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Winged cargo ship saves three tonnes of fuel per day on first voyage (newatlas.com)

submitted 7 months ago by mac@programming.dev to c/tech@programming.dev

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[-] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 27 points 7 months ago

Next they should replace the diesel engines with bigass electric motors, and put solar panels over every top surface of the vessel that they can, and even possibly on the sail-wings too. Wind and solar powered shipping would be a good combo since there are plenty of both out on the seas. Charge the boat batteries at port as needed, cruise while collecting solar power etc

[-] shalafi@lemmy.world 18 points 7 months ago

I have a 4'x10' flatbottomed boat. Of the 40sq./ft. I cover 45% in solar to make a modest trolling motor go 6-7mph. Weight with myself, wife, battery, cells, misc. gear: 300lbs.

Solar ain't gonna get it on a cargo ship weighing 165,000 tons and a couple of football fields long.

[-] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 5 points 7 months ago

Flat bottomed boats they make the rocking world go round.

[-] Clusterfck@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 7 months ago

Maybe something like diesel-electric that they use with trains with solar panels providing some of the electricity is a more realistic thought.

[-] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

Batteries are part of what I said, which you seem to be ignoring. A ship that huge could hold some huge-ass batteries to power the bigass motors. Sodium-ion batteries would be the ideal solution with presently available technology.

[-] supercriticalcheese@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

Nowhere near the power density needed to get the job done

[-] Red_October@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago

Not even close to enough surface area to power them with solar. Even if the entire ship held up a solar array that completely shadowed the ship would it be enough.

[-] Iceblade02@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

They already are propelled by electric motors - but the electricity is generated by massive fossil fuelled generators.

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 5 points 7 months ago

I look forward to hydrogen-fueled ships and hydrogen-fueled planes. That's going to be fun.

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[-] GarytheSnail@programming.dev 6 points 7 months ago

Are you copyrighting your comment?

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 4 points 7 months ago

Against commercial AI, yes.

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[-] GarytheSnail@programming.dev 3 points 7 months ago

Can an instance blanket copyright all of their users comments?

Also, I'm not sure why you're getting down voted, sorry.

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 2 points 7 months ago

Can an instance blanket copyright all of their users comments?

They probably get the right to distribute it because that's their primary purpose. But I'm not sure if they get the right to distribute it under another license? No idea... copyright is beyond me.
However, if it gets commercial AI makers in trouble, that's fine by me.