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China Has Launched the World's First All-Electric Cargo Ship (futurism.com)
slash.jit writes:
China has launched the world's first all-electric cargo ship. It can travel 80 kilometers (approximately 50 miles) after being charged for 2 hours. As noted by Clean Technica, 2 hours is roughly the amount of time it would take to unload the ship's cargo while docked. Oh...and Ironically, the world's first all-electric cargo ship is being used to move coal.
China Daily reports that the 230 foot long vessel is equipped with a 2,400 kWh lithium-ion battery, a cheaper and cleaner power supply. And Clean Technica notes that that battery is comprised of 1,000 individual lithium-ion packs, while "Adding enough power to carry more cargo is simply a matter of adding more battery packs."
China Daily reports that the 230 foot long vessel is equipped with a 2,400 kWh lithium-ion battery, a cheaper and cleaner power supply. And Clean Technica notes that that battery is comprised of 1,000 individual lithium-ion packs, while "Adding enough power to carry more cargo is simply a matter of adding more battery packs."
Wind powered ships with sails and shit
Oh...and Ironically, the world's first all-electric cargo ship is being used to move coal.
Like an op-ed written by a self-righteous ninth grader.
Stop the presses.
Because at least check China produces about 80% of it's power generation from burning coal.
http://www.chinafaqs.org/issue/coal-electricity
Remember: never trust some bullshit click bail green washing headline when you can easily check the facts for yourself.
The article should have mentioned that.
Not only do batteries need charging but they also wear out. Li are no exception.
As of 2016, it was down to 2/3rds. Like everywhere else, China's grid is changing fast.
"This wallpaper is killing me. One of us has got to go." -- Oscar Wilde on his deathbed
Sorry guys. Have you all forgotten the SS Savannah? Launched in 1959, it was the first electric merchant ship. Recharge time, zero since the electric motors were driven by a nuclear reactor.
Or maybe the Soviet's ice breaker Lenin, launched in 1957
Then it'll be clean coal.
Nuclear transport ships would actually be a good idea. The environmental impact of bunker fuel is insane. If the US government could contract 4 large transport ships to go back and forth between asian and the US, powered by nuclear fuel it would be a massive environmental help. I suspect the equivalent to taking millions of cars off the road. Gone anon because I don't feel like checking the stats. Obviously it would require some sort of escort or guns onboard to keep them extra safe from sea pirates and such.
I did notice that your graph mentions that only about 4% of that power comes from Wind and only 1.1% comes from solar. The next biggest chuck of it is coming from hydroelectric at 19.7% I guess you think building a shit load of new dams doesn't come with it's own serious problems. And that's before we get into the major issue that Chinese construction techniques and poor safety records.
Yes, because internal combustion engines are made from fairy dust, and petroleum appears out of thin air.
People who complain about the horrors of lithium mining simply demonstrate that they have no clue how lithium is actually produced. The majority of the world's lithium supply is produced from salar brine. Look at it. The horror. The horror, right? They pump brine up to the surface into ponds, let it dry out to deposit unwanted salts (leaving a lithium-rich concentrate), then send that for refining. On many salars, the entire salar floods annually, wiping out the evaporation ponds, which they have to rebuild. Nature literally reclaims the "mine" annually. Its hard to picture a less environmentally impacting resource production process.
The remainder of lithium is produced from spodumene. Spodumene mines are listed as having no particular environmental impacts associated with them apart from the general impacts of hard-rock mining; the largest impact risk is listed as suspended solids in waterways - aka, silt from the rock crushers. Which is a risk from anything that crushes rock.
Do I even need to mention that there's not actually that much lithium in lithium-ion batteries, or that - as large boxes full of useful minerals - recycling rates will be nearly 100%?
And coal is in the progress of being replaced with solar and wind, whether you like that or not. In China, in the EU, and in the US. Some places have some other types of power that are also on the rise - for example, in the US it's "wind, solar, and natural gas" - but coal is in a death spiral everywhere.
"This wallpaper is killing me. One of us has got to go." -- Oscar Wilde on his deathbed
Adding more battery packs also leaves less space to carry cargo, though.
If it's within 50 kilometers build railroad track, possibly with overhead wires for powers. Seems to me it would be much more efficient, and cheaper.
Then again, I write low level software like device drivers, so WTF do I know about hauling cargo anywhere?
While you are correct that the Lenin generated electricity which powered motors, the SS Savannah used steam from the reactor to power a turbine that directly drove the propeller shaft.
But the new thing is that stored electricity is driving this ship, not electricity generated on-site, as is done on diesel-electric locomotives. And almost all ships use electrically driven bow thrusters, and driving ships using electric azimuth pods is also common where careful controlability is required.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
Exchanging batteries maybe made in less than 1 minute, faster than recharging them (1 minute vs 2 hours).
It is simply dropping the discharged batteries and plugging the charged batteries.
While the electricity to charge the ship might be from coal at the moment there are three huge advantages to an electric shipping vessel.
First being that an electric ship doesn't care where it gets the electricity from so it can be charged from what ever source is available, be it solar, wind, nuclear, petroleum diesel, gas or coal. with the alternatives being switched into service as available without needing to refit the ship.
The second, and in my view best, advantage of an electric ship is that it moves the pollution source from a moving point source with limited area for emission scrubbers to a fixed point emission source with plenty of room for scrubbers that can deal with the soot, CO2 and other exhaust gases of whatever fuel is being used.
Third, there is no longer a risk of diesel fuel being spilled into the river should the ship be damaged.
Same things can be said about any electric vehicle.
And also I guess we're just supposed to forget that China has rampant problems with air quality and particular matter. All of which really fucks with solar power efficient. And you're just not going to ramp up one enough to displace the other.
Of course at all assumes that the Chinese government isn't just lying about their plans and capability to even do this. Something that the government of that nation has systemic problems with doing both historically and today. yeah that whole 'Great Leap Forward' thing is kind of a big deal. Killed a few tens of millions of people, you know. Maybe you should look into it.
There has been a nuclear powered freighter in the past. With some of the modern nuclear reactors, it might be safer bet for world shipping than batteries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah
So has China, like the rest of the world, stopped building coal-fired power generators?
Ken
They're not stupid, you know.
They probably have a windmill generator on the roof, so as they speed through the ocean the wind recharges the batteries. If they go super fast, the extra generated power is used to create bitcoin, which in turn pays for the cost of the batteries and windmill.
Very clever those Chinese!
...omphaloskepsis often...
China built a coal ship that runs on batteries for FIFTY while miles before needing a recharge!
That means it can go a whopping 25 miles away from port unless the destination also has a suitable charging station.
Color me under-whelmed.
Was it cheaper to build? Operate? Staff?
Aside from a puny range of operation, what is the benefit? Oh yeah, it runs on electricity, which, in China is probably from coal-fired plant, so what we have is a "new" coal-fired ship, difference is, the coal is burned elsewhere.
Big whoop.
Oh, and to give it a useful range/carrying capacity all they need to do is fill the cargo hold with batteries! Genius.
Ken
You mean like the vast majority of posts on every Internet venue everywhere these days? One must remember that millenials never grew up. They *are* self righteous, petulant, ninth graders.
Feeding slaves is expensive, unless they learn to eat coal.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Oh...and Ironically, the world's first all-electric cargo ship is being used to move coal.
Like an op-ed written by a self-righteous ninth grader.
I understand the poster's frustration, but there are lots of great reasons to use coal as a load for the first test of a rechargeable ship. (I refuse to call it an electric ship, there have been diesel-electric propulsion systems on ships, as railway locomotives, for decades.)
You don't test your new server in production on your client's most important website, right?
If the rechargeable ship works out - no battery fires, especially! - then it might start to be used to carry heavier or more valuable cargo, like iron ore, then maybe even refitted for something else.
And if the technology works out, the rechargeable ship would be *amazing* for a short-hop ferry service, especially in an urban area where air pollution is a problem.
Ya gotta be able to crawl before you can walk, and walk before you can run. This is at the crawling stage. But it's encouraging.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Wow, thanks Chris. Totally couldn't have googled that on my own. BTW, how is that relevant to a Chinese boat in China?
I wonder why they did not put solar panels on it. That may not provide all required energy, but it would reduce the frequency of battery recharge.
Run the propeller with waste heat from the bitcoin miners.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It's a container ship. Now, if only someone could think of a way to install and uninstall battery capacity quickly and easily, and what to do with those batteries while they're sitting there in the sun not being used...
"China produces about 80% of it's power generation from burning coal."
If they could burn extra apostrophes they'd be energy self-sufficient!
it's means it is.
Thank you.
"bullshit click bail green washing headline"
Are you another creimer sock puppet?
It's a container ship. Now, if only someone could think of a way to install and uninstall battery capacity quickly and easily, and what to do with those batteries while they're sitting there in the sun not being used...
It's a bulker, don't look at that picture at the top of the article. (For one thing, the ship is only 200-something feet long, isn't a standard cointainer 53'?)
I'm sure the batteries are below her belt, (indirectly) cooled by the water. And why would you need to change battery capacity quickly? She'll be doing the same route her entire life. They can probably change out a faulty group of cells very quickly and easily any time she's in port, and probably even while she's under way.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Ok, I looked up that river and I am sorry but if that is the definition of a river then I'm renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Mississippi River. 1,000+ miles!
Not laying any blame at your feet, heck it is shown on Google Earth just as you describe.
Caution: Contents under pressure
It's a bulker, don't look at that picture at the top of the article. (For one thing, the ship is only 200-something feet long, isn't a standard cointainer 53'?)
I'm sure the batteries are below her belt, (indirectly) cooled by the water. And why would you need to change battery capacity quickly? She'll be doing the same route her entire life. They can probably change out a faulty group of cells very quickly and easily any time she's in port, and probably even while she's under way.
Ah, you are right. Fooled by a damned stock photo :(
You'll have to apply my facetious idea to a future electric container ship. Then it will make more sense. In that scenario, you might change battery capacity to suit the route to next be embarked on. More importantly, you might change battery charge quickly rather then charging the batteries in place; you would charge the batteries on shore using the cheapest power source available, when available, and install them on the next ship to arrive.
Thankfully, electric motors powered 100% by coal power plants still produce far less CO2 than diesel engines on board ship.
How is this better? They will use a lot of fossil fuel produce the batteries. It is a nightmare to dispose of the batteries when they go bad. .And they are recharged with power made with fossil fuel. Beyond Stupid.
Probably a bay of some sort, where the railroad would be much longer until it gets to place where a cost efficient bridge can be built.
" in the US it's "wind, solar, and natural gas" - but coal is in a death spiral everywhere"
Natgas is a bit of a Catch-22; it may burn cleaner & produce less CO2 but gas extraction releases a lot of methane which is a much stronger GHG than CO2 in the short term, say 1-2 decades.
Not everything fits into a container for rail transport, onto the back of a truck.
Tourism in nice quaint lake area with new gov regulations about not having more pollution.
Buy a ship from China and impress local regulators with no more local pollution.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Probably because building a railroad is uneconomical for the quantity of coal they're planning to move. Not because the *track* is expensive, but obtaining the land for 50 km of railroad could be pretty expensive in some places compared to building what is in effect a very *tiny* bulk carrier that operates on the existing river channels.
Also because the operation of this particular ship is a step toward gaining the experience they need to build more capable vessels. State supported Chinese industries often take a longer term view of projects like this than western pure private enterprises would.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Oh...and Ironically, the world's first all-electric cargo ship is being used to move coal.
Like an op-ed written by a self-righteous ninth grader.
Wait till he finds out that the ships used to transport lithium-ion batteries are fueled by elephant tusks and rhino horns.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
e retards.
Solar power + water (vapor even) + CO2 (from the air) = Hydrocarbons (like petroleum).
Yes it is inefficient, but who cares? Put a large plant in a desert next to a beach, like in west Africa or Chile, and let it make all the oil that you need!
In fact, this makes gasoline-powered cars 100% green! Without rare or harmful materials, even!
Or go one step further: Use fuel cells, and require all vehicles and the like to capture their exhaust gases and bring them back for recycling at the gas station. Then you do not even have to capture the CO2 from the air, and you have no pollution.
Batteries don't come even fucking close to gasoline in terms of sustainability and pollution (and energy density, and cost)!
Wind powered ships with sails and shit
Next? There are wind powered ships with sails and shit under development as we speak. The concepts range anywhere from augmenting normal diesel propulsion with computer controlled sail to a ships with a super light shape optimised hull, a battery-electric propulsion and a combination of solar panels and computer controlled sails. Some of these things look like something straight out of the 5th element's Fhloston paradise. The shipping companies have expressed interest because of the potential fuel savings. Even upgrading a traditional diesel powered cargo ships with some form of computer controlled auxiliary sail can cut fuel consumption by between 5 and 15% and if you think about it, spending weeks sailing blue water with favourable winds blowing your way and not using them is kind of stupid.
Cargo ships are the most efficient way to move cargo. They are four times as efficient as rail, and 15x as efficient as trucks.
Using oil to power them is pretty sensible, and furthermore the pollution is emitted at sea, where the concentration of such pollution is low. It's hard to imagine that any non-solar/wind way of powering these rechargeable ships would be more efficient than simply using oil.
So this sounds like a stupid idea.
We need to solve the problems of
* pollution in built up areas - this doesn't do that
* overall emission of greenhouse gases - the effect would be marginal
If you want to improve the efficiency of ship - and we do, but it's not high priority - fly some kites. We know they work, and they can be easily added to the existing fleet.
Electric power for ferries might be useful. But offshore bulk carriers - not so much. Way better bang for the buck to work on trucks, buses and delivery vans.
"Cats like plain crisps"
the route to a safe and clean renewable future is not an overnight one. Your expectations are too high for an overnight replacement of dirty fossil fuel power. They didn't have fossil fuel power in place overnight to supply the whole nation either when they built the first coal fired power station.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
" Oh...and Ironically, the world's first all-electric cargo ship is being used to move coal."
'Like an op-ed written by a self-righteous ninth grader.'
Indeed. Luxembourg has the first solar electric ferry and it is used to transport gas-guzzling cars on the other side of a river.
https://www.wort.lu/en/luxembo...
And if you are island hopping to deliver? Seems like their solution for a particular problem they have otherwise they'd use existing tech.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
To move coal 80km, the best solution is a conveyor belt.
The us has had nuclear powered shops for a while now. Decades even. Itâ(TM)s not LiOn batteries but itâ(TM)s still electric.
Remember: never trust some bullshit click bail green washing headline when you can easily check the facts for yourself.
Yeah, about that... Let's look at this "China FAQs" site you linked to. If you just go to the front page we see a series of stories...
Chinaâ(TM)s Decline in Coal Consumption Drives Global Slowdown in Emissions
China is Leaving the U.S. Behind on Clean Energy Investment
So according to those two (literally the two most recent headlines) China is actually doing quite a lot to stop using coal (its consumption actually peaked a few years ago and is in decline), more so than the world's other big polluter in fact.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Because at least check China produces about 80% of it's power generation from burning coal.
So what's your point? That China can never experiment with new motive power sources because coal?
That the laws of physics tell us that only coal generated electricity can run this ship?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
They're not stupid, you know.
They probably have a windmill generator on the roof, so as they speed through the ocean the wind recharges the batteries. If they go super fast, the extra generated power is used to create bitcoin, which in turn pays for the cost of the batteries and windmill.
Very clever those Chinese!
Good to see that someone figured it out!
Anyhow, I'm impressed with the high dudgeon humor - well played, sir.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Remember: never trust some bullshit click bail green washing headline when you can easily check the facts for yourself.
Yeah, about that... Let's look at this "China FAQs" site you linked to. If you just go to the front page we see a series of stories...
Chinaâ(TM)s Decline in Coal Consumption Drives Global Slowdown in Emissions China is Leaving the U.S. Behind on Clean Energy Investment
At least at this point in history, China, whatever else thy are understands the issues with coal. The dangers of mining it, using it, and understanding that it will not last forever.
Here in America, we have political truths that trump physics. Coal is clean, and safe, and will last forever, so there is no need to explore other alternatives, as supply side jeebuz will provide.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
China generates 69% of its electricity from coal
That is the first line from the website you linked...
What a fucking retard you are.
Well Chinese people put out less CO2 than Europeans and less than half of Americans. What are you doing to cut your CO2 in HALF ?
But the *biggest* river is creimer's never ending stream of bullshit about his author blog, his youtube channels, his A-roll and B-rolls of crappy footage at a comic book convention, his endless fantasies of success, and his cashews accounts.
It is easier to load and unload a cargo ship than a train with same amount of cargo.
That actually should be a no brainer.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The creimer response has been pathetic since Friday. Are we now down to the hanger on trolls?
you know, even if all the commercial use of coal goes away, we can still solve that problem by paying people to mine coal and bury it again, so they dont lose their jobs. dont bother using it for anything, that would be a waste. keeps the coal in the ground.
That's OK Chris, as you fade from Slashdot's collective memory and into well-deserved obscurity, I guess people have real obligations like family, friends, holidays, and sex lives.
Your latest scheme to get rich (low-viewcount Youtube videos) is incredibly stupid in a ridiculous way, but it isn't as actively irritating as all the Amazon spamming you used to do, or interesting to talk about. Really it's just stupid and boring, something a stoned teenager would talk about doing.
"equipped with a 2,400 kWh lithium-ion battery, a cheaper and cleaner power supply."
A battery is NOT a power supply. Its power storage of a buffer. Never a supply. The supply is the thing that produces the electricity that is in the batteries. This being China I guess that is probably coal.
While I'm all for ships that can be powered by renewable energy, this is kind of idiotic. You'd be much better off giving it a small battery pack and running it with a hybrid electric power-plant (fossil fuel turbine(s) attached to a storage system feeding an electric drive-train) maybe with a few Magnus effect sails on it to replace some of the power requirements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotor_ship
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azipod
http://www.professionalmariner.com/September-2012/Fosss-second-hybrid-tugboat-employs-new-more-powerful-lithium-polymer-batteries/
Because at least check China produces about 80% of it's power generation from burning coal.
Your own link says 69%.
Remember: never trust some bullshit click bail green washing headline when you can easily check the facts for yourself.
Heh ironic...
"incredibly stupid in a ridiculous way"
You summed up Chris quite nicely. I just tune in to see what's the latest nonsense from our resident low-performance autist.
I have to say I'm starting to miss the days of 10+ creimer posts a day, he is quite entertaining once you know how to handle him.
1. Load ship w/ coal; charge batteries while loading.
2. Go 50 miles.
3. Use coal to generate electricity to recharge batteries.
4. Repeat step 2-3 until coal is used up.
5. Die of lung cancer because this ship is way too little way too late.
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
CREIMER' SUBMISSIONS UPDATE: /. so make sure to go to:
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and mod down his submissions as well. The great thing is that you don't even need mod points to mod down a submission, just click on the "minus" icon!
Yes, believe it or not, creimer owns all the above sock puppet accounts. It is a mystery why Slashdot management tolerates it!
creimer wrote:
I don't bother with mod points. I'm doing something much more sinister. It took ten story submissions ? I'll have to double check the number ? to move cdreimer's karma from neutral to excellent without ever being exposed to the capricious mods. Mmmmmwwwwahahahahahahaha!
https://slashdot.org/comments....
Danger, Will Robinson, Danger! Creimy is posting more than 2 posts a day. Hurry! mod down otherwise /. will go to hell again!
Note: you can mod down even if already at -1 to lower karma and to prevent lost /. users to accidentally mod up.
creimer wrote:
All you need to do is find a website with a permissive TOS, say, Slashdot, create a Python script to scrape your own comments, sprinkle Amazon affiliate links in various posts, and then re-post past links whenever possible. Won't be long before you start making "coffee money" each month.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
C.D. Reimer is a renowned Slashdot collaborator, as he puts it himself; "Because of the quality of my posts and my article submissions, I'm a highly rated commentator and moderator."
But does anybody ever wondered what "C.D." stands for? Well, it stands for Creimy Dumpty of course!
Creimy Dumpty sat on the wall,
Creimy Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses
And all the king's men
Couldn't put Creimy Dumpty
Together again.
Creimy's siblings video and theme song, very realistic, especially the pants, just like Creimy's:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
With "Vice President Pence Vowing US Astronauts Will Return To the Moon", we are sure they will need miracle workers up there, here is what it would look like. Note that Creimy takes care of bringing a lot of food to the moon as depicted below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Creimy's real pictures:
Before the sex change:
https://ibb.co/cc7Ddw
After the sex change:
https://ibb.co/gVad65
Creimy's "enterprise-level" chair, he talks about it all the time on slashdot:
http://www.keynamics.com/image...
Creimy's head, while his supervisor was talking to him, not with him, since it is impossible to do with Creimy:
http://ibb.co/mRVSaG
Creimy acting in educational resource document, he actuall
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The reason is that it boat will deliver coal to seven current coal plants and probably more on the way and those coal plants are on different sides of the water. A train would require bridges and other infrastructure, hilly area, so the boat is the easiest way.
"I missed the days "
You missed them, huh Chris? You see how your crammar gives you away every time? How did you miss them? Were you abducted by a UFO and experienced missing time? And when even alien technology couldn't lift your fat ass into orbit they brought you back?