weeks, and their rapid response system responds to fluctuations in grid supply and demand which helps smooth the grid.

It’s a great topic to discuss, though every point can be applied to each of the alternatives, same as fossil fuels.
There is no good choice being presented to us so far, I’ll stay optimistic that something will emerge.
There is no getting away from fossil fuel with the existing ideas though.

William Bronson wrote:

Being concerned over the drawbacks of  extraction of minerals for batteries makes sense if you are  equally concerned with drawbacks of extracting fossil fuels.
I think fracking in the U.S. is at least as worrisome as the lithium extraction in China, but fracking has the backing of an existing industry and lithium extraction has the backing of an emerging one, thus, lithium extraction gets  hard look and fracking more of a free pass.

Lithium is abundant in seawater, with essentially unlimited quantity when was solve the problems associated with extracting it efficiently. The first step is typically to evaporate off large amounts of water which concentrates the salts. Other methods can then be used to selectively separate the lithium from other ions.

In practice, evaporating large amounts of sea water is "expensive" in terms of energy.  But humans have been using the sun to evaporate water in salt pans for most of human history. Flood an area of low lying desert to make a shallow salt lake. Let it evaporate and keep topping it up. Once a month or so harvest a few hundred tonnes of minerals.

The areas of the world most well suited to this are also the same areas facing the most poverty and the most vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. There are opportunities here for countries in Africa to form an essential part of the ongoing drive to develop infrastructure in a sustainable rather than exploitative manner.

Similarly, the deep ocean is rich in nodules that contain high concentrations of the metals needed in battery tech.

The largest of these deposits in terms of nodule abundance and metal concentration occur in the Clarion Clipperton Zone on vast abyssal plains in the deep ocean between 4,000 and 6,000 m (13,000 and 20,000 ft). The International Seabed Authority estimates that the total amount of nodules in the Clarion Clipperton Zone exceeds 21 billions of tons (Bt), containing about 5.95 Bt of manganese, 0.27 Bt of nickel, 0.23 Bt of copper and 0.05 Bt of cobalt.

All of these deposits are in international waters apart from the Penrhyn Basin, which lies within the exclusive economic zone of the Cook Islands.

Polymetalic nodules

Extracting these nodules is potentially problematic  - crude dredging for example is massively disruptive of the seabed ecosystem, and the sediment plumes can spread for dozens of kilometers from the dredging site.

However, just last week I was listening to fascinating review of the current technology. One of the systems that is being developed is autonomous robotic collectors that hover over the seabed inspecting individual nodules and collecting them. They inspect the nodules for signs of life - certain worms, and deep sea sponges etc... and only collect those that appear to be no in use. They don't take everything, and they don't make the massive plumes of sediment that other methods do.

Ultimately, we are in a transition to new technology. We can't say yet exactly what combination of paths we will end up with, but there are clear avenues that can be followed to ensure that sufficient mineral supplies are available for the coming decades, and that they can be secured without necessarily pursuing disruptive/dangerous/exploitative practices. Personally I think that staying engaged in the process, and applying pressure on companies and governments to keep pushing green/renewable agendas is the most productive way for individuals to engage.

Don Fini wrote:It’s a great topic to discuss, though every point can be applied to each of the alternatives, same as fossil fuels.
There is no good choice being presented to us so far, I’ll stay optimistic that something will emerge.
There is no getting away from fossil fuel with the existing ideas though.

I fundamentally disagree with your conclusion on this point. We CURRENTLY can't cope without some dependence on fossil fuels, and there are clearly sectors of the economy that are harder than others to decarbonise. But each aspect of the economy that we can decarbonise is a step in the right direction, and makes pushing towards those harder sections more feasible.

But even if it proves impossible to decarbonise everything using the current battery technology, that doesn't mean the whole effort is wasted. Drastic reductions in carbon in the transportation and heating sectors can be achieved right now with the technology we already have. It's the low hanging fruit right now.

Don Fini wrote:It’s a great topic to discuss, though every point can be applied to each of the alternatives, same as fossil fuels.
There is no good choice being presented to us so far, I’ll stay optimistic that something will emerge.
There is no getting away from fossil fuel with the existing ideas though.

As you say, there's no getting away from fossil fuels. My question is why we're supposed to see that as a problem. Believing the "climate crisis" echoing requires disregarding weather history. I understand that those who stand to profit from wind and solar equipment want to see them favoured, but the benefits of reliable low-cost energy are vital to all but the very wealthy.

Even developing a permaculture operation of more than tiny size is greatly facilitated by using non-electric powered equipment to prepare and maintain things. My cordless chainsaws are nice for small jobs, but I need my 20" gas saw for felling a big tree or turning it into lumber.

David Wieland wrote:
As you say, there's no getting away from fossil fuels. My question is why we're supposed to see that as a problem. Believing the "climate crisis" echoing requires disregarding weather history. I understand that those who stand to profit from wind and solar equipment want to see them favoured, but the benefits of reliable low-cost energy are vital to all but the very wealthy.

Yes, totally agree that cheap reliable energy is essential. But we have reached the point right now that it is cheaper and faster to install 1MW of renewable capacity on the grid than it is to expand gas fired electricity generation. And once installed it produces at a much lower cost per MWhr.

These days cheap energy is renewable.

The USA is in a weird place globally, having had historically very low taxation on fuel. This short article does a reasonable job of explaining this issue, but at it’s heart drivers in the US are not paying enough in taxes to fund road the road infrastructure and the cost of other externalities (air pollution, congestion, etc…).

Elsewhere in the world fuel prices at the pumps do a better job of reflecting these costs, so electric vehicles are financially much more viable.

In the USA driving is essentially subsidised by the rest of the taxpayers, regardless of whether they drive, or how much they drive. There is a degree on injustice in that as profligate wealthy drivers are using resources paid for by the taxation of others. A fairer price at the pump that reflected true costs would probably have all sorts of benefits - like reducing congestion, air pollution, wealth inequality, better support for public transport etc…

Even developing a permaculture operation of more than tiny size is greatly facilitated by using non-electric powered equipment to prepare and maintain things. My cordless chainsaws are nice for small jobs, but I need my 20" gas saw for felling a big tree or turning it into lumber.

Yes, I totally agree with this point. There are some technologies which are not currently compatible with battery tech. I have a small battery chainsaw which I use a lot. I have two large powerful petrol saws which I use when the jobs demand larger cuts.

But technology is catching up.

10 years ago consumer level battery chainsaws just didn’t exist. Now they are widespread.

The gardeners at the school where I work use battery powered equipment. It is quieter and less intrusive. Their leaf blower is powered by a battery backpack. They get about 4 hrs continuous use out of it.

Michael Cox wrote:driving is essentially subsidised by the rest of the taxpayers, regardless of whether they drive, or how much they drive

I've read similar statements, but they seem to imply that roads are mostly for pleasure and fail to recognize them as critical transport infrastructure. Getting back to the original ship topic, I doubt that anyone thinks ships (even cruise ships) should cover the costs of the port facilities they use. Transportation infrastructure of all kinds facilitates commerce, big and small, which benefits us all.

David Wieland wrote:
As you say, there's no getting away from fossil fuels. My question is why we're supposed to see that as a problem. Believing the "climate crisis" echoing requires disregarding weather history. I understand that those who stand to profit from wind and solar equipment want to see them favoured, but the benefits of reliable low-cost energy are vital to all but the very wealthy.

Fossil fuels create costs that are not paid for by the industry or the consumers alone but paid for by everyone, everywhere.
Setting climate crisis aside, the pollution caused by fossil fuels is extensive.
If we handled our sewage the way we handle fossil fuel pollution we would still be tossing it untreated into the streets and drinking water.
They still do that in some places and everyone suffers from it, but it is both low cost and reliable.

The sheer number of lives sacrificed to keep various commodities low cost and reliable is staggering.
Coal miners pay with their lives and health to keep coal low cost and reliable.
Everyone has more lead exposure because lead added to gasoline to keep it more low cost and reliable.
Oil has been spilled in places it would never have naturally occurred because drilling  or running a pipeline there was considered nessisary  to keeping the oil supply low cost and reliable.
Proprietary and secrete mixtures of chemicals are injected into the earth, polluting drinking water and causing earthquakes in an attempt to  keep the oil supply  low cost and reliable.
Drilling in the middle of residential land is allowed despite the health effects on the neighbors, and it's done in the name of low cost and reliable oil and gas.
There are other things that lead to life lost in the name of low cost and reliable fossil fuels, that don't belong in this thread.

Oil,gas and coal are only low cost and reliable if we don't count all of the costs we are relying on.
I understand that those who stand to profit from oil gas and coal want to see them favoured, but the real costs of fossil fuel energy impact all of us , while a few of us get very wealthy.

I think an electric cargo ship is an interesting idea. We've got hybrid ferries with electric motors locally, which have had a few issues, but do have advantages in maneuvering I gather.

Shall we step away from the climate debate a bit? It attracts trolls, so is a cider press topic.

The ship in the video is interesting, but I can't help but consider it a novelty. There appears to be a lot of information left out. It appears to be a relatively small ship with a relatively short route. It's tempting to say, "That's not a big deal! We can just scale it up a bit!" I think this is a pretty common thought when it comes to a lot of new sustainable technologies. We can run a drill by a battery...we can scale it up and run a car with batteries...why not a cargo ship? A proof of concept prototype is made that appears to work, and people often see it as absolute proof that something is viable. Often it may be enough to secure serious funding, and if the prototype doesn't really pan out, it can always be quietly shelved. This ship really has my spidey senses tingling.

The first thing that struck me was that I have read about how large and powerful these ships are. I don't think a lot of people have ever truly considered this. I have always been fascinated by old ships, and I recalled that the switch to steam turbines was a major advancement in its day. Steam turbines...isn't that what they use at power plants to turn the generators to generate the electricity for the power grid? Yep. And I could be wrong, but I think I may have read at some point that the turbines used in the ships way back when were the same or at least very similar to the ones used on land in the power plants. So...the idea is to use these turbines on land to power generators to charge a massive battery, and then use that battery to power a ship going across the sea. And this is supposed to be more efficient than just using the turbine on the ship directly?

A quick search revealed that steam turbines were phased out on most ships by the 1980's and replaced by diesel engines, because diesel engines had become the more efficient means. They are only rarely used today in unique situations, like nuclear powered submarines and icebreakers, and in liquid natural gas tankers (which can use the boil-off from the liquid natural gas to fire the boilers). Perhaps there is a grand conspiracy afoot of which I have not heard as to why they would use diesels if they were actually less cost effective, and if there is I always like to entertain a good conspiracy theory. But for the entire world to switch almost entirely from one way to another makes me believe they knew what they were doing.

My father was an engineer at a power plant. It was old, and a bit small by today's standards I imagine, but at one gigawatt it supplied power to many homes over a rather large area. The steam turbines were not as large as one might expect physically for the power they produced, but the infrastructure that ran them was quite large. Each one was 180 megawatts, and there were six. I think usually one or maybe two would be down for maintenance. The largest diesel engines in the world are used on cargo ships. The largest is 109,000 horsepower, or 81 megawatts. That's 45% the size of one of those power plant units. A Maersk E Class vessel using one of these engines also uses 4 Caterpillar generators that add another 30 megawatts to the energy tab. That makes 77% of the power of one of those steam turbines at my father's power plant. That's how much power we're talking about to run a ship. It's basically a small city. That's 24/7 pretty much while it is underway, for however many days it takes to get from A to B (generally 1-2 weeks). That's one hell of a battery.

What is the most commonly cited problem with wind/solar? The inability to store the amount of power we use on a daily basis over the downtime when power is not being produced. If we can not realistically create the batteries to store this much power for the grid, how can we expect to create some almost as big for ships? And don't forget the many losses involved in converting the power to electricity, electricity through the entire labyrinth of a grid, grid to battery, and battery to ship's screws. And if it takes a ship two weeks to discharge the batteries at that normal rate, it would take over two weeks at that same power plant output to recharge them. So in order to be practical, it would be needed to use several times more power to charge them more rapidly than the ships deplete them. It could realistically take the output of the entire power plant where my dad worked to charge one of these batteries in a reasonable amount of time to be practical. The logistics of simply charging such a battery would be staggering to me.

After all this, you may wonder how many container ships there are currently registered in operation? According to the International Chamber of Shipping,

OVER 50,000!

Now, not all ships have the largest engine. And there are much larger power plants out there. Still, I don't feel it can be even remotely trivialized that we can "just scale things up" or that the "technology is growing by leaps and bounds." That latter one especially concerns me, as rapidly growing technology means such ships we could try to make right now will be obsolete in a few years, whereas a diesel powered ship typically has a service life of about 30 years. How long will that massive battery last? What if a battery the size of a house catches fire on a ship? How many dollars-worth of cargo would be destroyed (bear in mind that some of these ships today can haul over 18,000 standard 20' containers)?

I recall a chart that compared the carbon footprints of gasoline, hybrid, and electric vehicles over time. Hybrid was hands down the winner. The EV did not break even with the gasoline vehicle until about 90,000 miles. It had a 250 mile range, whereas the gasoline vehicle had a 400 mile range, so the numbers could be adjusted accordingly for a more fair comparison. If that battery (which bears the brunt of the massive up-front carbon footprint) doesn't last to 90,000 miles (which many have not) that new battery bumps it up that much more. Imagine that on the massive scale of these ships. There is a massive push to replace all petroleum fueled vehicles with electric ones. Many people think this is simple. It's just a little here and a little there. When we get down to the raw logistics of it, from what I have seen, we simply do not have the technology currently to do so within a time frame even approaching what we are being led to believe is possible. Many people talk a lot about the issue of getting the rare minerals for the batteries. But many overlook even the simpler issues. I saw one calculation that in order to replace all internal combustion vehicles, it would require us to mine more copper than has been mined in the entire history of humanity. If we can't do that for vehicles, how are we going to add those massive ships into the equation? And everything else that is currently being touted? I keep seeing that many people think we can just add a few more solar panels and that can get us there. That would be 275 acres of solar panels to run one ship with the largest engine. Now multiply that by whatever factor it would take to get that power 24/7 for one or two weeks on that ship while it's under way. And all of those panels will have their own footprint. The copper mined for them will have a footprint, and copper mining/smelting has a nasty footprint. There are ancient copper mines that are still dangerously contaminated to this day. I don't think anyone is happy that these cargo ships get 2,500 gallons per mile fuel economy, but change, especially rushed change, is not inherently better by virtue of the fact that it is change. I think we need to be very careful not to make things accidentally worse. In the end, I think the issue really brings home the point that we need to not think so much of replacing one thing with another so we can continue to aspire to live like kings and queens, but that we need to stop being so extravagant and more willing to live within our own little sphere, more in harmony with nature.

I think your information about the energy needed to drive ships and where it comes from is very telling.
If we assume the adoption of diesel did in fact happen because diesel engines became a practical alternative, we can expect that the adoption of battery powered vehicles will happen in the same way.
I wonder if people objected to moving from coal powered shipping to diesel powered shipping.
I imagine they did, and they had many of the same reasons.

4.67493113

Hybrid vehicles seem to offer a great balance between environmental and economic costs.
Here is an article that discusses hybrid, battery, and fuel cell powered freighters.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-struggle-to-make-dieselguzzling-cargo-ships-greener

In regards to putting solar on the ships itself, the largest container ships have roughly 4.5 acres of surface area.
Not enough to power themselves on their own it seems.
The adoption of "new" nuclear power might make the most sense in a naval context.

You did some calculations on the acreage of solar power it would take to run a freighter.
I wonder if wind or tidal or even floating solar power wouldn't be preferable, given the proximity to the seas.
I am unaware of how much acreage is taken up by the infrastructure needed to power a freighter with bunker fuel, but I imagine it is considerable.
Refining,extraction, transportation all leave their footprint, over and over again.

I have worked as an electrician in and on coal fired power plants,gas fired power plants and solar pv power plants.
The amount of materials involved in each was impressive,  but the coal fired plants took more to build, more to run, more maintenance and created more waste.
The gas powered plant took less of all of these and the pv installations less still.
We assembled most of the infrastructure to power an entire town with hand tools.

This has been a refreshing topic to discuss without it sinking into politics/I’m right you’re wrong speak.
Thanks to all who posted!
I miss the days of civil talk with differences, it seems so many think we should all agree or not discuss something. The difference is how solutions are finally reached.

William Bronson wrote:
I wonder if people objected to moving from coal powered shipping to diesel powered shipping.

I can't imagine any objection beyond "We'll have to wait until the current ships need to be retired." The history of tools, machinery, and transportation has been the ready adoption of superior technology. Farmers didn't resist replacing natural horse power with tractor horsepower, and the same was true of the shift to automobiles. That's not to say there wasn't some wistfulness about the connection with living creatures from those who worked directly with them, but the ICE is simply far more efficient and needs "feeding" only when it's used. And the problem of manure in cities simply vanished.

I am writing this post in regards to William Bronson’s recent post HERE:

https://permies.com/t/171382/Electric-cargo-ship

William makes really astute points about the evolution of energy sources and how shipping, especially naval shipping, plays an important role.

I can give a very brief rundown of the evolution of shipping power sources, but it will dovetail William’s post.  My more detailed answer looks like this:

Wind was the first shipping power source and continued to be so till the 19th century when coal power first augmented (meaning there were sailing ships with coal-fired steam engines aboard) and then replaced sails altogether.  The first coal-fired ships were warships as steaming allowed a ship to get into a firing position easier/better than tacking and sailing with the wind.

The age of coal really lasted less than 100 years.  After WW1, the British converted their fleets to liquid powered engines (though they were still generally using a variant of a steam engine) because the marine diesel (actually, it was a heavy grade of liquid fuel, but that is a point for a different day) gave the tactical advantage of not emitting a huge, black smoke trail that gave away the position of a fleet rather easily.  The rest of the world’s navies adopted liquid fuels over coal for the same reason and largely kept them till the 1970s, though there are still some occasional naval ships that use the older heavy naval fuel.

By the 1970s, naval shipping made another great leap—they started to use pure aviation fuel for propulsion and skipped the steam plant altogether.  In the 70s, new ships came out being powered—at least in part—by a series of gas turbines that were directly connected to the power train.  This avoided the costly, inefficient step of boiling water to generate steam first.  As another bonus, the ship’s fuel could be shared with the increasingly common and important helicopters that were housed aboard just about every vessel in the navy.  Gas turbine engines are the main form of naval power production today.

From a naval standpoint, that leaves us with the abortive surface ship nuclear program.  From a naval standpoint, nuclear offered advantages that might not matter much to regular commercial shipping.  Mostly, this advantage was the ability to cruise at high speeds for long periods of time without the need to stop and refuel.  It was thought that a nuclear powered surface ship could escort an aircraft carrier (all of which are nuclear powered in the US navy today) during a high speed, long distance dash.

But nuclear power—all of which is based on pressurized water reactors—is expensive.  Though there were some tactical advantages, these were more than offset by high operating costs.  In the early 50s, when nuclear surface ships were fist conceived, it was thought that they would be cheaper to operate as they would require refueling every 10-20 years instead of every 3 days.  But it turns out that the costs of training nuclear engineers and paying a watch crew was terribly expensive.  At its peak, the US navy had nine nuclear powered surface vessels (excluding carriers),  all of these were decommissioned in the 90s due to expensive refueling and running costs.  It was controversial because they were good ships.

My point with all of this is that the power production for naval shipping has always led that of commercial shipping.  Basically governments are willing to risk costly experiments for potential but unrealized benifits.   There was one US owned nuclear powered shipping vessel, the Savannah.  It was a failed experiment.  It was thought to be cheaper to operate but turned out to be much, much more expensive than traditionally fueled vessels.  Russia has a fleet of nuclear powered icebreakers that are considered practical because even if they get frozen in, they don’t run out of fuel.  But this is a niche operation.  Regular commercial shipping runs on an older and highly proven form of marine power production pioneered by navies long ago.

William has a good point that new—meaning generation IV nuclear reactors might change the economics, but at this point, Generation IV reactors exist only on paper and their economics remain completely unproven.  It might work, but we just don’t know.

As far as a battery powered ship goes, the idea is intriguing, but I imagine the batteries would take up a huge amount of the cargo space.  4.5 acres of solar panels on a ship really sounds like something that could at least offset emissions from the main engine until one looks at one of these container ships.  These ships have their decks stacked high with shipping containers.  In fact, they are stacked so high that some shipping containers actually fall off in transit!  Any solar panels would have to be fitted on top of the shipping containers and then removed for unloading—quite a task for 4.5 acres of solar panels!

For my money, I would continue to look and see what navies do.  They are typically on the cutting edge and make new technologies affordable and practical. At present, many new ships are experimenting with getting rid of the main shaft and running the ships propellor (called a screw) with an electric motor.  This might convey some advantages that might have commercial applications.

Eric

Michael Cox,

I wholeheartedly agree with your thoughts about hydrogen.  There was a day when I thought hydrogen was the perfect fuel—it powered rockets and only left behind water, what else could one ask for?!

And as you point out, it leaves out plenty.  It just won’t stay put!  It leaks through just about any barrier in its place.  It actually “alloys” with and embrittles any metal I have ever heard of.  It really does not have much energy per unit volume, even if liquified (1/3 that of gasoline!).  I could make this list go on but I will stop there.

As a sort of fantasy, what about a hydrocarbon created via hydrogen and carbon scavenged from the air?  I am not certain how this would work, but the advantage would be having all the benefits of a traditional liquid fuel but being carbon neutral—assuming the energy needed for this scheme (a non-trivial concern) would itself be carbon neutral.

Just a pie-in-the-sky idea,

Eric

Eric Hanson wrote:
As a sort of fantasy, what about a hydrocarbon created via hydrogen and carbon scavenged from the air?  I am not certain how this would work, but the advantage would be having all the benefits of a traditional liquid fuel but being carbon neutral—assuming the energy needed for this scheme (a non-trivial concern) would itself be carbon neutral.

Biofuels are going to be the way to handle these issues, in the long long term, if we decide to go fully away from fossil fuels for all uses. But currently biofuels depend on fossil fuels - for cultivation/harvesting/processing/transport/fertiliser. It only makes sense to move biofuels if we can decarbonise agriculture more generally.

Michael,

I do/have had thoughts—obsessive thoughts—about biofuels.  At one point in my life, when corn prices were at rock bottom and farmers were being driven out of business, I had hopes about corn-based ethanol saving us from petroleum.  Many years later, after doing my Master’s research, I found that at the very best, most optimistic circumstances, corn-based ethanol produced only slightly more energy than it consumed.  Under more realistic circumstances, corn ethanol was a net loser of energy.  It was a painful lesson to learn.

Among the reasons for this are the energy costs in things like running a tractor to plow, plant and harvest the corn (plus any other passes?); the energy embodied in fertilizer plus other chems that a chem farmer will use; the cost of transportation; the cost of drying grain; the cost of processing and fermenting into the actual ethanol.  This list can get longer but I think the point is made.

I did have a thought about maybe using some type of perennial plant that was also a nitrogen fixer.  This would save at least two tractor passes and chem processing.  And then I had the slightly ridiculous idea of some plant that would just emit a biofuel directly—my favorite being bio diesel (probably best made from algae).

These ideas may or may not be practical or even possible, but at the very least, I did get an appreciation for the limitations of most of present day forms of biofuels.  Maybe it is something for the future.  If it is so, I can only hope that it doesn’t interfere with actual food production or do something like siphon off precious water resources to farm biofuels at some point in a desert.  Again, at the moment, I just don’t know of a route to practical, widespread biofuel use that would be environmentally benign and produces significant quantities of usable fuel.  Maybe/hopefully I am wrong, but I have bumped my head up against this hypothetical wall before and only gotten a headache for my efforts.

Eric