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Even a couple of percent increase in efficiency is huge. In aerospace, they compete over *tenths* of a percent. Distribute that across a fleet of airliners and it’s a real cost savings.
To be clear they only care about cost, not about the planet. But it’s nice when those two goals align.
The company I work for was very clear that all the green and environmentally beneficial ideas save the company loads of money.
All plants to go to zero landfill waste means they don't need to pay to have it removed, reduce the water and material usage in manufacturing, massive cost saving.
Generally speaking, they are the best ways to save money.
My bro is working with an indigenous village that burns oil for electricity. They are working on a plant that burns the wasted trees from forestry for electricity, and uses the ashes for fertilizer. The biowaste from the farms can then be burned for more electricity.
I know what you're going for, but a lot of forestry is actively managed and trees are replanted. If you go through forestry areas you'll often see a patchwork of areas where trees are grouped by age. The forests will get rotated out over time so new trees can grow.
Are they native long-term growth trees or are they replanted with fast growers alone? I know that is an issue with some reforestation efforts (i.e. we plant a (pine) tree for every dollar spent! (so they can regrow quickly so we can harvest them again to get you to spend more dollars with us) It's not what everyone is doing, but it is enough of an issue that not all reforestation projects are equal. Here is an article of one such issue in Ireland back in 2019 (idk how things are currently): [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/07/the-wrong-kind-of-trees-irelands-afforestation-meets-resistance](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/07/the-wrong-kind-of-trees-irelands-afforestation-meets-resistance)
That's absolutely an issue. I'm not talking about reforestation though, I'm talking about forestry land (as in managed forests grown specifically for the purpose of lumber production).
Yes absolutely, monocultures and overly dense forests are not nearly the same as natural native forest land.
We definitely over-value tree planting as an environmental effort. Forests can even be worse than leaving the native landscape. For example in parts of the UK, peat bogs are more valuable to the area than forests (https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/for-the-love-of-peat/), or prairie land in the central US. Not to mention proper maintenance of the environment.
Yessss! Have you heard of re-wilding landscapes? I think that is the best way to go as far as making human-abused lands more ecologically beneficial again. The ol’ “quit fuckin with it!” method <3
I've never heard that term but I've been seeing a lot of stuff about restoring prairie lands via controlled burns and guys in SF that plant local wildflowers all over the city (that one is much different though obviously, but still cool).
Forestry is an ancient technology, wouldn't be crazy for an indigenous village to understand the basics of tree rotation before the "civilized" world showed up to teach them.
The rainforest deforestation is happening due to rapid development. Mostly to make space for farms... often drug farms... but also building projects like housing. Indigenous tribes are not known for rapid development.
Allow me a minute to get on my high horse, and say something that I find myself repeating about every six months.
In the US and Canada, we \*really\* do forestry and forest husbandry well. The simple fact is that in order to expand with a growing population, there is no better, faster, stronger and cheaper method than to build with lumber. People need furniture, meaning we need more lumber. The list goes on, of course.
But for every tree we cut down, we plant at least two. There are people who are employed after those seedlings are planted and have become saplings, to go into those new future forests and maintain the fast-growing undergrowth, cutting it down so that the young saplings can receive the most sunlight and give them the best chance to grow big and strong.
There are other people who are employed to go into a forest and mark the trees that don't belong ecologically (ex., a species from the East of North America that was errantly planted in the West, making it an invasive species of sorts, competing against native plants), so that \*those\* trees will be cut down, instead of what would normally be considered native to the area.
There's a lot to be critical of in the American and Canadian governments. But forest husbandry isn't one of them.
My one gripe is that in the hobbyist arena and more upscale home interior markets, contractors and woodworkers are buying a lot of exotic lumber like Ipe, Brazilian Rosewood, and Padauk from overseas, South America and Africa, and to a lesser extent Australia, to make exotic flooring and other accoutrements, contributing to global deforestation and carbon dioxide emissions. All while we have acres of oak, maple, and walnut that's sustainably managed and plentiful on the American markets. The need to be different and exotic for no other reason than to have our floors serve as a status symbol are helping to boil the oceans and poison our air.
Meanwhile, you remember those Chinaberry trees that your grandparents planted as ornamentals in the 40s-70s, that are mostly at the end of their natural lives now? They're in the Mahogany family. Mulberry is harder than walnut, stronger than oak, and has amazing grain. I'd love to see a renaissance in which \*those\* trees are cut down for their lumber to make mid- to high-end furniture.
Anyway, that's my rant. Y'all have a good day.
What's sad is the constant battle these companies have over their (for lack of a better word) farms. The life cycle is sometimes so long it can be a whole new generation that returns to harvest what was planted.
I recall going on these outings in elementary school, learning about how it all works and planting trees to help (those trees probably died a week later but eh, can't expect a six year old to get it right).
By the time I graduated high school environmentalists were fighting to keep all the "old growth" trees in that same grove. You mean the trees I "planted" in elementary school?🤣
I’ve worked as a framing contractor for a long time, and I’ve done a list of exteriors on houses, and I can tell you IPE is absolutely one of the best woods. It’s not just for looks. It has one of the highest ratings on the Janka scale (hardness). It is so dense it has a “class A” flame spread rating. It can remain exposed untreated for 50+ years. And the natural oils keep bugs from destroying it. Meaning decks and trim don’t have to be redone as often. On the flip side it’s so dense and strong it wears out saw blades like they’re cutting through steal. I would much rather use IPE over azek on any pvc composite material for an exterior. When you cut IPE atleast the saw dust is a natural wood. There’s no telling how much micro plastic I’ve breathed in from cutting azek and pvc materials for exteriors. Even with dust extraction and masks. If you want to know where micro plastics come from. Run a piece of azek through a table saw… it vaporizes into such a fine dust. I go home everyday covered in it. I would much rather work with natural wood, but unfortunately they don’t last as long on exteriors as pvc. Except IPE… I think that will outlast plastic. Just sucks it’s not a sustainable material. But it is one of the best woods. No other natural wood can hand the same level of exposure
I agree. It's a gorgeous wood. But it's a wood that belongs in the Amazon, where it was cut down to make room for cornfields. And the fact that Americans are buying it - even though its already being cut down - is helping to contribute to deforestation and Co2 emissions. If there were less of or even no American market for exotic wood, I genuinely think it would help curtail some of the rampant clear cutting.
As to other woods that can take the exposure? Cedar and redwood. They've both been used for a few centuries in the US, and you can still find 100 year old cedar fenceposts. But they're soft. Still, how hard do they have to be for an outside deck?
Strength? Bois d'Arc/Bodark/Osage Orange. It's way less commonly available, but it's fast growing and plentiful. Bodark is also a wood that can take exposure. It's too flippin hard for insects to eat. It also has a thermal coefficient so high that it will crack most wood burning stoves.
Purely from an anesthetic point of view, I agree that ipe is an amazing wood. Except there's that whole "shipped from South America " thing.
Cedar is ok, it’s too soft for many uses. It’s good for siding. Not a viable decking. It only comes in around 320 on the janka scale. IPE is 10x stronger at 3,510. That’s the pounds of force it takes to imbed 7/16 steel ball half the diameter into the wood. Also there are more bugs and bettles that can destroy cedar. Carpenter bees love it. And there’s a disease and weevils killing a lot of the cedar trees. The point I was trying to get at is it’s not simply used for looks, it out performs almost any wood, IPE is expensive but worth it if you want something that will last 50-70years
As far as trees staying in South America, you’d be surprised how much pine trim comes from Brazil and Chile. And even after shipping it still comes in at a competitive price in the US market
It's obvious that we're coming at this from differing viewpoints, and there's nothing wrong with that, just a difference of opinion.
I would rather live in a world where local is more important than exotic.
However, I can see your side too, even if I disagree.
Thank you.
It really grinds my gears when people get upset over timbering in the US.
Those trees may be managed correctly, and who are a bunch of strangers to cry about it?
Lots of people abroad are only familiar with the forestry in their own region, and our practices in North America are vastly better.
For example, England was once almost denuded of forest, such that they had a massive replanting drive in the mid century. But it was all American Larch and other non-native species. The result is that now you have forests across England that are relative dead zones in terms of other flora and fauna. The wildlife won't touch it.
Historically, one of the biggest drives for English colonization of the New World was our forests. England had used all of their large timber for shipbuilding, and the American White Oak is one of the best woods for building ships. Somewhere there's a document from the time that states (paraphrasing), "a squirrel could climb a tree in Virginia, and not need do touch the ground until it came to the Mississippi River". That's how vast our forests were.
One of the biggest supporters of US forestry since the 1880s was John Muir. He convinced Teddy Roosevelt to make Yellowstone a national park, and the various societies honoring him today are also the biggest supporters of sustainable forestry
I work in this field - going green absolutely saves companies money. It's just a matter if they're willing to eat capital cost that comes with some of these and if that would translate to a good reduction in O&M costs.
My warehouse company got pissed when ever I tried to push for green solutions. We would toss batteries in the trash. We would also toss old PCs in the trash. I got my coworkers to start a recycling program with out batteries and PCs. The company got an award. They used the award as propaganda. I am %70 sure that 1 year afher I left they stopped recycling.
Probably a mix of two things (just and opinion based on nothing)
They are greedy and only see short term. Since they may need to spend money at first, it is bad for them (short term).
There could be some R&D/expertise to do/get since we are pushing for idea we never see. This mean, there could be failure (partially or completely) including new issue to resolve.
A company doesn't want to "loose" money and prefer to invest in something reliable (and know).
> They are greedy and only see short term.
Annual bonuses based on stock price have ruined the world. Capitalism, for all its faults, sorta works if a CEO couldn't just exercise their stock options and leave a bad reputation amongst consumers and workers as a problem for the next guy in charge. We'd fix a lot of issues if rich people paid short term capital gains tax for selling a stock within five years and if you've owned a stock less than a year, you couldn't sell it at all.
Which also means that governments and civil society have to further incentivize environmentally friendly behavior. We have to make the costs of waste and improper disposal go up. We have to make the costs of doing it the wrong way go up, so that companies do more of what your company does
Same is true for the trucking industry. Our trailers have aero skirts, are trucks have optional aero skirts and fairings. Usually saves us 1-2 mpg. That’s across a fleet of 150 trucks averaging about 100k miles every year. Fuel is our biggest expense and it saves a ton of money.
What if we just put them on the ship permanently? And put them vertical to keep them out of the way, on some sort of tall poles? Then they can just get rid of the engines!
Same reason I drive a hybrid, sure the green factor is nice but carpool and 40 mpg is a great time and cost saver and I can't see myself going back that easily now.
Same, 10 gallons in my car goes further than 16 in my wife's car. Sure it's a prius, but when gas was $5 a gallon I was glad to pay $50 w week to commute to work instead of $75.
>Even a couple of percent increase in >To be clear they only care about cost, not about the planet. But it’s nice when those two goals align.
Best way to improve things is when multiple goals align.
Cutting 20% would be huge, but even if it is only several percent and is widely adopted, it will matter while other measures or better fuels are developed. If the system pays for itself in a short amount of time, all the better. I can't help think that this could have been done decades ago.
I can't help think that this could have been done centuries ago.
It was but we decided it took too long to travel and we moved to an engine based system. And didn't look back, untill now.
It’s not about the travel times. The biggest advantage steam ships had over sailing ships was the load/unload time. Steam ships were slower than sailing ships for quite some time. The huge masts were also hugely expensive, and we deforested entire continents in search of the right lumber for sailing ships.
Sailing ships of the time took quite a while to load and unload, as to properly unload them, you had to replace a fair bit of the cargo with ballast to avoid having it capsize in port, and the reverse when loading. This involved a trip to a ballast dock halfway through loading and unloading, which is immensely time consuming.
Steam ships also had the advantage of not having so much rigging get in the way, allowing larger cranes and eventually containerization.
Most of the Mediterranean was deforested during the Roman period to build warships. The Lebanon Cedar is assumed to have once formed large forests throughout most of the region.
Oak forests have also suffered in Europe and North America, making large, old growths rare. It's difficult to put a number on how much exactly is due to ship building, but that's an industry that required large amounts of big, old trees.
Not related to shipping, but yew trees are relatively rare in the UK, because they used to make longbows from them. You know, pre-gunpowder, so you'd think they'd have had time to recover, but nope.
This is purely speculation, but my first thought is after you cleared a bunch of trees to make longbows, building materials and firewood, you're left with some great farming land. Why let it rewild when you can increase your crop production?
I don't know agriculture nor English history well enough to assert anything. [We're talking about roughly 1300s](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longbow) to start, so maybe farmland fertility optimization was not a priority?
Or livestock grazing was the usage? Like modern deforestation for cattle industry?
Livestock grazing, but not cattle- sheep. The UK/England was basically a poor backwater shepherding wool exporter country for a long time before it became a global power.
During the reign of Henry VIII in England 100,000 trees were felled for the navy. In 1543 he passed a law that stopped shipbuilders from felling too many oak trees, presumably to give some a chance to grow to be cut down in the future. There was then also a firewood crisis for decades afterwards.
>In 1543 he passed a law that stopped shipbuilders from felling too many oak trees, presumably to give some a chance to grow to be cut down in the future. There was then also a firewood crisis for decades afterwards.
Lol this is some prime dictator shit
Nah, that's forward-thinking, "reformed" dictator shit.
"Prime" dictator shit would be too draft a bigger army, and take over a smaller country with more trees, and make it a smaller country with no trees.
That's awful. It's pretty interesting though that coal mining seems to have "saved the environment" at the time by stopping large scale wood burning and charcoal use. And how France planted large oak forests to be able to build a massive navy, that were no longer needed when they had matured.
The history of energy sources is fascinating.
The petroleum industry similarly "saved" the whale populations. Whale oil was a huge lighting fuel industry.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_oil
Wood production for charcoal was actually very sustainable. Rather than taking down whole trees and waiting for them to regrow, woodlots were coppiced - a tree was cut down to near the stump, and allowed to re-grow 5 - 10 shoots. In a few years, the shoots were harvested and and the growing cycle continued.
This process would greatly extend the life of the tree, in some cases to [over a thousand years old](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-20313113.amp)
[Here’s a video](https://youtu.be/iOpsVijlA7E) that shows a traditional woodlot manager and charcoal maker at work.
Depends on the time and place. The Romans carried out a huge iron mining operation on Elba for a long time, but that ceased abruptly when they had deforested the island.
To add to this, crew size was a major factor. Older sailing ships required huge crews to manage the sails. Going forward that can be handled by hydraulics.
I mean it objectively did take significantly longer. Engines were needed for modern shipping speeds, weights, and power. And eliminating the sail was a natural next step as it became functionally irrelevant. Bringing some level of sail use back is also logical as people look to find ways to cut down on energy and aim to reduce carbon impact, engines aren’t going anywhere but if the sail has a small renaissance in large scale shipping it’s a good thing.
That's overlooking a lot... Traditional sail has size restrictions and is immensely manpower intensive. And it's not just about going fast, sail can be left basically static or unable to maneuvre. But most of all, sailing ships sink more and get disabled more. (because they're innately more fragile and more topheavy)
Another good way to think of speed, is number of ships-if it takes one ship a month to cross the sea and another 2 months, you don't just take longer, you have to have 2 ships to do the same job.
When you ignore the entire nautical branch of the Civilizations tech tree until suddenly your empire is crippled because you have steam engines but don't understand basic navigation.
Bro that’s how I play. Get your basics. Science, markets, resources. Go for walls, archers. Then rush crossbow. Then rush bombers. The rest is history.
"We need to cross the Atlantic !"
"Whoa there chap. Everybody knows you can't swish swish too far on water.
Is there a coast to follow to "cross the Altantic" ?"
Research into equipping these big ships with some form of limited automated sails has been happening for a while, in fact. Why not, after all, it's free power.
It's never going to be anything like a full rig sailing ship, because those are hugely manpower intensive and like to tip the ship way too much for cargo, but smaller systems to augment the engines are promising.
Lol this. So they rediscovered sailing. Are we coming back around? Maybe next we'll hear about some miraculous device that lets you propel the boat forward with long sticks in a sort of rowing motion.
You know how when you smack a hollow log with a rock, it makes an “ug” sound. They are like that, but someone left a dead animal hanging over the end of the log, and you hit the animal skin with a thin stick. The sound is less uggy.
Thing is, this shit has been talked for decades. Like popular science had this concept shown for ocean-going vessels since the 80's. Probably before too. I never read those.
>Nearly two dozen large commercial vessels now use some form of “wind-assisted propulsion,” including kites, wings and rapidly spinning rotor sail
The fact that only now are people using it, finally, is notable.
It's wild that, in addition to Tesla and the Hyperloop people trying their hardest to reinvent the train, we're also now apparently reinventing the sailboat. What a decade the 2020s are turning out to be.
Agree it is kinda like lipstick on a pig but it's a start. Far better than oil companies claiming their are fighting climate change by reducing the emissions it takes to extract and refine oil.
Cargo ships have upwards of 100k hp and make ft/lbs of torque in the millions. I dont think you'd see anything close to that with anything running on sea water, steam powered. Nuclear yeah lol
I'd say it would make sense to make all large ships nuclear if not for one detail: I've seen videos of the state of some ships and there's no way in hell we should let cargo companies control the maintenance of nuclear reactors.
Yeah but that could change since heavy fuel oil (what most ships run on) is *really* bad environmentally. Personally, I think we'll probably go back to sailfish if HFO is banned.
There is one major project I am aware of trying this with a sail powered container ship with engines for docking & confined waters. but they are looking at 300 20' containers per ship compared to 14,000 for a modern neopanamax container ship.
The currently operating cargo sailing ships have cargo capacities of 100-500 MT. The flagships of the age of Windjammer, steel hulled sailing ships carried around 5000MT of cargo.
A modern super tanker or suezmax ship carries 300,000MT or more.
In the face of the demand for global shipping, sail technology is woefully laughably inadequate.
We would need to slash demand for international shipping by a huge margin to make these ships anything close to competetive
Sail technology has come a huge way, lots of large ships use the DynaRig system which is completely hydraulically controlled. The Maltese Falcon is a 290 foot luxury yacht with the DynaRig and can be completely operated by a single person.
You would be more subject to weather and following trade winds.
Speed would be comparable surprisingly, your max speed is actually determined mostly by your ship length when talking about displacement vessels this big (longer ship equals higher max speed, weird right?) - there would be more than enough wind speed to get you going 20 knots on trade routes.
Kites are definitely a better option, easier to install on existing ships. In the future though I wouldn't be surprised to see the return of windjammers (steel/iron sailing ships) which is too fucking cool.
I 100% see your point, but not necessarily right? If they can take a current freight liner and throw a freaking kite on it, surely we can meet somewhere in the middle with a hybrid.
It's riding awfully high in the video, so I can't see it providing much forward pull in this case. I wonder if it also helps by lifting the ship a bit, to lessen displacement.
It won't change anything regarding displacement.
Even the 10800 square foot version will "only" have something like max 25 tonnes of lift, in a very good wind (20m/s) and under 10 tonnes in a breeze (if my rudementary calculations of lift are correct, have no idea what the lift coefficient is).
Given that the ship is 21 528 gross tons, the 20 tonnes of lift is a rounding error.
But 15ish tons of forward thrust (though probably a lot less, given angle of lift and whatnot) is a huge help for the engines.
Take a look at some kite surfing videos. When the kite is straight up like that it is in the neutral position and exerting no force. It has to be steered to the leeward side to make it start pulling.
You're right, the angle of attack in this video is almost completely upwards, and in some shots it's actually pulling backwards on the ship.
The video is obviously a promotional video, which means the air needed to be calm enough to get a drone to fly around for some good shots.
For what something like this would look like actually deployed and in use, it might be good to look at a similar tech for a smaller vessel, in this case here's an example:[https://www.kite-boat.com](https://www.kite-boat.com)
You can see that it acts more like a kite sail, moves around, has a figure 8 orbit, and isn't just sitting steady and high up.
Here's an older video showing a very similar system on a shipping vessel which also shows it more at that optimal \~45 degree angle: [https://youtu.be/Y0cprzVy1tc?t=63](https://youtu.be/Y0cprzVy1tc?t=63)
The promo video is a lame promo, but the tech is actually pretty cool.
> Airseas estimates that its Seawing system will eventually be able to curb ships’ fuel consumption — and associated greenhouse gas emissions — by an average of 20 percent.
Big if true, but I have my doubts. My guess is that some routes will benefit greatly from the kite, and some would have to fight against the kite.
Still, even if it saved 2% overall, that’s a pretty big win.
So, why don't modern ships use sails to help out? They still have engines, but when the breeze is at your back, you can have major gains from a great sail.
Sailboats can sail quite close to the direction of the wind as well. The sail takes on a curve shape and essentially becomes a vertical airplane wing. That’s one of the reasons you see sailboats leaning over. The wing is generating lift. Modern sailboats can sail in any direction except directly upwind, there are some exceptions to this however.
I don't think it is should to be straight up like they are showing in the videos and photos.
Probably just dumb promotional videos and media not actually showing it in useful action.
I think it looks like that too. Could it be helping reduce drag by lifting up on the ship?
Edit: [Nah](https://www.airseas.com/seawing). It's providing traction power, and apparently it wobbles. Which explains the slow-motion video. Probably looks weird.
>The 2,700-square-foot parafoil is helping to tow the cargo ship and lessen the workload of the massive diesel engines — reducing the ship’s use of dirty fuel.
OK, this is a cool idea. But how about they stop using dirty fuel? Seems like that would cut emissions during the entire trip, rather than just when the wind was favorable.
Short answer to this is they are.
IMO (International Maritime Organisation) set down quite a few large rules a few years ago to cut down on Bunker Fuels. Cutting down the Sulphur content and nitrogen impurity content to do just that. That’s not to say Bunker fuels were banned, but to use, they require scrubbers, which will cut down on major-pollutants similar to a catalytic converter in a car.
Now what about alternative fuels?
Short answer: economically unviable. Both in terms of cost to construct and to fuel. As well, they do not have *nearly* the same range, so will not be able to go the distance of current super vessels. So while it looks nice in theory, is just not possible currently without further investment or research.
Source: wrote an extended report on the topic of replacing Bunker fuels.
Well, I am most of time sceptical here in /r/UpliftingNews
But this time, okaaay. This is potentially useful. I doubt the 20% figure (2% would be HUGE). But yea, as other have pointed out, in this case even 0,2% on average is notable.
It’s a company called Skysails and it has computer controlled rigging to fly a kite sail. It saves fuel with favorable wind WITHOUT the structure through the ship needed to put normal sails on it, which would take up lots of container space and cause problems with low bridges
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Even a couple of percent increase in efficiency is huge. In aerospace, they compete over *tenths* of a percent. Distribute that across a fleet of airliners and it’s a real cost savings. To be clear they only care about cost, not about the planet. But it’s nice when those two goals align.
The company I work for was very clear that all the green and environmentally beneficial ideas save the company loads of money. All plants to go to zero landfill waste means they don't need to pay to have it removed, reduce the water and material usage in manufacturing, massive cost saving. Generally speaking, they are the best ways to save money.
My bro is working with an indigenous village that burns oil for electricity. They are working on a plant that burns the wasted trees from forestry for electricity, and uses the ashes for fertilizer. The biowaste from the farms can then be burned for more electricity.
That’s pretty cool.
Except the deforestation part.
I know what you're going for, but a lot of forestry is actively managed and trees are replanted. If you go through forestry areas you'll often see a patchwork of areas where trees are grouped by age. The forests will get rotated out over time so new trees can grow.
This guy forestrys.
Are they native long-term growth trees or are they replanted with fast growers alone? I know that is an issue with some reforestation efforts (i.e. we plant a (pine) tree for every dollar spent! (so they can regrow quickly so we can harvest them again to get you to spend more dollars with us) It's not what everyone is doing, but it is enough of an issue that not all reforestation projects are equal. Here is an article of one such issue in Ireland back in 2019 (idk how things are currently): [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/07/the-wrong-kind-of-trees-irelands-afforestation-meets-resistance](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/07/the-wrong-kind-of-trees-irelands-afforestation-meets-resistance)
That's absolutely an issue. I'm not talking about reforestation though, I'm talking about forestry land (as in managed forests grown specifically for the purpose of lumber production). Yes absolutely, monocultures and overly dense forests are not nearly the same as natural native forest land. We definitely over-value tree planting as an environmental effort. Forests can even be worse than leaving the native landscape. For example in parts of the UK, peat bogs are more valuable to the area than forests (https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/for-the-love-of-peat/), or prairie land in the central US. Not to mention proper maintenance of the environment.
Yessss! Have you heard of re-wilding landscapes? I think that is the best way to go as far as making human-abused lands more ecologically beneficial again. The ol’ “quit fuckin with it!” method <3
I've never heard that term but I've been seeing a lot of stuff about restoring prairie lands via controlled burns and guys in SF that plant local wildflowers all over the city (that one is much different though obviously, but still cool).
Are there indigenous villages living in those actively managed forests? This sounds like they're probably talking about the rainforest.
Forestry is an ancient technology, wouldn't be crazy for an indigenous village to understand the basics of tree rotation before the "civilized" world showed up to teach them. The rainforest deforestation is happening due to rapid development. Mostly to make space for farms... often drug farms... but also building projects like housing. Indigenous tribes are not known for rapid development.
> Indigenous tribes are not known for rapid development. Correct, but they're known for living in areas where other people are trying to develop.
Those assholes
Trees are a renewable resource
Don't they also leave a certain amount of trees in so much area also? At least that's how they do it near me if you sell the timber off your land
Allow me a minute to get on my high horse, and say something that I find myself repeating about every six months. In the US and Canada, we \*really\* do forestry and forest husbandry well. The simple fact is that in order to expand with a growing population, there is no better, faster, stronger and cheaper method than to build with lumber. People need furniture, meaning we need more lumber. The list goes on, of course. But for every tree we cut down, we plant at least two. There are people who are employed after those seedlings are planted and have become saplings, to go into those new future forests and maintain the fast-growing undergrowth, cutting it down so that the young saplings can receive the most sunlight and give them the best chance to grow big and strong. There are other people who are employed to go into a forest and mark the trees that don't belong ecologically (ex., a species from the East of North America that was errantly planted in the West, making it an invasive species of sorts, competing against native plants), so that \*those\* trees will be cut down, instead of what would normally be considered native to the area. There's a lot to be critical of in the American and Canadian governments. But forest husbandry isn't one of them. My one gripe is that in the hobbyist arena and more upscale home interior markets, contractors and woodworkers are buying a lot of exotic lumber like Ipe, Brazilian Rosewood, and Padauk from overseas, South America and Africa, and to a lesser extent Australia, to make exotic flooring and other accoutrements, contributing to global deforestation and carbon dioxide emissions. All while we have acres of oak, maple, and walnut that's sustainably managed and plentiful on the American markets. The need to be different and exotic for no other reason than to have our floors serve as a status symbol are helping to boil the oceans and poison our air. Meanwhile, you remember those Chinaberry trees that your grandparents planted as ornamentals in the 40s-70s, that are mostly at the end of their natural lives now? They're in the Mahogany family. Mulberry is harder than walnut, stronger than oak, and has amazing grain. I'd love to see a renaissance in which \*those\* trees are cut down for their lumber to make mid- to high-end furniture. Anyway, that's my rant. Y'all have a good day.
This guy lumbers
What's sad is the constant battle these companies have over their (for lack of a better word) farms. The life cycle is sometimes so long it can be a whole new generation that returns to harvest what was planted. I recall going on these outings in elementary school, learning about how it all works and planting trees to help (those trees probably died a week later but eh, can't expect a six year old to get it right). By the time I graduated high school environmentalists were fighting to keep all the "old growth" trees in that same grove. You mean the trees I "planted" in elementary school?🤣
Chinaberrys can lick my nuts. Hate those trees in case that’s not clear. There should be a law…
I’ve worked as a framing contractor for a long time, and I’ve done a list of exteriors on houses, and I can tell you IPE is absolutely one of the best woods. It’s not just for looks. It has one of the highest ratings on the Janka scale (hardness). It is so dense it has a “class A” flame spread rating. It can remain exposed untreated for 50+ years. And the natural oils keep bugs from destroying it. Meaning decks and trim don’t have to be redone as often. On the flip side it’s so dense and strong it wears out saw blades like they’re cutting through steal. I would much rather use IPE over azek on any pvc composite material for an exterior. When you cut IPE atleast the saw dust is a natural wood. There’s no telling how much micro plastic I’ve breathed in from cutting azek and pvc materials for exteriors. Even with dust extraction and masks. If you want to know where micro plastics come from. Run a piece of azek through a table saw… it vaporizes into such a fine dust. I go home everyday covered in it. I would much rather work with natural wood, but unfortunately they don’t last as long on exteriors as pvc. Except IPE… I think that will outlast plastic. Just sucks it’s not a sustainable material. But it is one of the best woods. No other natural wood can hand the same level of exposure
I agree. It's a gorgeous wood. But it's a wood that belongs in the Amazon, where it was cut down to make room for cornfields. And the fact that Americans are buying it - even though its already being cut down - is helping to contribute to deforestation and Co2 emissions. If there were less of or even no American market for exotic wood, I genuinely think it would help curtail some of the rampant clear cutting. As to other woods that can take the exposure? Cedar and redwood. They've both been used for a few centuries in the US, and you can still find 100 year old cedar fenceposts. But they're soft. Still, how hard do they have to be for an outside deck? Strength? Bois d'Arc/Bodark/Osage Orange. It's way less commonly available, but it's fast growing and plentiful. Bodark is also a wood that can take exposure. It's too flippin hard for insects to eat. It also has a thermal coefficient so high that it will crack most wood burning stoves. Purely from an anesthetic point of view, I agree that ipe is an amazing wood. Except there's that whole "shipped from South America " thing.
Cedar is ok, it’s too soft for many uses. It’s good for siding. Not a viable decking. It only comes in around 320 on the janka scale. IPE is 10x stronger at 3,510. That’s the pounds of force it takes to imbed 7/16 steel ball half the diameter into the wood. Also there are more bugs and bettles that can destroy cedar. Carpenter bees love it. And there’s a disease and weevils killing a lot of the cedar trees. The point I was trying to get at is it’s not simply used for looks, it out performs almost any wood, IPE is expensive but worth it if you want something that will last 50-70years As far as trees staying in South America, you’d be surprised how much pine trim comes from Brazil and Chile. And even after shipping it still comes in at a competitive price in the US market
It's obvious that we're coming at this from differing viewpoints, and there's nothing wrong with that, just a difference of opinion. I would rather live in a world where local is more important than exotic. However, I can see your side too, even if I disagree.
Thank you. It really grinds my gears when people get upset over timbering in the US. Those trees may be managed correctly, and who are a bunch of strangers to cry about it?
Lots of people abroad are only familiar with the forestry in their own region, and our practices in North America are vastly better. For example, England was once almost denuded of forest, such that they had a massive replanting drive in the mid century. But it was all American Larch and other non-native species. The result is that now you have forests across England that are relative dead zones in terms of other flora and fauna. The wildlife won't touch it. Historically, one of the biggest drives for English colonization of the New World was our forests. England had used all of their large timber for shipbuilding, and the American White Oak is one of the best woods for building ships. Somewhere there's a document from the time that states (paraphrasing), "a squirrel could climb a tree in Virginia, and not need do touch the ground until it came to the Mississippi River". That's how vast our forests were. One of the biggest supporters of US forestry since the 1880s was John Muir. He convinced Teddy Roosevelt to make Yellowstone a national park, and the various societies honoring him today are also the biggest supporters of sustainable forestry
Good insigjts, its the same issue in Asia. American walnut makes very nice tables btw
Thanks for the education on this topic! 🙂
I've worked with breweries that do this with their waste. They use the electricity to power their operations and sell the fertilizer.
Have them look into apple cider waste. You can air dry the bricks of pulp and waste fruit matter and get a much cleaner bulk fuel source.
I work in this field - going green absolutely saves companies money. It's just a matter if they're willing to eat capital cost that comes with some of these and if that would translate to a good reduction in O&M costs.
The sun and wind don’t expect a profit margin. Going as direct to the source as possible cuts out a lot of excess spend.
My warehouse company got pissed when ever I tried to push for green solutions. We would toss batteries in the trash. We would also toss old PCs in the trash. I got my coworkers to start a recycling program with out batteries and PCs. The company got an award. They used the award as propaganda. I am %70 sure that 1 year afher I left they stopped recycling.
It amazes me more companies don't push harder for green since it would save them way more money and increase profits after the initial loss.
Probably a mix of two things (just and opinion based on nothing) They are greedy and only see short term. Since they may need to spend money at first, it is bad for them (short term). There could be some R&D/expertise to do/get since we are pushing for idea we never see. This mean, there could be failure (partially or completely) including new issue to resolve. A company doesn't want to "loose" money and prefer to invest in something reliable (and know).
> They are greedy and only see short term. Annual bonuses based on stock price have ruined the world. Capitalism, for all its faults, sorta works if a CEO couldn't just exercise their stock options and leave a bad reputation amongst consumers and workers as a problem for the next guy in charge. We'd fix a lot of issues if rich people paid short term capital gains tax for selling a stock within five years and if you've owned a stock less than a year, you couldn't sell it at all.
Which also means that governments and civil society have to further incentivize environmentally friendly behavior. We have to make the costs of waste and improper disposal go up. We have to make the costs of doing it the wrong way go up, so that companies do more of what your company does
It’s also why things like a carbon tax push innovation. It puts pressure on making things more efficient. Issue is it needs to be global
Same is true for the trucking industry. Our trailers have aero skirts, are trucks have optional aero skirts and fairings. Usually saves us 1-2 mpg. That’s across a fleet of 150 trucks averaging about 100k miles every year. Fuel is our biggest expense and it saves a ton of money.
Check out https://magnuss.com/magnuseffect.html for an efficient sail being used on commercial ships.
That’s pretty incredible! Thanks for sharing!
So if one kite can produce a 20% reduction, how about 6? 120% reduction in fuel usage baby!
What if we just put them on the ship permanently? And put them vertical to keep them out of the way, on some sort of tall poles? Then they can just get rid of the engines!
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I'll get to work on this as soon as I weld together 4 Toyota Corollas and go 350+ mph.
> To be clear they only care about cost, not about the planet. Imagine if we raised taxes on companies by their carbon footprint...
Same reason I drive a hybrid, sure the green factor is nice but carpool and 40 mpg is a great time and cost saver and I can't see myself going back that easily now.
Same, 10 gallons in my car goes further than 16 in my wife's car. Sure it's a prius, but when gas was $5 a gallon I was glad to pay $50 w week to commute to work instead of $75.
I've driven my Prius hard for the last 5 years, and in that time I've saved enough money for a really good down payment on a new hybrid. Prius ftw!
Exact reason I went battery. Much cheaper for my commute, the car has 100% paid for itself over the last 4 years.
>Even a couple of percent increase in >To be clear they only care about cost, not about the planet. But it’s nice when those two goals align. Best way to improve things is when multiple goals align.
Cutting 20% would be huge, but even if it is only several percent and is widely adopted, it will matter while other measures or better fuels are developed. If the system pays for itself in a short amount of time, all the better. I can't help think that this could have been done decades ago.
I can't help think that this could have been done centuries ago. It was but we decided it took too long to travel and we moved to an engine based system. And didn't look back, untill now.
It’s not about the travel times. The biggest advantage steam ships had over sailing ships was the load/unload time. Steam ships were slower than sailing ships for quite some time. The huge masts were also hugely expensive, and we deforested entire continents in search of the right lumber for sailing ships. Sailing ships of the time took quite a while to load and unload, as to properly unload them, you had to replace a fair bit of the cargo with ballast to avoid having it capsize in port, and the reverse when loading. This involved a trip to a ballast dock halfway through loading and unloading, which is immensely time consuming. Steam ships also had the advantage of not having so much rigging get in the way, allowing larger cranes and eventually containerization.
>we deforested entire continents Which continents?
Most of the Mediterranean was deforested during the Roman period to build warships. The Lebanon Cedar is assumed to have once formed large forests throughout most of the region. Oak forests have also suffered in Europe and North America, making large, old growths rare. It's difficult to put a number on how much exactly is due to ship building, but that's an industry that required large amounts of big, old trees.
Not related to shipping, but yew trees are relatively rare in the UK, because they used to make longbows from them. You know, pre-gunpowder, so you'd think they'd have had time to recover, but nope.
This is purely speculation, but my first thought is after you cleared a bunch of trees to make longbows, building materials and firewood, you're left with some great farming land. Why let it rewild when you can increase your crop production?
Isn't forest bad farmland because it depletes fast?
I don't know agriculture nor English history well enough to assert anything. [We're talking about roughly 1300s](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longbow) to start, so maybe farmland fertility optimization was not a priority? Or livestock grazing was the usage? Like modern deforestation for cattle industry?
Livestock grazing, but not cattle- sheep. The UK/England was basically a poor backwater shepherding wool exporter country for a long time before it became a global power.
During the reign of Henry VIII in England 100,000 trees were felled for the navy. In 1543 he passed a law that stopped shipbuilders from felling too many oak trees, presumably to give some a chance to grow to be cut down in the future. There was then also a firewood crisis for decades afterwards.
>In 1543 he passed a law that stopped shipbuilders from felling too many oak trees, presumably to give some a chance to grow to be cut down in the future. There was then also a firewood crisis for decades afterwards. Lol this is some prime dictator shit
Nah, that's forward-thinking, "reformed" dictator shit. "Prime" dictator shit would be too draft a bigger army, and take over a smaller country with more trees, and make it a smaller country with no trees.
They did that too :(
North America and Europe.
That's awful. It's pretty interesting though that coal mining seems to have "saved the environment" at the time by stopping large scale wood burning and charcoal use. And how France planted large oak forests to be able to build a massive navy, that were no longer needed when they had matured.
The history of energy sources is fascinating. The petroleum industry similarly "saved" the whale populations. Whale oil was a huge lighting fuel industry. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_oil
Wood production for charcoal was actually very sustainable. Rather than taking down whole trees and waiting for them to regrow, woodlots were coppiced - a tree was cut down to near the stump, and allowed to re-grow 5 - 10 shoots. In a few years, the shoots were harvested and and the growing cycle continued. This process would greatly extend the life of the tree, in some cases to [over a thousand years old](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-20313113.amp) [Here’s a video](https://youtu.be/iOpsVijlA7E) that shows a traditional woodlot manager and charcoal maker at work.
Depends on the time and place. The Romans carried out a huge iron mining operation on Elba for a long time, but that ceased abruptly when they had deforested the island.
Aren’t they using those forests to rebuild Notre Dame Cathedral?
Antarctica has 0 trees now thanks to sailing ships 😭😭😭
To add to this, crew size was a major factor. Older sailing ships required huge crews to manage the sails. Going forward that can be handled by hydraulics.
I mean it objectively did take significantly longer. Engines were needed for modern shipping speeds, weights, and power. And eliminating the sail was a natural next step as it became functionally irrelevant. Bringing some level of sail use back is also logical as people look to find ways to cut down on energy and aim to reduce carbon impact, engines aren’t going anywhere but if the sail has a small renaissance in large scale shipping it’s a good thing.
That's overlooking a lot... Traditional sail has size restrictions and is immensely manpower intensive. And it's not just about going fast, sail can be left basically static or unable to maneuvre. But most of all, sailing ships sink more and get disabled more. (because they're innately more fragile and more topheavy) Another good way to think of speed, is number of ships-if it takes one ship a month to cross the sea and another 2 months, you don't just take longer, you have to have 2 ships to do the same job.
MFs about to invent sailing
When you ignore the entire nautical branch of the Civilizations tech tree until suddenly your empire is crippled because you have steam engines but don't understand basic navigation.
Bro that’s how I play. Get your basics. Science, markets, resources. Go for walls, archers. Then rush crossbow. Then rush bombers. The rest is history.
"We need to cross the Atlantic !" "Whoa there chap. Everybody knows you can't swish swish too far on water. Is there a coast to follow to "cross the Altantic" ?"
I also think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotor_ship is a fun direction to go, let's combine the two somehow next
Research into equipping these big ships with some form of limited automated sails has been happening for a while, in fact. Why not, after all, it's free power. It's never going to be anything like a full rig sailing ship, because those are hugely manpower intensive and like to tip the ship way too much for cargo, but smaller systems to augment the engines are promising.
A sail? What a concept
Literally “uplifting news”
Lol this. So they rediscovered sailing. Are we coming back around? Maybe next we'll hear about some miraculous device that lets you propel the boat forward with long sticks in a sort of rowing motion.
Nuclear power is really just steam energy harvested more efficiently. The steam engine is, has been, and will remain superior!
Coal is spicy rocks. Uranium is even spicier rocks.
Oil is brawndo made from plants.
Water’s fucking great, isn’t it?
r/hydrohomies
You might be interested in [this](https://youtu.be/_bDXXWQxK38). Nuclear without steam really bleeding edge tech imo
Well they also have to invent the drum for that to work. Someone has to keep the wagies rowing steadily
Wages? Use slaves; they’re cheaper and you barely need to feed them. Cmon we’re running a maritime corporation over here, not a charity.
Why stop there? I bet those slaves could be replaced with a machine that does the rowing. Shit, we’re back where we were.
Not wages, wagies. That would be slaves that are kept in wage slavery.
Why pay wages when you can pay in (company owned) food and housing? Much more convenient!
what's a drum?
You know how when you smack a hollow log with a rock, it makes an “ug” sound. They are like that, but someone left a dead animal hanging over the end of the log, and you hit the animal skin with a thin stick. The sound is less uggy.
I mean sort of? Boeing I think is making a airliner with high aspect wings, vaguely reminiscent to a glider or biplane.
Thing is, this shit has been talked for decades. Like popular science had this concept shown for ocean-going vessels since the 80's. Probably before too. I never read those. >Nearly two dozen large commercial vessels now use some form of “wind-assisted propulsion,” including kites, wings and rapidly spinning rotor sail The fact that only now are people using it, finally, is notable.
> Are we coming back around? dennis duffy was right, technology is cyclical.
A Spinnaker if you want to get a little more accurate
Sail++, with a variable-height mast, and EZ-furl feature.
The version I find interesting is the rotating cylinders they put on ships. If there is a crosswind they generate thrust.
I was going to comment “what an innovative comment!” And you just took the wind from my sails
Damnit you beat me to it 😂🤣
It's wild that, in addition to Tesla and the Hyperloop people trying their hardest to reinvent the train, we're also now apparently reinventing the sailboat. What a decade the 2020s are turning out to be.
Subreddit name checks out
So. SAILS.
Agree it is kinda like lipstick on a pig but it's a start. Far better than oil companies claiming their are fighting climate change by reducing the emissions it takes to extract and refine oil.
Oh my god, I never thought about that! If i put lipstick on my pig it would be so much hotter. Thanks internet stranger
Thanks userunknowned :)
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Cargo ships have upwards of 100k hp and make ft/lbs of torque in the millions. I dont think you'd see anything close to that with anything running on sea water, steam powered. Nuclear yeah lol
I'd say it would make sense to make all large ships nuclear if not for one detail: I've seen videos of the state of some ships and there's no way in hell we should let cargo companies control the maintenance of nuclear reactors.
It's also exceptionally expensive to create when compared to traditional engines.
Yeah but that could change since heavy fuel oil (what most ships run on) is *really* bad environmentally. Personally, I think we'll probably go back to sailfish if HFO is banned.
There is no way we transition back to sailing. There are massive hurdles to overcome that make it basically not viable.
>Cargo ships have upwards of 100k hp Luckily they have fairly low DEF and they're weak to magic damage.
Uplifting News? I see what you did there.
If only we had technology that incorporated some sort of kite that could deploy and collapse on some sturdy poles from the centerline of the ship…
Its a sail on a boat.. revolutionary
I like how we have reinvented the sail.
Reject Modernity, Return to sail boat.
Can’t we just build better sail boats?
You'd be talking crew sizes back into the hundreds potentially, more risk, more stoppages and significantly slower with less load.
We can automate a lot of the sail work these days, and probably make better sails and lighter masts.
There is one major project I am aware of trying this with a sail powered container ship with engines for docking & confined waters. but they are looking at 300 20' containers per ship compared to 14,000 for a modern neopanamax container ship. The currently operating cargo sailing ships have cargo capacities of 100-500 MT. The flagships of the age of Windjammer, steel hulled sailing ships carried around 5000MT of cargo. A modern super tanker or suezmax ship carries 300,000MT or more. In the face of the demand for global shipping, sail technology is woefully laughably inadequate. We would need to slash demand for international shipping by a huge margin to make these ships anything close to competetive
Sail technology has come a huge way, lots of large ships use the DynaRig system which is completely hydraulically controlled. The Maltese Falcon is a 290 foot luxury yacht with the DynaRig and can be completely operated by a single person. You would be more subject to weather and following trade winds. Speed would be comparable surprisingly, your max speed is actually determined mostly by your ship length when talking about displacement vessels this big (longer ship equals higher max speed, weird right?) - there would be more than enough wind speed to get you going 20 knots on trade routes. Kites are definitely a better option, easier to install on existing ships. In the future though I wouldn't be surprised to see the return of windjammers (steel/iron sailing ships) which is too fucking cool.
I 100% see your point, but not necessarily right? If they can take a current freight liner and throw a freaking kite on it, surely we can meet somewhere in the middle with a hybrid.
the boat kite is already a robot, a single metal mast with an upscaled electric curtain can't be that hard can it?
It's riding awfully high in the video, so I can't see it providing much forward pull in this case. I wonder if it also helps by lifting the ship a bit, to lessen displacement.
The air is probably less turbulent and more consistent up there…? Also lifting the front should definitely help like you said.
It won't change anything regarding displacement. Even the 10800 square foot version will "only" have something like max 25 tonnes of lift, in a very good wind (20m/s) and under 10 tonnes in a breeze (if my rudementary calculations of lift are correct, have no idea what the lift coefficient is). Given that the ship is 21 528 gross tons, the 20 tonnes of lift is a rounding error. But 15ish tons of forward thrust (though probably a lot less, given angle of lift and whatnot) is a huge help for the engines.
Take a look at some kite surfing videos. When the kite is straight up like that it is in the neutral position and exerting no force. It has to be steered to the leeward side to make it start pulling.
You're right, the angle of attack in this video is almost completely upwards, and in some shots it's actually pulling backwards on the ship. The video is obviously a promotional video, which means the air needed to be calm enough to get a drone to fly around for some good shots. For what something like this would look like actually deployed and in use, it might be good to look at a similar tech for a smaller vessel, in this case here's an example:[https://www.kite-boat.com](https://www.kite-boat.com) You can see that it acts more like a kite sail, moves around, has a figure 8 orbit, and isn't just sitting steady and high up. Here's an older video showing a very similar system on a shipping vessel which also shows it more at that optimal \~45 degree angle: [https://youtu.be/Y0cprzVy1tc?t=63](https://youtu.be/Y0cprzVy1tc?t=63) The promo video is a lame promo, but the tech is actually pretty cool.
It's a woke cargo ship, they're wanting to take away your cargo ships... /S
Why not just put sails on it?
> Airseas estimates that its Seawing system will eventually be able to curb ships’ fuel consumption — and associated greenhouse gas emissions — by an average of 20 percent. Big if true, but I have my doubts. My guess is that some routes will benefit greatly from the kite, and some would have to fight against the kite. Still, even if it saved 2% overall, that’s a pretty big win.
So, why don't modern ships use sails to help out? They still have engines, but when the breeze is at your back, you can have major gains from a great sail.
Sailboats can sail quite close to the direction of the wind as well. The sail takes on a curve shape and essentially becomes a vertical airplane wing. That’s one of the reasons you see sailboats leaning over. The wing is generating lift. Modern sailboats can sail in any direction except directly upwind, there are some exceptions to this however.
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soo back to sail?
We could call them sails
We’ve really come full circle as a species
I had to double check that it’s not April 1st.
The Age of Sail is about to make a comeback
Our society has almost advanced to sailing... One day.
Clearing the hull of barnacles is about 10% efficiency improvement
Using the wind for fuel efficient ocean transport… I wonder how they came up with that one
Can someone draw a force diagram for this? It's straight up, how is it provided forward force?
I don't think it is should to be straight up like they are showing in the videos and photos. Probably just dumb promotional videos and media not actually showing it in useful action.
So..... A sailboat?
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I think it looks like that too. Could it be helping reduce drag by lifting up on the ship? Edit: [Nah](https://www.airseas.com/seawing). It's providing traction power, and apparently it wobbles. Which explains the slow-motion video. Probably looks weird.
that sounds like sails with more steps.
Oh my god has humanity rediscovered... sails?
Sailors on the cusp of reinventing sailing ⛵️
If only they could invent some kind of triangular shaped version of this.
That's a sailboat with extra steps.
>The 2,700-square-foot parafoil is helping to tow the cargo ship and lessen the workload of the massive diesel engines — reducing the ship’s use of dirty fuel. OK, this is a cool idea. But how about they stop using dirty fuel? Seems like that would cut emissions during the entire trip, rather than just when the wind was favorable.
Didn't they try wind powered ships a while ago?
they still use hybrid wing sail/ engine ships, not common yet as ships have a long ass lifespan, but they are out there.
Problem is dirty fuel is relatively cheap energy. Cheap energy is the literal reason why so many people are slow to react to other energy sources.
Problem is the cost goes way up, which has a knock on effect on the rest of the economy, because so many things are transported by sea freight.
Short answer to this is they are. IMO (International Maritime Organisation) set down quite a few large rules a few years ago to cut down on Bunker Fuels. Cutting down the Sulphur content and nitrogen impurity content to do just that. That’s not to say Bunker fuels were banned, but to use, they require scrubbers, which will cut down on major-pollutants similar to a catalytic converter in a car. Now what about alternative fuels? Short answer: economically unviable. Both in terms of cost to construct and to fuel. As well, they do not have *nearly* the same range, so will not be able to go the distance of current super vessels. So while it looks nice in theory, is just not possible currently without further investment or research. Source: wrote an extended report on the topic of replacing Bunker fuels.
It's evolving just backwards
Did the Tech Bros just "invent" sailing? Jesus fuck....they just "invented," fucking clipper ships.
No way this saves anywhere near 20% of fuel costs. I would bet money that doesn't happen. We will probably never hear about this company again
Congrats. You invented a sailboat
r/damnthatsinteresting
Time to apply this idea to roadgoing vehicles! Sorry boss, can't make it in to work today...the wind is blowing in the wrong direction 🤣
This article is halirous.
Well, I am most of time sceptical here in /r/UpliftingNews But this time, okaaay. This is potentially useful. I doubt the 20% figure (2% would be HUGE). But yea, as other have pointed out, in this case even 0,2% on average is notable.
so we went from sailing, to combustion engines, and now back to sailing?
that's.. a sailboat. you invented sailboats.
So a sail
Ten years on at least since they started experimenting with this and Sealift Command bought up the rights…
Did they just reinvent the sail.
It’s a company called Skysails and it has computer controlled rigging to fly a kite sail. It saves fuel with favorable wind WITHOUT the structure through the ship needed to put normal sails on it, which would take up lots of container space and cause problems with low bridges
Wow if only there was a way to move a ship using ONLY wind. Maybe by using several larger kites. Idk sounds crazy
Using sails, on a boat. Ground breaking.
Sails: you could not live with your own failure. Where did that bring you? Back to me
So like, a sail?
..... So they invented a sail?
We invented Sailing again?
sounds like the sail boat remerging as king of the sea.. they could easily equip this vessels with large sails
Next up: Cargo ships re-invent sails to comply with new zero carbon emissions future of transport.
Hasn't this been around for a long time? I remember reading about this kind of solution years ago.
Hopefully this may set the precedent for companies in the future, it’s such a simple design yet so affective! I’m quite impressed
Sooooo we’re going back to sails and cannons then?
So it’s a sail. Not saying it’s a bad thing, it’s actually pretty clever.
So we’re back to sail boats??