Solar Ships
I could have guessed that ships are energy hogs: I once lived and worked on one, and slept down the hall from a diesel engine the size of a dump truck. As it turns out, shipping traffic produces twice as much carbon dioxide as air traffic, and may continue to rise by 75% in the next fifteen to twenty years unless something changes.
So bring on the solar ships. In what is being called “possibly the greatest evolution in boats since the advent of steam” (points for enthusiasm?), an Australian doctor named Robert Dane has put together a plan to cut a ship’s fuel cost by up to 90%. By adding solar panels to a rigid wind sail, these solar ships can both catch a stiff breeze, and charge the batteries simultaneously. If the wind gets too rough, the panels can simply retract to lay flat on the roof.
Dr. Dane raced his first solar sail boat in 1997, and came in first. Three years later, he designed a 100-seat, solar-powered catamaran – the Solar Sailor - that still sails around Sydney Harbor to this very day, three times a day. Solar or wind power alone can bring the Solar Sailor up to speeds of six knots, and a brisk ten knots with both of them working together.
These days, Solar Sailor Holdings Ltd. is getting orders from Germany to Hong Kong. A US company, Unmanned Ocean Drones, is looking to hook up their whole 8,000 ship fleet. And by 2009, Hornblower Yachts in San Francisco – the same folks who shuttle tourists to Alcatraz – hope to have their own Solar Sailor on the bay.
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