save fuel and cruising green

[Mako]

The inflatable Omega Sail kite uses a surface of up to 200 sq meters to power a boat up to 5 knots per hour with no motor support.

That's one hell of an acceleration!

 

[Mako]

No doubt the nay-sayers will point out that you can only go down wind. In fact, you can go quite a bit off wind, determined primarily by the underwater profile of your boat.

I can tell you, if stuck in the middle of the ocean with major, non-repairable engine failure, and no wing engine, I would be very happy to have a kite! Who cares which way the wind is blowing, it is bound to be moving you towards land in some direction!

100% agree. George Buehler used to say the same thing... "I'd rather be moving 1 knot downwind, than sitting dead in the ocean" or something like that.

 

[Seevee]

Exactly, if you really care about the environment, you have to go the Lin and Larry Pardey route. A wooden sailboat with no engine, that they cruised the world on for fifty years.


Most of us don't care that much.

Most are going way overboard on green stuff. If you want to cruise on a sailboat, go ahead. If you want to cruise on a trawler, go ahead, too. Power boats (All) contribute less than 2% of emissions, and there's arguments that emissions aren't as bad.



Yes, we will eventually eliminate fossil fuels, but not in your kids lifetime... and we have plenty to get us there, and necessary to survive for now. We need to take our time to develop good alternate energy.



For now, the more we kill fossil fuels, the more we suffer.... gas prices, supply issues, transportation, etc.

 

[markpierce]

100% agree. George Buehler used to say the same thing... "I'd rather be moving 1 knot downwind, than sitting dead in the ocean" or something like that.

I agree.

 

[Mako]

Seriously, if you can move 1 knot downwind then eventually you’ll hit land or at least get closer to a shipping lane or something.

Lots of people criticizing and laughing at the guys here who propose kite sails for their trawlers. Well I’d bet that a simple kite sail on a 100,000lb trawler will move it along faster than zero mph, especially in a stiff wind.

Not ideal, but better than sitting in a rolling boat crying your eyes out.

 

[Nomad Willy]

Post #33 on “cruising green”

Great shout in the dark about reality.

 

[Group9]

Most are going way overboard on green stuff. If you want to cruise on a sailboat, go ahead. If you want to cruise on a trawler, go ahead, too. Power boats (All) contribute less than 2% of emissions, and there's arguments that emissions aren't as bad.



Yes, we will eventually eliminate fossil fuels, but not in your kids lifetime... and we have plenty to get us there, and necessary to survive for now. We need to take our time to develop good alternate energy.



For now, the more we kill fossil fuels, the more we suffer.... gas prices, supply issues, transportation, etc.

I agree. I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a hypocrite. I'm not giving up either of my powerboats, or my truck, or my car, so I don't tell other people what they need to give up.

 

[BandB]

I agree. I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a hypocrite. I'm not giving up either of my powerboats, or my truck, or my car, so I don't tell other people what they need to give up.

As with all things in life, each of us has to reach a balance we're comfortable with. We sometimes feel some guilt over what we spend, but then remind ourselves of those we employ and of what we do for others through charitable giving. We use a lot of diesel on the water, but we've reduced our electric consumption huge amounts over the last few years and more recently have done the same on our gas consumption. Our corporate offices are in one of the most energy efficient buildings there is. As to diesel consumption on the roads, we're participating in programs set up by manufacturers to test alternatives.

The truth in all areas is we could always do more than we're doing today. We're not going to apologize though for not giving everything to charities or stopping all use of fossil fuels.

I guess I think of the billionaires who have pledged 50% to charities when they die and the first thing I heard was those asking why not 100%. Then why not 0%? The point is they've found a balance and it's one that will help millions of people.

I think it's very meaningful that discussions such as this thread are taking place on boating forums. All diesel isn't renounced, but I think talking early will lead to a reduction. Maybe over the next five to ten years. Then will it be 25 years or what when we see it reduced drastically? I have no idea, but there are a lot of people working toward positive goals.

I believe there are areas in which major changes are decades away. Meanwhile we all need to be attentive to what we can do today, without huge sacrifice. In our case, we can use all LED and cut down tremendously on electric usage and for ourselves and others we've converted over 2000 buildings in the last five years. Unfortunately, the makes conversion to solar even less financially beneficial, but we continue to push to make it practical in the states in which we operate, while also developing knowledge. We've gone to all hybrid cars for company cars and employees love them. That will soon be over 100 cars. Will the next replacements be all electric? I hope so, but still has to prove itself in some areas.

One other thing I accept is that there will be some mis-steps. There will be technology that looks great on paper, but turns out not so wonderful in practice. We will see claims that are not real. I love the double counting. Had a solar proposal on one building but they compared to a similarly sized space not yet on LED. In South Florida we have two large electric usages, lighting and air conditioning. Convert to energy efficient air and to LED and the potential for solar savings is greatly reduced. We've already dropped consumption about 75%. Even if solar can reduce it another 50%, now it's only 50% of 25%. We got a solar proposal on our house. Only problem was they used an electric usage per square foot that was 4 times what we use. They also had a power cell to protect for outages, but no knowledge of how few days we've ever been without and the they had no idea how you're limited in bringing such live during an outage.

No one has all the answers, but the great thing is that we are all looking for future answers. That's all anyone can really hope for. We should recognize our accomplishments too. I can tell you as someone involved my adult life in manufacturing, how much cleaner industries are than 50 years ago, how much less they pollute air and water. I think of something as simple as catalytic converters and where our major cities would be today without them. Yes, bicycles would have been better, but people weren't going to make that change. I think we face serious challenges, but I also believe we'll address them one step at a time.

 

[Hippocampus]

Recent history has shown beyond what’s discussed here there’s another strong driver for conversion. That’s the geopolitics of the world. I’m old enough to remember when the Arabs blackmailed the world into 18% inflation, long lines at the gas stations and high unemployment. Now it’s the Russians with China and India keeping them in the black paying for the Ukrainian genocide. Although we are an exporter our economic system leaves us vulnerable to the greed of big oil and non domestic economic forces. Beyond MMCC national security will accelerate the conversion.
Those saying this won’t occur in the lifetime of their children are just plain wrong. The conversion from sail to coal occurred within a generation (20yj. Outliers remained but the majority of naval shipping converted. Similarly the conversion from horse to gasoline. The vulnerabilities that are oil dependent are chiefly agriculture, transportation and electrical generation. At present agriculture is going the wrong way as regards factory farming and the expansion of green house controlled environment farming. But economic forces with the dramatic increase in expenses of fertilizer and energy and decrease in availability of water is shifting new development and even causing reworking of developed fields. Both short haul trucking and long is shifting. The supporting technologies are sufficiently developed. Rail has already for human transportation in large measure and electrification for shipping is occurring in Europe with us to follow. The evolution in personal transportation is actively underway and will continue. I have kids. That generation bought hybrid or fuel efficient the last time and will buy EV the next. At a 10y flip time that’s your 20 years. So yes there will be gasoline and diesel until it ages out but that will occur in a generation.
Even now the economics favors solar panels fields over agriculture in our increasing areas of arid or semi arid areas. As MMCC continues to impact agriculture the appropriate areas for solar electrical generation wil increase. In my region wind generation in the absence of subsidy is economically favorable so in active construction.
At the personal level building a zero footprint house that generates income was logical. I sell to the grid even in winter. As MMCC continues I expect that income to increase. So even now as housing ages out housing demand for oil and gas will fall. The driver here is economic not geopolitical unlike European concerns with Russia. I own a diesel trawler and I and my wife enjoy horses. But I am driven by economic concerns. If my country and politicians accept the inevitability of the need for appropriate infrastructure development to prevent us from energy blackmail we will flourish. Those politicians who are brought and paid for by big coal or oil or gas will continue our vulnerability and cause us to be a second rate power as well as cause our standard of living to decline.
You want to be patriotic American buy as little as possible from China (and India) don’t vote for politicians who support the obscene profits of big oil/gas and don’t support the development of the infrastructure needed to convert. Just wish there was a viable alternative to the current crowd both red and blue.

 

[bountyhunter44]

@Hippocampus.


Good article, thanks for sharing.

 

[Seevee]

Hippo,


I'll respectfully disagree on a few things....first we won't retire oil in one generation. With 93% of the vehicles sold today are gas and the reliance on oil for industrial applications (including batteries), jet fuel, truck fuel and heating fuel, it will not disappear in a generation or perhaps 2 or 3.



As for "big" oil... why the hell shouldn't they enjoy profits and pay their employees handsomely. Who the hell helped them when oil went to zero in 2020 when they lost billions. We NEED oil, so there's a reason to support them. And if the damn administration would help them instead of flavoring foreign oil we would ALL be better off with lower prices.



We need to remember, most big businesses employ lots of good people that need their jobs, which is an important part of our economy. I've got no problem keeping them in business. If they fail, look at all the folks that loose their incomes.


Right now we NEED to support US oil production. Keep our people employed, not the Russians or Araq. Get ourselves back to independence. And later on, but slowly, move into alternate energy.



I'm sick and tired of the "green people" trying to dictate our life style to us, and raising our costs and telling us what's right. Absolute BS. We don't need green. We need responsible folks that will allow energy changes over a reasonable time frame, without killing our middle class Americans......


Rant over......

 

[motion30]

Hippo,


I'll respectfully disagree on a few things....first we won't retire oil in one generation. With 93% of the vehicles sold today are gas and the reliance on oil for industrial applications (including batteries), jet fuel, truck fuel and heating fuel, it will not disappear in a generation or perhaps 2 or 3.



As for "big" oil... why the hell shouldn't they enjoy profits and pay their employees handsomely. Who the hell helped them when oil went to zero in 2020 when they lost billions. We NEED oil, so there's a reason to support them. And if the damn administration would help them instead of flavoring foreign oil we would ALL be better off with lower prices.



We need to remember, most big businesses employ lots of good people that need their jobs, which is an important part of our economy. I've got no problem keeping them in business. If they fail, look at all the folks that loose their incomes.


Right now we NEED to support US oil production. Keep our people employed, not the Russians or Araq. Get ourselves back to independence. And later on, but slowly, move into alternate energy.



I'm sick and tired of the "green people" trying to dictate our life style to us, and raising our costs and telling us what's right. Absolute BS. We don't need green. We need responsible folks that will allow energy changes over a reasonable time frame, without killing our middle


Well first off in the USA Fossil fuels received 5.9 billion in government subsidies in 2020. So perhaps, just perhaps they shouldn't be making 100% increase in their bottom line while the country is suffering under the crushing prices of fuel Which is also feeling record inflation. I believe the price of oil should be regulated just like the price of electricity which is also a critical infrastructure
I do believe you are correct that electric vehicles will not goes from outside the problem and the one generation this is only fractionally, But you have to start somewhere and it does seem To be becoming a popular alternative

 

[Seevee]

Hippo,


I'll respectfully disagree on a few things....first we won't retire oil in one generation. With 93% of the vehicles sold today are gas and the reliance on oil for industrial applications (including batteries), jet fuel, truck fuel and heating fuel, it will not disappear in a generation or perhaps 2 or 3.



As for "big" oil... why the hell shouldn't they enjoy profits and pay their employees handsomely. Who the hell helped them when oil went to zero in 2020 when they lost billions. We NEED oil, so there's a reason to support them. And if the damn administration would help them instead of flavoring foreign oil we would ALL be better off with lower prices.



We need to remember, most big businesses employ lots of good people that need their jobs, which is an important part of our economy. I've got no problem keeping them in business. If they fail, look at all the folks that loose their incomes.


Right now we NEED to support US oil production. Keep our people employed, not the Russians or Araq. Get ourselves back to independence. And later on, but slowly, move into alternate energy.



I'm sick and tired of the "green people" trying to dictate our life style to us, and raising our costs and telling us what's right. Absolute BS. We don't need green. We need responsible folks that will allow energy changes over a reasonable time frame, without killing our middle


Well first off in the USA Fossil fuels received 5.9 billion in government subsidies in 2020. So perhaps, just perhaps they shouldn't be making 100% increase in their bottom line while the country is suffering under the crushing prices of fuel Which is also feeling record inflation. I believe the price of oil should be regulated just like the price of electricity which is also a critical infrastructure
I do believe you are correct that electric vehicles will not goes from outside the problem and the one generation this is only fractionally, But you have to start somewhere and it does seem To be becoming a popular alternative

Well, the price of gas did not create the inflation... many more factors did that.



How about we factor in the number of jobs and profits in oil that have been killed by the current administration... so, what do you say to the pipeline workers that are now without a job?


And if we had supported more production in the US we would not have these higher pump prices.

 

[motion30]

I agree it's not solely fuel prices that has caused inflation but it is not helping things. The price of fuel can be seen in everything from the grocery store to when you buy clothes. And you can blame the current administration but administration but this is not a United States problem the price of fuel is up globally. And the Keystone pipeline which you were referring to we're not gonna supply any will to US it was from Canada to Mexico and there already is a pipeline. Yes there were a few pipeline jobs that were lost But they Would all have been temporary jobs and not as many as you think. That was the industry I worked in for 40 years

 

[trihartsfield]

I think debate is good and in no way want to keep healthy debate off of this forum, but I have to point out that I once go reprimanded on this site, by another forum member, for stating "why do we have to continue to buy oil from countries that hate us". Yet here we are delving into the political arena and the moderators have yet to chime in.

 

[motion30]

Something else to think about.... If we stop importing foreign oil and and functions on the world reserves that we have. We' would have oil for 4.9 years

 

[bountyhunter44]

It is very difficult to separate the two at times. Personally, I'd like to know where we are headed with diesel prices, 6 months, 1 year, 3 year, etc. Will it come down, will it continue to sky rocket. These are not all the time, but sometimes, policy decisions as well as other factors.


I think trying to remain unbiased can be hard for some folks, but I certainly see all sides of this dilemma and appreciate, although not always agree with others perspectives. In the olden days we called it healthy debate. Now days we seem to get kicked off if we don't tow the line.


I like to hear all sides, I'll just ask that we keep it respectful in order to keep moderators and referees on the sidelines. That is all we can ask of anyone.


Cheers guys, and thank you all for your continued input.

 

[ddw36]

The maritime industry is converting, rather swiftly, to alternative fuels. OK, liquified natural gas is not an alternatice, but still a pervasive effort to convert from fossil fuels. Some ships are now powered by wind, other ships are converting to such fuels as methane, ammonia, etc.


I suggest you browse "The Maritime Executive," a daily marine industry trade publication that explores many maritime issues that I believe many TFers would be interested. https://www.maritime-executive.com/

 

[Hippocampus]

SV- unfortunately there’s no meaningful thing the current or any administration can do to materially effect the market price of petroleum. Throughout the entire world price has gone up. Doesn’t matter if the country is run by a dictator, right or left wing government. The exception is in China and India. You do really think for a second any US administration could take an action to change that I think we have different understandings of basic economic realities. Agree tax holidays, opening reserves, easing leasing requirements are totally meaningless in the short run so current machinations will have little effect and are being done for show not effect.
The economics are clear. A dictator whose economic base is built on the export of petroleum, gold and other raw materials invades another country. He is sanctioned. Multinationals see an avenue to increase profits. (Take a look at the recent quarterly balance sheets for occidental, Dutch shell, BP or any of yours choosing). They have excess crude and gas capacity but beyond OPEC price fixing that has gone on for decades. Refining, transport and end user marketing capacity has fallen for years due to decrease demand from Covid and the expense of rebuilding facilities impacted by MMCC induced weather.
As regards this commodity Adam Smith laws of free market capitalism have not been applicable through multiple republican and democratic administrations. OPEC nations and multinationals have circumvented those structures. They act and will continue to act in their best interests. Those interests are not yours as a consumer. Response of other large scale economic interests looks at this and has a strong incentive to convert. Governments look at this and have a strong geopolitical incentive to facilitate conversion. This goes well beyond party politics. Personal private transportation is just a fraction of utilization. But even in that fraction the parochial view of only viewing your utilization misses the dynamic. The link concerning shipping is representative.
Have a friend who works in the car;truck industry (currently for Mercedes). He does autonomous vehicle development not the decision about propulsion. From talking with him I’m told all of that industry’s ten year plan (ford,gm, vw etc.) is expecting conversion in my childrens life time and spending billions on that basis. With all due respect have greater trust in their analysis then any politically based belief.

 

[FWT]

"unfortunately there’s no meaningful thing the current or any administration can do to materially effect the market price of petroleum."

The historical facts say otherwise. One administration opened up drilling and fracking and the result was oil independence, net exporter, and low fuel prices. Another cut drilling and pipelines and the net result was oil prices zoomed up and we are again a net importer going hat in hand to exporters trying to buy oil. Neither has done anything to make new refinery capacity a practical possibility. Oil prices got so low when drilling was open that some of our largest oil companies were in serious financial stress. One may not like either set of policies for a host of reasons, but its pretty clear from real world recent experience that policy and action had impacts.

This isn't opinion. This is the facts.

 

[Larry M]

Folks, please keep the politics/government polices and gripes out of the thread.

Thanks for understanding

 

[Hippocampus]

Latency was what? Technology was developed and applied when? Please realize the basic physical facts are independent of governmental policy. Sustainability of fracking as a resource is how long?
No there’s constrains on time to market, cost, reasonable impacts people will accept having nothing to do with politics or personal world view. Larry is right let move past local politics . We’re stuck and would be regardless who was in the office. We’re paying for the policies of both administrations since the 1960s. The lesson hasn’t been leaned yet. The upside is industry has learned. Volvo is going all EV. That conversion started well before the current situation. The upside is modifying supply chain, warehousing, securing multiple sourcing of rare materials and making the investments in the structures to actuate applied science and engineering is occurring. We’ll all be pulled along regardless of our political views. My best friend hates technology. Last year he got rid of his flip phone. Had no choice. This will be the same. Nothing like the potato potato of a road glide. Not a noise I expect my grandkids to hear very often if at all.

 

[Nomad Willy]

I agree w most here .. just not so forcefully. I’m not hot about this issue.

I do however feel our petroleum industry should be controlled by economics … not politics … w the exception of drilling. And I support the thinking that economics controls the price of gas at the pumps. The president has little to do w gas prices unless it’s indirectly. Almost all the presidents do take credit if it’s said he caused the prices to fall. A president should have enough honesty and integrity to admit it had little to do w him.

I had a girlfriend that was a financial adviser and in the year 2000 or so when portfolios were making 28% interest she said to me “Eric .. they think I’m the one responsible for their windfall”.