Slashdot Mirror
Kite-Powered Ship Launched
The Grand Poobah writes "The big-kite technology we discussed last month has officially launched in Hamburg, Germany. Reuters has a writeup of the new technology, which aims to cut fossil fuel use on sea voyages by an estimated 20% by means of a huge computer-controlled kite. The link includes a video."
- it can be used at these cargo ships normal cruise speed,
- it saves the shipping company $1600 per day
- and it utilizes higher altitude winds,
I would say they have succeeded.For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
Sometimes, it seems, there are no new ideas. As others have said, what we have here is a glorified sail. Nothing wrong with that, but as fossil fuels become more expensive, we'll find more and more "old tech" make a comeback.
The biggest deal in alternative energy right now is the windmill, which have been used for what, 1,200 years? Now we have a (gasp!) sailing ship! Pretty soon we'll go back to using the electric car which was very popular in the early days of the automobile.
No, basic technologies are not new - what's new are refinements. For example, Linux is a re-implementation of a 35 year old Operating System having the chief innovation of a license change. I'm not knocking the quality that Linus has put into the Linux kernel, but Linux is written to be POSIX compliant, so while drivers are nice, Linux is basically no different than any other UNIX but for the license difference.
Innovation can come from some incredibly low-tech, unlikely places. For example, this guy has won numerous awards for sticking a pot inside a pot and filling the middle with wet sand - managing to solve a serious problem in Africa for low-cost refrigeration.
I guess what it comes down to is this: Technology is valuable when it works, not when it's complex. There's lots of very, very, very simple technology that nonetheless works very, very, very well.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Wow the sail only costs $725,000, and they say it will save about $1600 a day? Not so enticing. Also what happens in bad weather, seems like more of a pain that savings.
We (humanity) will face far more serious problems in this century, than suboptimal efficiency in our use of fossil fuels.
Hauling vast quantities of cargo around the world simply to exploit cheaper labor elsewhere, while consuming vast quantities of nonrenewable resources, is not sustainable.
We need to solve the energy problem NOW. We need to learn how to extract most of our energy from renewable resources (solar, wind, tidal [and nuclear as a stopgap]), and then work out the bioengineering we will need to regulate the atmosphere, prevent undesirable climate change, and produce additional energy and the materials for 21st century manufacturing.
The information technology revolution of the past few decades (at the expense of the environment) is what will have made all of that possible.
Strapping kites onto oil tankers will only help perpetuate the outdated, unsustainable economies we rely on today. Developing technologies that save the shipping company $1600/day is a waste of time and effort.
The goal should be, 20 years from now, that we don't need oil tankers anymore.
Then we can work on undoing the environmental damage caused by the industrial and information revolutions, and get started fixing the rest of our social problems.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
Why don't you need one? In the photo on the last /. article the kite isn't dead ahead of the ship, and you'd expect that to be the case most of the time. If that tends to pull the ship off course, don't you end up using the rudder like a rather poor keel, effectively dragging the ship through the sea sideways, and thus wasting a load of energy, not to mention the stress on various parts of the ship?
Virtually serving coffee
You've nailed the reasons this German comapany has invested and utilized this technology. It's not about "fighting climate change" like the pro-green TFA title, it's about saving $1600 a day.
Your calculations and your "refinements" aren't properly thought out.
1) $1,600 / day *per ship* savings on fuel costs sounds pretty good to me -- nearly 600k a year. Of course that's a significant saving for a shipping company, look how they've borne down on crew costs to save relatively smaller sums. Assuming an installed cost of $750k, there's a payback time of just a year and a quarter, and that's conservative: fuel prices are heading up which increases the savings, the costs of production will head down due to economies of scale if the tech takes off, and the article notes that larger kites would -- in principle -- deliver larger savings.
2) Why on earth would you make the kite the bridge of the ship? The tether is about 300m long, what's the point of it being 240m instead? When you pull objects along, you attach the tether to the front of them, not the middle -- it's more efficient and it's more stable. Watch a child pull a toy dog along to see this principle in action.
3) They have their own solution to rough weather, and it's simpler than a frigging autonomous flight capability.
4) Lifting a fifty thousand ton ship bodily out of the water with kites doesn't sound like a terribly feasible solution. The hydrofoil idea might possibly be worth pursuing, but I suspect there are good technical engineering reasons for why large freight ships don't currently use this design that would preclude its use even with a kite.
I suggest you and all the other people posting similar concerns send your criticisms to the manufacturers of the kite; After all, it seems clear that when they invested huge amounts of time and money and engineering expertise developping this system, they foolishly neglected to consult a random slashdot pundit who could have doubtlessly steered them away from this blatantly doomed project with nothing more than some half-assed, uninformed, back-of-a-beermat guesstimations.
Do you really think this project would have reached the stage it has if it DIDN'T ACTUALLY WORK? Do you really think that a little detail like that could slip unnoticed past all of the professional engineers, experienced and knowledgable in the appropriate fields, temployed by the kite's manufacturers? Do you really think you know better than people who do this for a living, and have now proved themselves by designing, building, testing, selling, delivering and launching a functional system?
Dumbass.
(capcha: damning)
It's not about "fighting climate change" like the pro-green TFA title, it's about saving $1600 a day.
The lesson for greenies is of course to find cheaper, more environmentally friendly ways to achieve the same output as fossil fuels.
Raising costs with punitive 'carbon taxes' will earn revulsion and support theories that global warming hysteria is really just a power and money grab.
Developing environmentally friendly AND cheaper, effective solutions will earn their developers lots of money and save the environment at the same time.
You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. This kite- it's environmental honey. Develop more things like it.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
It's an assist system targeting a 20% average reduction in fuel costs a peak savings of around 50%.
So:
1. At no point would the ship ever slow down more than it would with current tech.
2. Ships already need to expend energy based on drag so if the path and speed is unchanged so is this effect.
3. With a savings of 1600$ per day the cost of replacing a kite is probably trivial after a few months. The kite is not the primary cost Instillation costs are dominated the cost to retrofit the ship, control software etc.
PS: Kites tack in a different manor than traditional sailing craft because the can move around much faster so it's their average position that's important not the instantaneous force vector.