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Electric Ship Batteries Promise Compact, Cooler Power
43 points37 comments9 average comments/hourSubmitted by rbanffy
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Batteries for ships seems really silly but at the same time its the perfect regime for a ridiculous quantity potentially hazardous items. Nuclear obviously works well here too. You have an unlimited amount of water with which to fight any fires or cool off equipment and you could theoretically engineer a way to dump the entire assembly into the ocean in an emergency. Hydrodynamics are brutal, but the square-cube law works in your favor. The ocean doesn't care about what's inside your ship. Just the surface of it. The mass is mostly irrelevant. This is why cargo vessels are so large. The bigger the boat the bigger the energy density benefit. The only real problem is the cost. To compete with a supermax you would need something like two billion dollars worth of batteries to survive a transpacific voyage.
Comment on Hacker News · 4 direct repliesThere’s got to be some setup out there were we are able to harness wind energy (and solar to a smaller extent) to significantly increase the ranges here. Not a hundred years ago, we had cargo ships sail solely on wind power so enough energy is there for the taking.
Comment on Hacker NewsI assumed they would use sea water for cooling but that doesn't seem to be the case? Maybe the battery coolant is cooled using some sort of sea water heat exchanger?
Comment on Hacker News · 3 direct repliesQuestion is can they get enough power to be useful. Marine diesel engines are very fuel efficient, fuel oil is very energy dense, and they need to run for a long time. Electric cars work in part because people expect to refuel few couple hours anyway. Enough batteries to cross the ocean is going to be vastly worse. The only useful picture in the article is a "solar powered board", which doesn't give a good scale but appears to be barely enough solar power for the rich owner to enjoy their luxuries and will barely move all day while forced to anchor all day. I'm sure it can go really fast on battery power, but not for long. Sails would be a better primary movement source with battery for in harbor navigation or when the wind stops backup only.
Comment on Hacker News · 2 direct repliesSo, what does the article say? Do electric ships dream of Android batteries?
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