High seas hypermiling: even giant ships are doing it (slowing way down to save fuel)
 

Read an interesting article today: hypermiling for ships (Hypernauticalmiling? Hyperknotting?)

Slow Trip Across Sea Aids Profit and Environment
(NY Times)

http://www.ships-info.info/design/El...aersk_ship.jpg

Article goes on to describe how the Maersk ship line has made a concerted effort to slow down, anticipating both emissions regulations and rising fuel prices:

The fuel savings more than make up for the additional crew hours of a longer journey.

The hard part, not surprisingly, has been working with its clients to present slower shipping as a positive thing in an age where "faster! faster!" is the rallying cry of global consumer culture.

The obvious answer is to bring tiered shipping prices to, well the shipping world - similar to how we pay the post office or courier companies different rates depending on how fast we want our package delivered. And that's what they're doing.

One interesting tidbit to me is that in addition to "slow steaming" (20 knots instead of 24-25), Maersk is also trying “super slow steaming”, which is 12 knots (13.8 mph).

12 knots is the speed of a big sailing ship with a decent sailing rig in moderate wind. Makes you wonder what contingency plans they're mulling over in the Maersk boardroom.

Full article: Slow Trip Across Sea Aids Profit and Environment - NYTimes.com

This? SkySails-Home en

Yeah, it's a first step.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ight=sky+sails

But that's like a mild hybrid system. ;)

With their 12 knot "super slow steaming" target speed, they could drive the ship 100% by wind.

A few years ago I wanted to transport a bike across a large distance. I was in no hurry, so even 3 months was OK. I was hoping for some lowspeed, eco transport, but the only options were fast air and express air. I asked three different companies.

I know Maersk isn't exactly the company to transport one bike, but if I had 30 containers of bikes, then it's good to know I have an eco option.

An interesting thread.
There must be a huge number of times when a shipment has to get to a place but the time factor is virtually immaterial...and the savings i shipping costs can more than make up for costs of having that inventory sitting on the boat for the extra time.

The ideal concept of JIT (Just In Time) inventory management has driven this to a large extent despite the number of times it actually fails miserably in the real world.

Hopefully we will see some common sense returning some time soon.

Pete.

the speed a nonplaining hull can move through the water is a funtion of lenth. the bow and stern wake form a wave train the longer the distance beteen the peaks the faster the train can move. as you approach the maximum speed for the lenth of the boat the power requirements curves up sharply. by backing off slightly from max hullspeed power requirements drops sharply. Back off even more and power required vs speed is prety liner. This is independent of hull width as a wider hull will need more power for every speed compaired to a slim hull.

30% and of that ship size.
I wonder what the gallons number is.

I instantly thought of a lobster boat I worked on, the gas v8 was very common, the boats aren't meant to go fast anyway. The boat I was on had a large 6 cyl diesel, a bit too big , in fact the boat failed in the middle where it was mounted..but the fuel savings was gigantic...all while having torque numbers at 1/3 of the rpms and over double that of the gas engine. :confused:

things arent smart in alot of things. I could only imagine when it is not smart with 85000 tons and a giant ridiculous leaning inline wobbling diesel...
I chuckled at what a gigantic flat engine would do in a big boat like that.
The biggest vw beetle in the world. :)

Tetris boat! :D

I've often wondered why ships must go full speed and why anyone would want ships to go faster. It is literally exponential the amount of fuel it takes to go the next highest speed and needless to say a direct cost on the price to ship.

A massive ship can see massive savings all the way down to about 4 knots because of the size and shape. Might be worth using 1/8 the fuel? Especially when you are talking many tens of thousands of gallons.

If it isn't perishable, slower is the way to go.

The bean counters will take everything into consideration, and they will calculate the correct speed to travel for maximum profit.

Going faster uses more fuel, but: you can do the same job with fewer ships if you go faster, which saves on labor as well, and goods at sea aren't doing any good. Also, slowing down may mean someone has $100M of inventory tied up in cargo containers.

One place where slowing down makes lots of sense is oil tankers in slow economic times. We probably have more tankers than we need right now, and oil inventories are high, so slowing down should cost very little and save a lot.

It's good of Maersk to run these trials, which gather better data for the bean counters.

Since it takes so long for them to come to a stop, I wonder if pulse and glide might be more effective.

regards
Mech

Greyhound will ship packages, it's slow and might be delayed a bunch, but's it eco. :turtle:

But we here at EcoModder.com don't really want oil to be cheaper, do we?
I, personally, would like less fuel to be wasted on transporting oil, but I don't want oil to be cheaper, and I don't want Big Oil to make even more money. It's a paradox, I know. Maybe they would give the saved money to charity, or sponsor environmental protection groups? Yeah, right...

EDIT: I found this on Wikipedia:
That is for a luxury liner, a freight ship would have different numbers, but how different?

I'm suprised no one has put a nuke in some of the ships. Of course apples to oranges.

As discussed on this site before, some ships have been retrofitted with a bulbous (sp?) bow device to reduce drag.

Don

The JIT inventory thing drives me nuts. Nobody wants to stock anything. If you're going to use something anyway and it's not perishable, keep a supply and top off when you can get a deal on it, and have it shipped slow and cheap. Save yourself some money. No, instead they wait till crunch time, then pay expediting fees, next day shipping, and it ends up costing more in shipping than for the actual item. And they do it every time.

A nuke in a civilian ship? No chance.

It's an interesting paradox, as you said Piwoslaw. I'd be all for gas being cheaper, I and my friends are all sick of paying through the nose for it, and it hampers driving cars that are more enjoyable than a Civic. On the flip side at the present cost of gas (or higher) my Civic earns the investment cost back faster :D

Don, Yep it has been done and in a cargo ship as well.
Can't recall the name but it was in the heyday of nuclear power (well before 3 mile island , Chrenobyl etc.).

The bow bulb is claimed to help by around 7% depending on the design details.
Worth having I would have said.

Cheers , Pete.

Totally agree 100 and 1%.
Drives me nuts as well.
Bad enough they get it wrong in the first place but to do it repeatedly is the really frustrating part.

Pete.

For dual shaft ships - more economical to drag one shaft and only run the other. They did it all the time to save fuel back in my Navy days.

Nuclear powered cargo ship: N.S.Savannah,
details at this link:
Nuclear Merchant Ships

Pete.

I would be with you if you can explain why oil companies making a profit is bad, and why expensive oil eating into people's expendable income is good?

I heard somewhere that ExxonMobil only made about 10-11% return on their investment (equipment, labor, R&D, etc) in 2007 or 2008, I forget which. According to Gasoline tax information - New York City Gas Prices New Yorkers are hit with 59.6 cents/gal state tax, and another 3-5% county tax (taken after adding the state tax, so you are being taxed on a tax in NY). At roughly $3/gal here currently, the cost of the gas is actually only $2.25, taxes make up the other 25%. So if Exxon makes 10% on a gallon of gas, and NYS and County make 25%, where's the real greed driving up oil costs?

Because the extra money will go to shareholders and CEOs, not to ecoinvestments. It's rich people getting even richer and most likely spending that extra money on things that cause more pollution (travelling, sports cars, etc.). IF every penny of that saved money went into increasing efficiency, then OK. But companies usually invest in efficiency when costs go up and income goes down. In this case it's the other way around.

Whether it's good or just not bad (or not worse) depends on how it eats into who's income. Yes, expensive oil increases transportation costs, raising prices of goods. There may be people who will have to buy less food than they should. Hopefully they will find help in one form or another. On the other hand, maybe other people will buy (and eat) less junkfood.
Expensive oil will eat into the income of people who travel alot, but maybe that will help many of them make a change in their lifestyle (switch to a more efficient car, drive less, ecodrive, move closer to work, work at home, etc.). Maybe a price hike will reduce oil consumption in areas that cause lots of pollution, but do not play an important role for humanity as a whole (unnessesary travel, racing, inefficiencies in transport, etc.)

I know that the price of oil dictates changes in many branches of the global economy (mostly because of our dependence), and those changes may influence the day-to-day lives of millions of people, increasing/decreasing poverty/wealth in many places, rising/lowering prices, increasing/reducing unemployment, but that's a discussion for a another thread.

But ExxonMobile didn't build the roads you drive on, or the school your kids go to, or the sports field you go to in the evening, or the hospital, or the muni water/sewage system, or the public bus system, . . .

True, but my point was that Exxon is not raping consumers, taxes are. Exxon's return sounds pretty meager when you consider even railroads (an industry thats been in or near bankruptcy for decades) earn something like -4-5% on their investment (a figure given by a RR VP back when I worked for them). But its an easy escape for politicians charging a 25% tax to point fingers at "obscene" profits from a private entity selling their product at market value in a free market.

It's a business, they spent billions of their own money to build their refineries and pipelines and oil rigs, shouldn't their profits go back to them? And when they travel or buy a sports car that gives flight attendants, baggage workers, assembly line-workers, mechanics, car salesmen etc, another job to do and another day's pay. Shareholders are 401k's, mutual funds, anyone that owns a couple shares. 401k's increasing in value is a good thing if you're retired and living off one.

Eco-investments are wise investments as soon as they pay dividends. Just like buying shares of stock, if it pays me nothing back I'm wasting money buying it. The moment Exxon or another company finds a way to earn money spending it on eco-friendly stuff, they will. Some might argue that they would oppose anything that cuts their oil sales, but I'm talking as a net-sum, if they can earn money on anything (ie, some fuel that sells for less, that still uses their existing infrastructure), why wouldn't they? They don't care about selling oil anymore than anyone else wants to sell their own product, its just how they can make a living. These huge container ship companies have stumbled on an eco-investment that is going to save them mega-bucks. The government could have forced them into some un-profitable (monetarily speaking) eco-investment, creating bad feelings, decades of lawsuits and a bad attitude towards all things "eco". The shipper's "greed" for more profits for shareholders and CEOs, and an awareness of the environment brought them to a voluntary idea that helps everybody. Turning lights off to save power, driving slower, bicycling to work, are all eco-investments that people do to put more money in their pocket at the end of the day. Greed isn't always a bad thing. When some new technology looks promising to cut emissions while saving net-sum dollars (including loss of obsolete resources), you can bet any company would jump on it. Up to that moment its a net-loss to both the company and society (scrapping valuable existing equipment/operations), and thus is not pursued voluntarily.

Don't take what I said in the wrong way, I just tend to go back to the larger picture when discussing things like oil profits. :D

Cool, I'm more or less with you. I just didn't want to go to that level here.