Boatnerd Discussion Forum

by **renewablejohn** » March 21, 2013, 9:41 am

Patrick wrote:Ok.. getting back to the topic at hand.. renewable propullsion. Let's say I want to use you wood pellets. 1. How much cargo space would I loose. I am thinking the pellets would take up more space then a similar amount of deisel. 2. Then I will also need to store the waste for unloading at port. How much space cargo space will the waste take up? Now to be fair in comparison I nerd to be able to go the same distance as I can currently on diesel. 3. How much at current prices will it cost to generate the same power as diesel to go the same distance? 4. How much cargo space am I going to loose to the bio engine system? I would have to think its bigger then a diesel system, but you tell me. I need the same horsepower as the diesel to safely move the ship.

Patrick

If your going to do a straight swap diesel for biomass then you would not go down the woodpellet route but instead use the torrified wood (charcoal) in a charcoal slurry and retain your conventional diesel engine with modified injectors, pump and hardened pistons. As outlined in this study.

http://www.abe.msstate.edu/~fyu/Paper%2 ... Review.pdf

Torrefied wood pellets would be used on existing coal fired vessels giving a similar performance to coal but producing only a tenth of the ash which coal produces and a lot less noxious pollution.

by **Patrick** » March 20, 2013, 5:09 pm

Ok... getting back to the topic at hand... renewable propullsion. Let's say I want to use you wood pellets. 1. How much cargo space would I loose. I am thinking the pellets would take up more space then a similar amount of deisel. 2. Then I will also need to store the waste for unloading at port. How much space cargo space will the waste take up? Now to be fair in comparison I nerd to be able to go the same distance as I can currently on diesel. 3. How much at current prices will it cost to generate the same power as diesel to go the same distance? 4. How much cargo space am I going to loose to the bio engine system? I would have to think its bigger then a diesel system, but you tell me. I need the same horsepower as the diesel to safely move the ship.

by **beecher** » March 20, 2013, 7:06 am

IMHO - The best efficiency our industrial maritime future holds, will come from proper dredging.

by **renewablejohn** » March 20, 2013, 3:32 am

Ohio Bob wrote:I use "renewable" fuel in my 32' Carver. It is called gasoline. New sources and expanded reserves are constantly being found every day. Now if we can just get the politicians out of the way it will become even more reliable and constant and Cheap.

I know in US gasoline is cheap but here in UK you have to pay £1.40 per litre which certainly focuses the mind on cheaper renewable alternatives.

by **Guest** » March 19, 2013, 11:03 am

Ok, let me see. You have to cut down trees, haul them using energy. Pyrolyze them using energy and then it's nominally as efficient and clean as coal. The net gain is where?

by **Guest** » March 19, 2013, 10:58 am

And oil companies will get greedier and it will become more expensive.

by **Ohio Bob** » March 19, 2013, 10:31 am

I use "renewable" fuel in my 32' Carver. It is called gasoline. New sources and expanded reserves are constantly being found every day. Now if we can just get the politicians out of the way it will become even more reliable and constant and Cheap.

by **Guest** » March 19, 2013, 9:47 am

From the little information I can find on the Frettner rotor, I fail to understand how you harness it's power to propel you in the direction you want to go. With a conventional sail, you work the wind direction and the sail sheets and go where you want. With the rotor, it's just sticking up in the air with no controllable surfaces. How do you make it go to where you want to go, or does it only work when the wind is hitting it from a 90 degree angle? I understand the concept, just not how to control it. Looks like a good idea. It also looks like something Jacques Cousteau used, or tried on one of his boats. I don't think it was on the Calypso, but maybe the second Calypso, and I do not remember that boats name.

by **renewablejohn** » March 19, 2013, 6:30 am

Just to start the ball rolling here is a new take on the old Flettner wind rotors

http://www.marineinsight.com/marine/typ ... argo-ship/

Still uses diesel engines but the screw propulsion is by electric motors. Would not take much to replace the diesel with a steam generating plant.

by **renewablejohn** » March 19, 2013, 5:24 am

Not wanting to hijack the J B Ford thread maybe its best to start a new thread to discuss renewable propulsion as I believe with a current mix of solar wind and biomass using present day technology we can do without fossil fuels.

by **Guest** » March 19, 2013, 4:41 am

To answer your questions

http://www.ipst.gatech.edu/faculty/raga ... -Coala.pdf

Once you have extracted the timber and turned it into woodchip the torrefication process is actually energy positive see page 7 of the pdf above. The only additional energy would then be the actual pelleting of the torrefied wood but that uses less energy then pelletizing wood pellets as torrefied wood is more friable and is therefore easier to pelletize. As for ash storage obviously torrefied wood produces far less ash than coal by upto a factor of 10 (see pdf) depending on wood species and unlike coal the ash has a high resale value as garden fertilizer once granulated for easy handling. As per the pdf btu's per lb are approx 11000 which is equivalent to coal but in practice it can be upto 20% better than coal due to moisture retention in coal whereas torrified wood is a dry product.

by **MilwBob** » March 18, 2013, 9:34 pm

Guest wrote:
renewablejohn wrote:I realise green technology has not taken off in the US the same as it has in Europe but Solar is now way beyond recharging your phone.

http://www.aalborgcsp.com/projects/conc ... lants.aspx

CSP technology when linked to thermal oil and steam generating plant will revolutionize vessel propulsion.

As for biomass torrified wood pellets are equivalent in energy terms to coal without the pollution with the advantage of being used in auto stoker systems.
O.k. let us have a real discussion of biomass. Questiion 1. How much energy does it take to produce one ton versus coal?. Where does one store the ash or can it be dumped in the lake. 3. What is the BTUs per pound and what are they by comparison to coal and diesel?

Can't answer all the questions but am definitely sure that there can be NO dumping of any kind of ash, be it from coal or any other fuel source.

by **Guest** » March 18, 2013, 8:58 pm

renewablejohn wrote:I realise green technology has not taken off in the US the same as it has in Europe but Solar is now way beyond recharging your phone.

http://www.aalborgcsp.com/projects/conc ... lants.aspx

CSP technology when linked to thermal oil and steam generating plant will revolutionize vessel propulsion.

As for biomass torrified wood pellets are equivalent in energy terms to coal without the pollution with the advantage of being used in auto stoker systems.

O.k. let us have a real discussion of biomass. Questiion 1. How much energy does it take to produce one ton versus coal?. Where does one store the ash or can it be dumped in the lake. 3. What is the BTUs per pound and what are they by comparison to coal and diesel?

by **renewablejohn** » March 17, 2013, 3:31 pm

I realise green technology has not taken off in the US the same as it has in Europe but Solar is now way beyond recharging your phone.

http://www.aalborgcsp.com/projects/conc ... lants.aspx

CSP technology when linked to thermal oil and steam generating plant will revolutionize vessel propulsion.

As for biomass torrified wood pellets are equivalent in energy terms to coal without the pollution with the advantage of being used in auto stoker systems.

by **Coalburner** » March 17, 2013, 1:42 pm

renewablejohn wrote:So thats why we have invested in steam generation using biomass and solar. Steam is certainly at the heart of new green technology

First of all, solar energy is not viable for anything more than recharging your cell phone or providing lights. It does not provide the vast amount of KW's necessary for propulsion or anything involving resistance heating or electric motors. And at best it only works 12 hours a day.

Biomass is a loosely (poorly) defined bunch of fuels that are not readily available in commercial quantities and not easily burned in a ship boiler without major redesign. And they also produce ash.

Green technology is not ready for Maritime use in just about any area. I have heard of hybrid tugboats, but that only works when they are not under load.
About the greenest you are going to get for a while is low sulphur diesel and the next generation of low polluting internal combustion engines.

Natural gas? Forget about that.

If you really think about it, the more modern steam turbine ships burning bunker c or similar rarely left much stack smoke (unlike the Alco powered river class boats). I think the SO2 and NOx were still there however.

by **renewablejohn** » March 17, 2013, 3:51 am

Ron wrote:If steam generation is part of the new green technology, why are ALL of the shipping companies going to the new more efficient diesel engines in their new construction and their reengine jobs? In the shipping magazines, all of the talk is about new modern efficent diesels with greatly reduced emissions, no smoke, and on and on. These two Ford boats seem doomed but some people don,t understand this. The members who have posted that we should put our efforts in maintained the museum ships, most of whom need support. We can not possibly make museum ships from the retiring ships. This is from a member who main interest is the old steam powered ships which are now gone forever, same as steam locomotives. I'm sorry if I have too blunt but it is as it is. A rich history of great lakes shipping has passed from view.
Ron

Its only the scrappage clause which doomed the two fords. Just because the industry has blinkers and uses diesel even though it is going up in price personally I prefer not to follow the pack and use free or renewable fuel. In the case of the two fords the fuel would have been biogas which is a byproduct of the torrified wood process which the vessels would have been used for.

by **Ron** » March 16, 2013, 5:14 pm

If steam generation is part of the new green technology, why are ALL of the shipping companies going to the new more efficient diesel engines in their new construction and their reengine jobs? In the shipping magazines, all of the talk is about new modern efficent diesels with greatly reduced emissions, no smoke, and on and on. These two Ford boats seem doomed but some people don,t understand this. The members who have posted that we should put our efforts in maintained the museum ships, most of whom need support. We can not possibly make museum ships from the retiring ships. This is from a member who main interest is the old steam powered ships which are now gone forever, same as steam locomotives. I'm sorry if I have too blunt but it is as it is. A rich history of great lakes shipping has passed from view.
Ron

by **renewablejohn** » March 16, 2013, 2:50 pm

So thats why we have invested in steam generation using biomass and solar. Steam is certainly at the heart of new green technology

by **Guest** » March 15, 2013, 6:57 pm

Guest wrote:
renewablejohn wrote: Why do we need them as museums when they could be used for a commercial purpose if it was not for the scrappage clause inserted by the owners which excludes usage for such purposes. If that clause was not there than both the EM Ford and JB Ford would be currently undergoing a refit which would have secured there future for the next decade.
In what kind of commercial service could these small, outdated vessels be placed that would turn a profit for them to only operate for another decade?

Saddly none. No different then the death of steam locomotive for commercial use and the caboose for that matter. More cost effective and efficient technology replaced them too.

by **Guest** » March 15, 2013, 5:46 pm

renewablejohn wrote: Why do we need them as museums when they could be used for a commercial purpose if it was not for the scrappage clause inserted by the owners which excludes usage for such purposes. If that clause was not there than both the EM Ford and JB Ford would be currently undergoing a refit which would have secured there future for the next decade.

In what kind of commercial service could these small, outdated vessels be placed that would turn a profit for them to only operate for another decade?

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