Boat propulsion. Is electric actually green?

[Laser310]

The good thing is that regardless of what the older generation thinks, and regardless of what measures are put in place by governments, we will continue to switch to renewables for economic reasons.

sounds great..., if allowed to happen organically, and in response to normal market price mechanisms.

But Britain is now legally committed to a timetable that, if followed, will change life as we know it.

The reason we have leisure activities like boating is because a highly productive global economy has given pretty average people the disposable income to buy boats, and the spare time to enjoy them.

this is a pretty recent development: throughout most of human history, average people have needed all their time and income just to stay alive: 18 year old people couldn't be in university.., on gap year or whatever...

it was made possible by one thing: cheap fossil fuels.

A single US gallon of petrol contains energy equivalent to more than 450 hours of human labour. An imperial gallon would be over 500 hours!

Think about that - petrol is a miracle liquid: You can buy 500 hours of human labour for less than1 hour's wages for a working man.

now, we are, in the space of a few years, committed to abandoning the thing most responsible for our comfortable lives.

and people think that this is just all going to work out okay.., somehow..., and we will be happily navigating our electric boats.

 

[Refueler]

i agree with all of that...

but i'm not the one making policy.

The UK is getting out of the gas production business.

Banks and investment firms are refusing to finance gas production globally.

Sure: LNG tankers can deliver it (emitting carbon) but as others get out of the business too, prices will soar.

No matter what.., the net zero timetable, if followed, is going to lead to soaring electricity prices, and scarcity.

There is just not going to be much electricity for leisure purposes.

Most gas in UK is supplied from Norway .....

LNG ships run on the Gas Boil Off ... for BOTH loaded and Ballast voyages.

 

[KevinV]

@Laser310 I think you're unnecessarily pessimistic - we're humans, our strength is in the ability to improvise adapt and overcome. Frankly, if we can't meet the climate targets (and I don't think we can), we will simply adapt to the mess we've made.

 

[Laser310]

@Laser310 I think you're unnecessarily pessimistic - we're humans, our strength is in the ability to improvise adapt and overcome. Frankly, if we can't meet the climate targets (and I don't think we can), we will simply adapt to the mess we've made.

i agree
but the longer we wait before acknowledging this.., the deeper the hole we will have dug for ourselves.

 

[Refueler]

i agree
but the longer we wait before acknowledging this.., the deeper the hole we will have dug for ourselves.

I feel sorry for the natural world and its animals / fauna that we will drag down the hole ... they never asked for this ...

 

[Laser310]

I feel sorry for the natural world and its animals / fauna that we will drag down the hole ... they never asked for this ...

i basically agree... but...

i have traveled pretty much, including some quite poor countries.

One thing I have observed over and over again is that the richer a country is.., the cleaner it is.

It costs money to be be friendly to the environment.., and if we end up with less money, the environment will suffer for it.

 

[KevinV]

i agree
but the longer we wait before acknowledging this.., the deeper the hole lake we will have dug for ourselves.

Fixed that for you!

 

[Sea Change]

but the longer we wait before acknowledging this.., the deeper the hole we will have dug for ourselves.

The longer we take over the green transition, the worse it is.
There is plenty of good news out there. Solar and battery production is already outpacing even the most optimistic predictions from a few years ago, at far lower costs than anybody dared hope.
The wholesale price of 450w panels is down to about £50 now. It's madness not to be making entire roofs out of them at this point.
Sodium batteries are entering production for EVs right now. Lithium prices are tumbling, despite growing demand. Batteries are proving more robust and longer lived than most expected.

 

[doug748]

Well thanks for posting OP, very interesting and just what we thought, putting electric motors into most leisure sailing boats is a waste of effort and probably counterproductive. As well a being largely hopeless in use cruising - apart from some specific applications that is....I can imagine running a good, lively day boat out of a marina for instance.

Apart from that I guess it gives YouTube bloggers something to froth about.

.

 

[Tranona]

Well thanks for posting OP, very interesting and just what we thought, putting electric motors into most leisure sailing boats is a waste of effort and probably counterproductive. As well a being largely hopeless in use cruising - apart from some specific applications that is....I can imagine running a good, lively day boat out of a marina for instance.

Apart from that I guess it gives YouTube bloggers something to froth about.

.

Thanks for bringing the focus back to the title of the thread.

I posted it to show what the industry might do in response to the decarbonisation agenda and specifically whether alternative propulsion methods for yachts can play a part. From what I have seen it is the first attempt to answer this question from an Eco point of view and by implication a financial perspective. It is highly unlikely that there is any viable alternative to diesel and just as at present any changes will be derivative from elsewhere. Equally there is unlikely to be compulsion for change through legislation as with cars, aircraft, heating etc.

This does not mean there will not be developments of alternative power for recreational boats, but they won't be direct substitutes for our current power as they are with cars in particular. (Note that EVS are "sold" on being just like our current cars - but better and electric, not on their eco properties - and with a fair dose of subsidy on the way). I have already pointed out the ways in which electric and hybrid have enabled new types of boats which would have been impossible without the developments in motor, battery and control systems technology that have come largely from the automotive industry. These developments have come from the normal workings of the market - firms develop ideas and products they think will meet consumer needs and consumers in turn signal their acceptance by buying the products. Often consumer don't know what they would buy until they see what can be produced and producers tempt them with potential products. Sometimes the two meet and there is a successful product and happy consumers. Probably more often it fails because the two are not aligned.

 

[Sea Change]

Note that EVS are "sold" on being just like our current cars - but better and electric, not on their eco properties - and with a fair does of subsidy on the way

What subsidies are those?
Government pulls plug on its remaining UK electric car subsidies

 

[Alicatt]

What subsidies are those?
Government pulls plug on its remaining UK electric car subsidies

They are now getting road tax here too as well as having the subsidies removed

 

[Sea Change]

They are now getting road tax here too as well as having the subsidies removed

And VED exemption wasn't really a subsidy for EVs, since it applied to any vehicle with less than 100g/km CO2.

 

[Tranona]

What subsidies are those?
Government pulls plug on its remaining UK electric car subsidies

I said "on the way" - as you no doubt know the government has given substantial subsidies to purchasers by way of monetary rebates on purchase, no road tax and tax relief for business users as well as a whopping subsidies for Nissan plant in Sunderland the proposed battery factory in Somerset for JRL.

 

[Snowgoose-1]

Could hybrid work for yachts too ?

I love the idea of adding an extra couple of knots under sail when necessary. Unlike cars, we can often make use of extra apparent wind too.

 

[dunedin]

Could hybrid work for yachts too ?

I love the idea of adding an extra couple of knots under sail when necessary. Unlike cars, we can often make use of extra apparent wind too.

Read the early posts - a serial hybrid (electric drive, medium sized battery pack and a DC generator / range extender) could be an ideal solution for cruising yachts, particularly if using HVO fuel. Plenty being built today - eg X-Yachts Xc 47 - Oceanvolt

Technology is mature and works - big issue is the big cost differential

 

[lustyd]

Could hybrid work for yachts too ?

I love the idea of adding an extra couple of knots under sail when necessary. Unlike cars, we can often make use of extra apparent wind too.

Yes Uma commented on this when they were just into the med. they got huge range with low revs and sails up. They’re not in a hurry of course, which is the real root of most complaints about electric.

 

[Tranona]

Could hybrid work for yachts too ?

I love the idea of adding an extra couple of knots under sail when necessary. Unlike cars, we can often make use of extra apparent wind too.

No. Plenty of research and experience says not. The big advantage of hybrid is that it can support high electric consumption for domestic use while still providing propulsion. There are 2 basic types of hybrid, serial and parallel. The former uses electric only for propulsion so the energy must be provided by either an ICE such as a generator, renewable such as solar or regeneration or from shorepower, The latter incorporates a generator/motor into an ICE so that propulsion is by the engine or the electric, individually or together.

They start to become viable in larger boats over 45' or so (a bit smaller for multihulls) where you have the space to fit them, space for solar arrays and speed potential for useful regeneration. Serial have been around for a long time in both commercial and leisure applications, particularly large ocean sailing multihulls and charter vessels like the Dufour Atoll range. That however proved not viable because of the increased initial cost and particularly higher maintenance cost.

Parallel has also been around for getting on for 20 years but has failed to make any progress in the medium size sector (10-15m sailing yachts). The positives are silent short range motoring (typically 2 hours), higher generating capacity, either using the ICE motor alone, or exploiting the "spare" output of the engine when being used for propulsion. Downsides are roughly double the cost of the basic ICE and the need for a large 48v battery bank to provide sufficient energy storage for the 2 hours silent motoring, sophisticated electronics to control the combination of mechanical propulsion, electrical propulsion and power generation and the limited regeneration under sail - a combination of lack of speed on smaller boats and the inefficiency of a propeller designed for mechanical propulsion.

Various manufacturers have offered parallel systems including Yanmar and Nanni but have failed to find buyers. The only active company is Hybrid Marine hybrid-marine.co.uk who initially aimed at just this market with a serial system, but switched to parallel because they could not find takers in the sailing boat market for the reasons given above. As you will see from the website their target markets are canal boats and the larger boats as I described above.

So great idea as it seems to meet many sailors' wish list (including mine) but does not work in reality. Unsurprisingly no new boat production builder in the small to medium sector has adopted hybrids although many builders of custom and semi custom larger boats and multihulls have - but mainly to exploit the power generation potential rather than the short range silent running. That is just a side benefit.

 

[Tranona]

Yes Uma commented on this when they were just into the med. they got huge range with low revs and sails up. They’re not in a hurry of course, which is the real root of most complaints about electric.

But their boat is not a hybrid but electric only.

 

[lustyd]

But their boat is not a hybrid but electric only.

They were asking about using a little power while sailing. Nothing to do with diesel at all.