-PJ
They think the public is quite gullible.
And if there is no wind..................................
I'm having a problem seeing how that doesn't consume as much or more power than it "saves". You know, that whole law of conservation of energy thing.
like solar, this gets promoted every few years.
wonder how the ship handles in rough weather and strong currents
Based on the tonnage of heavy things like cars that come halfway across the world to us and are competitive with our own industry, what’s the big deal about a more efficient cargo ship?
Hertz is ready to convert their entire fleet!
this is called a Flettner rotor
they are kind of cool, I looked into them a number of years ago.
they do work. I considered making a steam powered one for a sailboat just cause.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhAlWHSez90
We need a new meme. What did the liberals use before sails? Diesel.
In other words, if this is bought by the shipping companies, shortages of goods will become commonplace and consumer prices will go up. Mark my words. There was an actual reason, we moved away from the 3-masted schooners for cargo delivery, but these climate change idiots aren’t smart enough to figure that out.
Wind-Powered Rotor Ships Were Maritime Breakthrough of the 20s: Time Machine (March 1925)
This from a hundred years ago in Popular Mechanics.
With a proven record of supplying clean, natural energy to mariners ever since they first took sails to sea, wind power is an attractive—if inconsistent—alternative to diesel engines, which consume gallons of oil. In March 1925, Popular Mechanics featured an innovation called the "rotor ship," invented by German engineer Anton Flettner. The vessel was hailed as "the first new development in sailing ships since the earliest navigators discovered they could utilize the wind's power." Buckau, the first of the rotor ships, featured two hollow towers of steel, 10 ft. in diameter and 65 ft. tall, mounted on pivots powered by 9-hp motors. The towers utilized the Magnus effect—wind currents striking a rotating cylinder exert a force approximately at right angles to the direction of the wind. After an initial jumpstart from the motors, the cylinder's motion caused the ship to advance, PM reported. Its designers claimed the vessel outran other sailing ships as well as freight steamers.
Reinventing the slow boat from china.
“Flettner rotors are large rotating cylinders that produce aerodynamic thrust at right angles of the air passing over them. The CoFlow Jet cylinders developed by Zha don’t rotate. They draw in a bit of the air from the wind blowing across and through them and then expends it at another part of the cylinder.”
“one other advantage is that the system can be retrofitted to existing vessels and the cylinders can be retracted for getting in and out of harbor.”
I detect a Beano commercial any time now.
-PJ
Folks,
If you do any research on this:
1) It is driven by the green /climate change movement. Not economics.
2) It may be appropriate Technoloy for appropriate situations. Just like electric cars are.
3) It will fail as the it is being promoted as one size fits all, just like everything else. Instead of letting the market place make the decisions.
4) Idiots think you just need a small propulsion system to get in and out of the harbor.
Our resident liberal cage rattler thinks this pie-in-the-sky is just great.
But....has he sold his Teslas, stocks, house & what all to ground-floor invest? I highly doubt it.
I remember seeing pictures of these things years ago.
What’s behind their resurgence?
Merit (efficiency, economy, utility), or
Mandate (subsidy, legislation, DEI) ?
I remember this story. It was in my Weekly Reader in 1976.