What a lot of PR greenwash from the ferry company! Nothing very new about diesel electric power. This has been used in submarines since the 1930s.
The claim of 20% savings is probably down to the VERY slow speed of 9 knots!
The latest Type 45 Destroyers in the RN also have electric propulsion generated by either diesel or gas turbines as will the new carriers....
My fault really Patrick for posting a link to a newspaper, for we all know what tosh is in them
As you are probably aware if you have a knowledge of any subject and that subject comes to the attention of the media. Just look at the pap the torygraph prints about RE.
The 20% saving is not a result of the new ferry traveling at 9knots as the current one only travels at 8
'Diesel/battery' submarines as opposed to 'diesel electric' (big difference) have been around since the turn of the last century long before 1930, remember how they brought Britain to her Knees in the WW1 so we know that technology works just fine.
The RN is way behind with 'diesel electric' propulsion as the Russians built a steam turbine 'diesel electric' tanker in 1903 and the yanks a battleship in 1928.
However you're completely missing the point, a ship has to have enough power to cope with severe weather and emergency's consequently much of it's machinery for much of the time is running at light loads. This is wasteful of fuel, noisy, polluting and most of all bad for the diesel machinery. A diesel engine should ideally be run at 50 to 75% load to get the most life and efficiency out of it. Running at lower outputs may mean some fuel saving but this is more than offset by a condition called 'bore glazing' which increases oil consumption, decrease compression, and causes the engine to leak oil due to increased 'blow by'.
We overcome this by applying resistive heaters to load them up, as without them a 50kw genny would only be running at around 10Kw on passage. How sensible is that
the diesel hybrid system would combine several smaller generators a battery bank and two smaller main engines than would normally be required by Lloyds or the MCA.
This PDF explains a system currently in use on a Dolphin class tug in LA,
http://www.foss.com/pdfs/FOSSCarolynDorothy_apr09_pmm.pdf the spec was to come up with a hybrid system that would fit in a current hull design and still provide the 5000hp required. Aspin Kemp
http://www.aka-group.net/ and Xero point
http://www.xeropointenergy.com/ came up with the solution that you see in the document and three or four years on, all who sail on the Carolyn Dorothy are well impressed, so much so that they are converting one of the other tugs to hybrid propulsion and predict 100,000 gallons (OK that's US gallons) fuel savings a year.
I was fortunate enough to meet some of the team involved in the development a couple of years ago when they came to monitor our power usage
http://lifeattheendoftheroad.wordpress.com/2009/03/25/riveting-part-2/ unfortunately one of the posts seems to have vanished
This is not, as the pap in the newspaper suggests the Toyota Pious of the sea, but then that's why I never read a paper, they're full of 5h1te and people generally only read the ones that confirm their own prejudices. It is a very clever, if not complex method of reducing both emissions and running costs.
I'm not going to argue about the 'greenwash' of wind turbines, PV and tidal power to charge it up overnight because in my book that is just what it is. However the ferry is berthed in a windy spot very close to a strong tidal stream so perhaps it's not as daft as it seems. You have to remember that when the current one was built in 1986 Margret Thatcher was still in power and the $100 barrel would have been unimaginable, who knows what it will be in 26 years time when this new ferry will be only 75% through its life cycle.
Yes the batteries will need replacing, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH but I for one am looking forward to a quieter, quicker and cleaner ferry
Cheers, Paul
