With Google, Apple, and all the car manufacturers focusing on autos, other companies have their eyes on less sexy things like autonomous feeder ships.
Autonomous Ships
Humans at Sea reports on the World’s First Autonomous, Zero Emission Container Ship.
The vessel “YARA Birkeland” will be the world’s first fully electric and autonomous container ship, with zero emissions. Operation is planned to start in the latter half of 2018, shipping products from YARA’s Porsgrunn production plant to Brevik and Larvik in Norway.
Named “YARA Birkeland” after YARA’s founder, the famous scientist and innovator Kristian Birkeland, the vessel will be the world’s first fully electric container feeder. YARA’s new vessel will reduce NOx and CO2 emissions and improve road safety by removing up to 40,000 truck journeys in populated urban areas.
YARA Birkeland will initially operate as a manned vessel, moving to remote operation in 2019 and expected to be capable of performing fully autonomous operations from 2020. The new zero-emission vessel will be a game-changer for global maritime transport contributing to meet the UN sustainability goals.
“Every day, more than 100 diesel truck journeys are needed to transport products from YARA’s Porsgrunn plant to ports in Brevik and Larvik where we ship products to customers around the world. With this new autonomous battery-driven container vessel we move transport from road to sea and thereby reduce noise and dust emissions, improve the safety of local roads, and reduce NOx and CO2 emissions,” says Holsether.
This technology is on the way. 2020 seems quite doable. But how big a disruption globally will feeder ships have?
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
As everyone knows who didn’t flunk physics in high school, battery operated devices are highly inefficient and merely move the pollution backwards to the generating plant, but with a great loss of energy in the transmission process…But then, 98% of western peoples are completely ignorant of basic science.
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Agreed. Almost as inefficient as internal combustion engines.
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No, internal combustion engines are much more efficient, since the energy is produced where it is used…
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That is why trains use ICE to power electric engines.
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But it is easier to control pollution further back in the production cycle.
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Much less so on a vessel big enough to host a power plant in it’s engine room, than in a car.
Assuming, like what is realistic for most of the world, fossil fuel power plants. In Norway, I believe virtually all electricity production is hydroelectric, so stunts like this may well make more sense there.
Also, according to Google maps, Porsgrunn, Norway to Larvik Norway is 27 miles……. With Brevik halfway in between. Even a Tesla can make that trip on a charge…..
Heck, the darned ship may not even need batteries. Just some schlub to take an afternoon off, dropping a power cable along the beach along the whole route 🙂
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It will take -off, pardon the pun. Batteries not a problem depending on the the expected speed (slow). When loaded they could load new battery pack too whilst the previous are charged and then rinse repeat on return to dock after a few trips – low down time.
Makes sense to look at fuel cell too.
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Every battery cycle loses about 15% of the energy, while the generation and transmission consumes well over 50%. Of course, they will try to dump the costs on household consumers…
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Still can not find MH370. Just designate the first ship SS370.
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You dirty dog, I’m LMAO!!
Keep up the good work!!
If the Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram turn up in Norway, you’re getting a peace prize of some sort!! Omar Mateen’s father turned up on the dais at Hillary Clinton’s rallies so anything is possible.
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@pyrrhus
+1000
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Yup. My first thought.
Move the source of pollution around as a solution is nothing but an illusion.
Who doesn’t understand this???
The automated navigation systems are impressive though.
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That’s 100 diesel truck drivers who will need to make use of alternate skills. Let the fun begin!
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They can drive lawn mowers after the Mexicans leave.
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Become a marijuana sommelier in Las Vegas?
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No, they will magically upgrade their IQ and skills to become web developers and coders! This is the dreaming response of far too many political/business leaders and the poorly educated masses.
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What pyrrhus said !
ZERO emmissions…? Total BS from the eco-freaks who think electricity grows on trees……
Want my support? Be honest with us about the energy consumed!! Yes, maybe less – maybe less pollution – maybe more efficient and safer than 100 diesel trucks every day…..BUT NOT ZERO EMMISSIONS !! YOU ARE LYING !!
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Not exactly. Norwegians are blessed with lots of Hydro – for them it makes sense.
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To World Trust….or is it World Tryst from your earlier days….:-) 🙂
OK, you might have something there with Hydro in Norway …..but it still ain’t FREE – but pretty close I guess. I’ll give these people a pass.
But don’t try that FREE $HIT with anything from the USA……..altho’ we all know that SOLAR is free, and WIND is free, RIIIIIIIGHT…….!!@!#$%^%$#@!
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I agree. First time I ever went nose to nose with a windmill all I could think about was how much energy must have been spent just to build the damn thing. Those things are huge.
I do love when people make comparisons between places like Singapore and Norway with the U.S. The first I could bike around without getting tired and the latter has a population of 12 people inflicted with gigantism who all ride around on Reindeer and train for the winter olympics.
p.s. liked the tryst comment.. good memories.
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“last time I went nose to nose …”
I’m going to call you “Bob”.
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98% of Norway’s electricity is sourced from hydropower, and although it is not zero emission if you factor in the construction and maintenance activities, it comes darn close.
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Making the batteries isn’t zero emission or anything even close.
Norway does not get 98% from hydroelectric power, but even if that political marketing point were true — the ship is pretty useless if it can’t travel to other countries.
And it still needs harbor pilots (government employees) when going in / out of ports — just like thousands of existing ships that already use autopilot between ports
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You can edit the Wikipedia article that is the source of my number if you feel it is wrong:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Norway
The ship is not intended to travel to other countries. It is a coastal freighter meant to replace trucking containers to the main seaport from their production facility.
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Hydro is nice, but you are still losing a lot of energy in the process. The fact that it is cheap energy is irrelevant.
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Hmmmm….not sure what you’re saying. Yes, “water over the dam” IS wasted energy – but …..unless you can run it ALL thru the turbine, it IS wasted, anyway. Kinda’ like saying 99.999999 % of solar power is wasted, ’cause we didn’t harness it ALL?
Basically Hydro past the dam is ‘wasted’ just like solar on the surface of the earth is wasted. And it IS very cheap – or even free.. It’s just the turning it into electricity that may be expensive.
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The price (cheap) makes allowance for wastage. Just shows how cheap it must be that wastage occurs and its still cheap.
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Back to the future. Before the modern highway systems evolved, the coasts of countries and anywhere there was a river big enough to float a boat that could carry a viable amount of cargo had fleets of cargo boats that moved goods to shipping and consumption centers. We live on the US West Coast, and in every little harbor town that has a history museum you will find pictures of the harbor full of small cargo boats powered first by sail, then steam, and finally ICEs.
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Very beautiful boats, too. Have you seen the one in front of the Tillamook cheese factory?
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Many times. The Morning Star also appears in the Tillamook emblem on all of their products. The visitors center is undergoing an extensive renovation this summer.
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Just saying the words “zero emissions” emits CO2 into the atmosphere. I’m so tied of the bs from these greenies.
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Will there be robotic Somali pirates as well?
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99 o/o of the western world is completely ignorant of social science, humans make their destiny but cannot control it
’
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The batteries are produced with zero emissions and without mining any materials. They just spring up from nothing.
Like how the electricity magically appears at my outlets. This allows me to charge all my zero emission devise and cool my zero emissions home.
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An electric autonomous ship will be the exception. Most autonomous ships will be powered by some type of fossil fuel.
The key point here is that autonomous transportation is going to take over roads, trains, planes and waterways. And these changes are going to be transformational.
Accidents will be reduced dramatically. Hundreds of thousands of lives will be saved annually world wide. Millions of injuries will be avoided. Insurance losses (and insurance rates) will plummet. The savings in health care costs will be huge. Transportation and delivery costs will fall. Efficiencies will improve.
I say: bring it on!
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Future, self driving grocery deliveries in London.
Amazon bound to be interested?
Makes some sense.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/ocado-trials-oxbotica-self-driving-delivery-van-greenwich-london-2017-6
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This ship is another UN inspired fraud.
The electricity to run it has to be generated somewhere — so it produces at least as much enviro-terrorist gasses as every other ship. That electricity then gets stored in batteries made of horrid chemicals that pollute everything from mining rigs to the factory that assembles the batteries.
Too many libtards have ZERO science background — to go along with their non-existent accounting skills. Just because the emissions and pollution happen “upstream” of your ugly ship, doesn’t mean it is zero emissions.
It means this so-called “scientist” they named the fraud after is a clueless academic that can’t think about the whole system — just the part in front of her smug face.
Everyone in Norway should feel ashamed — this ship is a scam
As for the autonomous part… the Phillipine cargo ship that crashed into the US cruiser off Japan last month was running on autopilot. Autopilot on ships is hardly a new technology, its DECADES OLD STUFF.
Harbor pilots, who pilot the ships in and out of ports, are all government employees. Fat chance these con-artists are going to eliminate government employees.
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Happy “Brexit 1776” to all US citizens
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No emmissions during the manufacturing process either? Emission free battery production and charging too?
I call BS button time.
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Anyone have a figure on how much the first computer cost to produce. Even when they went to mass production they were not cheap. I remember the first computer we had at work, a simple beast by today’s standards, cost over $10,000.
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These delivery vessels needn’t cost much. There are already battery ferries.
Location is already available at high accuracy for oil tankers in oil terminals.
Very accurate over long distances using laser. Have seen them operating. This is a bringing together of existing tech, not a major revolution.
IDing cargo through the the process from source to end is interesting tech. In real-time and 3D. Have some interests in that area.
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To calculate roughly how much a computer cost in the past, price a computer and multiply its price by 10 every 5 years, going back. $1000 today: $10,000 in 2012, $100,000 in 2007 and so on.
Since it can be more accurate to think of something that’s 10x something else as being a different thing than the “something else”, these kinds of calculations are very back-of-envelope-y.
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In 1970 I was taking computer programming courses. I thought it would be nice to have my own “little” mainframe, an IBM 360/85 with 64K of main storage. the basic cost, not including the 330v/440v electric supply lines, the insulated equipment room, the special elevated flooring, and the cooling equipment, was a mere $120,000 give or take a few thousand. By the time that one could obtain a 64 bit computer with a 512K of main memory and a couple of gigabytes of disk, you were paying about $1200 in 1995. Of course that cost has not changed much since.
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And my wife is walking around today in my old OS/2 tee shirt.
I’ve still got a copy of Brook’s “Mythical Man Month” somewhere.
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I keep finding books I’ve read that still have the old IBM cards i used as book marks. One of these days I may toss the old IBM manuals I had collected during the late sixties and early seventies. Perhaps even worse is that I remember a time when RPG stood for IBM’s Report Program Generation. Of course it also helped to know how to program, using the wires that came with the 407 tabulation/accounting machine to assist the RPG program you had written, complied, and placed in the hopper with the JCL cards, the complied program cards, and the data cards so you could run your RPG program. and you thought it was Rocket Propelled Grenade. Well, yes, that was Nam and not IBM.
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And I can still remember using visicalc
.
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Nice idea… as long as… you realize the power needed limits it to shorter distances on protected waterways…. and that fully autonomous is not realistic….and that energy savings, if valid, are token or would be on a larger real world scale… but it is a neat concept that would seem to fit its surroundings in a simple, as yet untested, way.
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As every sane man (there are no sane women) knows all these pieces of crap do is push emissions elsewhere.
It would be fitting if it was named YARA Birkenhead.
http://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Women-Children-First/
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