Electric Ferries Coming to Maine?

[Will Gilmore]

To step away from the line into politics for a moment...

Why would they ever have cooked up such a cockamamie system as that, some 70 years ago, and then kept using it?

They use diesel locomotives to control torque more precisely without the need for any complex gearing, not for improved efficiency or to reduce emissions.

I think that's it precisely. Diesel and gasoline engines have a narrow range for efficient operation. The torque curve isn't straight like an electric motor. Electric motors draw power when they use it, but combustion engines waste power when at idle and at low RPMs. By using a diesel engine to charge batteries, that engine can run at its most efficient state whether sitting at the dock or moving at idle speed in the channel. The electric motor then draws that power with a minimum loss to the system.
The idea was originally Tesla's to improve the efficiency of steam locamotives. Use the steam engine to charge the system at its most efficient operating level. Drive the train with more efficient electric motors. Far less loss of wasted energy idling at the station or bringing the furnaces up and down multiple times a day. One of his big dreams was to build an all electric ship. (The Philadelphia Experiment?) Now it's coming to pass.

-Will (Dragonfly)

 

[JohnShannon]

Electric motors have massive torque at zero RPM so they can get the train started.. Otherwise you would need quite a clutch. As to were they get the electricity? Have you heard of the Grand Coulee dam? The electricity grid in the US is getting less carbon intensive every year. No new coal plants are being built, some are being retrofitted for Natural gas operation (1/2 the CO2) the other half of new generation is from wind and solar.

 

[All U Get]

I just got the spring seed catalog and didn’t see battery seeds in there. Just wondering if the no-carbon footprint batteries last longer than a diesel engine. Maybe if the battery was on wheels and driven on at the ferry dock there would be ample time for recharging, otherwise its a tough sell for me. Some fantasies are just that.

 

[Will Gilmore]

What are you saying? Combustion engines are as good as it gets? That's All U Get?
I slay me .

I know, I know...

-Will (Dragonfly)

 

[Will Gilmore]

"After logging 60,000 hours on its first generation electric vehicles, Swedish mining equipment manufacturer Epiroc launched its second generation of electric mining vehicles this month alongside news that it would be electrifying its entire lineup in the next 5 years."
Swedish Mining Equipment Manufacturer Will Be 100% Electric In 5 Years | CleanTechnica

The Next Frontier for Electric Vehicles: Deep Underground

Imagine mining coal with electric equipment?

-Will (Dragonfly)

 

[Hunter216]

I’ve been curious about the auto plug in mechanism for the new Ontario ferries. I was initially envisioning something like aircraft inflight refueling but then realized only one half (the ship) would be bobbing around.

This solution appears to be a industrial robotic arm. It must use some type of 3D imaging to line up the plug with the socket, the ship would be moving around somewhat at the dock.

ForSea (formerly HH Ferries Group) completes conversion of the world’s largest battery ferries, powered by ABB

new.abb.com

 

[TomY]

Few years ago I'd agree. Now, not so sure. Seems like the world is focusing on electricity to power short range vessels from canal boats/water taxis to ferries.
I did an electric conversion on our sailboat. I really have no regrets. It's clean, simple, pretty quiet & I don't have to smell diesel.

I forgot to ask: When did you do your electric conversion and what prompted your decision? What makes the system work for your sailing? Marine electric propulsion technology is evolving quickly.

 

[Noodat Lady]

Every dam wreaks massive environmental havoc, and eventually becomes a liability that no one wishes to deal with:

AP: At least 1,680 dams across the US pose potential risk

On a cold morning last March, Kenny Angel got a frantic knock on his door. Two workers from a utility company in northern Nebraska had come with a stark warning: Get out of your house...

apnews.com

Nuclear power is the only renewable energy source that is economically viable without subsidies, immediate environmental costs, or the depletion of finite resources.

Naturally I, er, would not want a nuclear power plant anywhere near me though....

But it seems as if soon we could each have our own:

Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

The firm says it plans to build up to 15 of the mini reactors, which can be delivered by a lorry.

www.bbc.com

Bob

 

[Hunter216]

But it seems as if soon we could each have our own:

But you also have stuff like this happen!

Here's what we know about the mistaken Pickering nuclear alert one week later

A number of questions still remain a week after an emergency alert was mistakenly sent out to people across Ontario warning of an unspecified incident at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station.

www.google.ca

 

[Noodat Lady]

Nice video 216!

I lived at Oshawa, very near the Pickering plant in high school, then in the centre of a triangle formed by Windscale/Sellafield, Wylfa and Trawsfynnydd plants in western UK, and whilst living there at a town called Bangor, was in the full brunt of Chernobyl when it went up. I happened to be using radioisotopes at the time and brought a Geiger counter home after heavy rains whilst we were still receiving the full downwind treatment, and found that our garage rain butt water was at 10,000 times normal background. The UK government has always been very secretive about radioactive leaks, and the population of western Britain was never informed about contamination from Chernobyl, but a number of hill farms were quietly bought by the government and probably remain out of production today.

And yet, I think it is inevitable that a flurry of nuclear plants will be built in a panic in the future, and not primarily for electricity generation but rather for desalination, as we run out of water in many heavily populated parts of the world. Better to be ready for it. But we won't be.

Bob

 

[JohnShannon]

I never found a diesel engine seed a Burpee either. Those who study this stuff conclud that on balance the electric ferry will have less damage to the environment than a diesel ferry. I was just in London where they have some electric buses, so nice, quiet and not stinky.

 

[Noodat Lady]

I was just in London where they have some electric buses, so nice, quiet and not stinky.

But their mega-batteries were made in a very stinky place, and before very long will be recycled in another one. Far, far away, in a land where pollution is not monitored and safety inspectors do not go. So we can remain tranquil in our cocoon.

Bob

 

[Hunter216]

Nice video 216!

I lived at Oshawa, very near the Pickering plant in high school, then in the centre of a triangle formed by Windscale/Sellafield, Wylfa and Trawsfynnydd plants in western UK, and whilst living there at a town called Bangor, was in the full brunt of Chernobyl when it went up. I happened to be using radioisotopes at the time and brought a Geiger counter home after heavy rains whilst we were still receiving the full downwind treatment, and found that our garage rain butt water was at 10,000 times normal background. The UK government has always been very secretive about radioactive leaks, and the population of western Britain was never informed about contamination from Chernobyl, but a number of hill farms were quietly bought by the government and probably remain out of production today.

And yet, I think it is inevitable that a flurry of nuclear plants will be built in a panic in the future, and not primarily for electricity generation but rather for desalination, as we run out of water in many heavily populated parts of the world. Better to be ready for it. But we won't be.

Bob

I wasn't aware that Chernobyl had that much impact in the UK!

Not to date myself but I have vivid unpleasant memories of the teachers conducting nuclear attack drills that had us seek shelter under our desks!!!

I am hopeful some bright person comes up with a method to "recycle" the nuclear fuel rods that are currently in storage to act as fuel in a modern reactor. I think the general populace would accept the risk of a plant failure (it's already happened) as an offset for "clean" power but the knowledge of a bunch of fuel rods with a half life of many times human lifespan sitting in "storage" is unsettling.

 

[Noodat Lady]

I wasn't aware that Chernobyl had that much impact in the UK!

Not to date myself but I have vivid unpleasant memories of the teachers conducting nuclear attack drills that had us seek shelter under our desks!!!

I am hopeful some bright person comes up with a method to "recycle" the nuclear fuel rods that are currently in storage to act as fuel in a modern reactor. I think the general populace would accept the risk of a plant failure (it's already happened) as an offset for "clean" power but the knowledge of a bunch of fuel rods with a half life of many times human lifespan sitting in "storage" is unsettling.

Agreed. The main problem with nuclear power is secretiveness, and brushing problems under the carpet. Very few people in UK were ever aware of the contamination along the west coast. We seemed so far away from Chernobyl. But high stratospheric winds did their job. A friend in the Territorial Army, British equivalent of the National Guard, told me afterwards that his unit was put on standby in the immediate aftermath to guard food outlets and petrol stations in case of massive life loss and civil unrest. This never reached the media, or rather the media were essentially shut down on their reporting of the true potential gravity of the situation.

Bob

 

[All U Get]

Sad isn’t it. Every conversion of energy loses some of it to friction and heat so using battery power reduces the value of the energy produced by an oil fired power plant by a certain amount. Take that same amount of oil and run an engine on a boat and I would say it would travel further, unless I spilled too much rum on my notes.

The Wifi just burped 15 comments I didn’t have, excuse my above post. I’m going down the street and wait for the stinking trolley.

 

[Hunter216]

Sad isn’t it. Every conversion of energy loses some of it to friction and heat so using battery power reduces the value of the energy produced by an oil fired power plant by a certain amount. Take that same amount of oil and run an engine on a boat and I would say it would travel further, unless I spilled too much rum on my notes.

Interesting. However what if the conversion of the oil to power at the power plant is more efficient than the boat motor?

 

[jssailem]

Not sad... just a reality that we must acknowledge...
The conservation of energy is one of the first laws of Thermodynamics I experienced in class.

The conservation of energy is an absolute law, and yet it seems to fly in the face of things we observe every day. Sparks create a fire, which generates heat—manifest energy that wasn’t there before. A battery produces power. A nuclear bomb creates an explosion. Each of these situations, however, is simply a case of energy changing form.​

​

The law of conservation of energy, also known as the first law of thermodynamics, states that the energy of a closed system must remain constant—it can neither increase nor decrease without interference from outside. The universe itself is a closed system, so the total amount of energy in existence has always been the same. The forms that energy takes, however, are constantly changing.​

Fact or Fiction?: Energy Can Neither Be Created Nor Destroyed

Is energy always conserved, even in the case of the expanding universe?

www.scientificamerican.com

​

 

[Hunter216]

"After logging 60,000 hours on its first generation electric vehicles, Swedish mining equipment manufacturer Epiroc launched its second generation of electric mining vehicles this month alongside news that it would be electrifying its entire lineup in the next 5 years."
Swedish Mining Equipment Manufacturer Will Be 100% Electric In 5 Years | CleanTechnica

The Next Frontier for Electric Vehicles: Deep Underground

Imagine mining coal with electric equipment?

-Will (Dragonfly)

Did a little web crawling and came upon this.

The Captain’s Dying Hours | Coal Age

www.coalage.com

 

[Bob J.]

I forgot to ask: When did you do your electric conversion and what prompted your decision? What makes the system work for your sailing? Marine electric propulsion technology is evolving quickly.

After spending my adult life working in the mechanical contracting/engineering business, I'm always up for a good science experiment. My boat had a 35 yo MD7A in it. Rather than mess around with it I looked into repowering it with a Beta 14. I've owned diesel trucks, car, tractors, excavation equipment. For whatever the reason the smell of diesel on boats has always been repulsive to me.
So I decided to conduct another science experiment & installed an electric drive. Being able to fabricate, select all the components, install a solar system that charges not only the propulsion bank but also the house bank, it's been alot fun. Hell I even installed a 48 volt element in a water heater & use the propulsion bank to power it, the bank just sits there most of the time because after all it's a sailboat.
For the record this experiment wasn't cheap. With all the stuff I've done to make this work for me, could've bought a Beta 14 in a crate

I'm a power boater, sport fishing fanatic at heart. But my back is trashed so wanting to stay on the water a sailboats motion allows me to. Sailboats, they're friggin slow so whether it has a diesel that moves you at 6 knots or an electric drive that moves you at 4, it's still slow..

Technology wise, the drives are drives. I think batteries will continue to develop. Question becomes will developing technology allow the prices to drop? I don't think so.

 

[Will Gilmore]

The conservation of energy is an absolute law, and yet it seems to fly in the face of things we observe every day. Sparks create a fire, which generates heat—manifest energy that wasn’t there before. A battery produces power. A nuclear bomb creates an explosion. Each of these situations, however, is simply a case of energy changing form.

How interesting you should bring this up. I was just thinking about this because there is a company that claims to have an induction transformer called a bi-toroid that operates at an apparent infinite efficiency.

The claim is that they don't believe in being able to break the laws of conservation of energy, just that they don't understand how this device can do what it does.
I was thinking about sailing. There are, as you say, lots of examples of stored energy being released by a smaller input of energy, but there are also a few examples of an appearance of getting more out than put into a closed system. Sailing is that example that comes to mind.
Ice boats and high performance sailboats can outrun the wind that is pushing them. No stored energy being released, just the energy of air pushing on a foil of limited size, moving a heavier than air object, at a faster rate of speed than the air.
What if, what this electrical transformer was doing was analogous to sailing at an optimum angle to the applied force such that it generated an apparent greater force as the magnetic field rotated?
The bi-toroid doesn't seem to experience any back-EMF. Is that because it isn't moving elections at a perpendicular angle, but rather 33 deg off the perpendicular?
Anyhow, I thought sailing a great analogy to start with.

-Will (Dragonfly)