Generating power

[TmMorris]

Originally Posted by Iankristy

No thanks lol. Just interested if there’s developments out there that I don’t know about. So far, apparently not! Fuel ain’t gonna get cheaper. In the car industry it took industry leaders to make a leap of faith and invest. Who’s gonna do that for the powerboat world ?

Don't forget that the car industry wasn't investing because the product didn't work and still doesn't. It only exists because of robust legislation and taxation in a handful of countries.

By forcing the manufacturers to build and sell uncompetitive products the aim is to force that market to exist and find solutions so it can become viable. Ie switch from command economics to free market.

With cars you can see that so long as volumes are high enough and batteries continue to get cheaper then EVs will become genuinely competitive within the next 10 years or so.

However, what's the point with pleasure boats? No one is asking for the product, no one is legislating for it, no one could afford it and in the grand scheme of things it's a complete irrelevance.

It's just something that will happen when pricing and tech is made viable by other industries and we solve the issue of safely moving electricity from dock to boat.

[Ribtecer]

Is electricity getting cheaper?

Is there a surplus in the grid at current consumption?

How is the majority of electricity made?

I believe that the future lies in another tech that we don't yet know about, I see electric as a political stop gap that has massive draw backs for the consumer.

I'll now shut up on the subject.

[TmMorris]

It will eventually get cheaper but then taxes will go on to compensate.

Domestically, U.K. electricity this morning is 4 times cheaper than it was a few months ago as the price of Nat gas has come down from being over £500 to about £170, which is still 3x the historical norm of about £50. But for us consumers the price won't come down for a long time as we've had our usage at £400+ heavily subsidised and we'll be paying that back for some time.

But petrol will also come down in the near term. The current pricing is a function of lack of supply due to production being slashed during Covid and will take at least 18 months to come back in stream. Once oil is back to $80/barrel then all things equal, petrol should be around £1.50/L

It's only likely to drop from around there is the taxes are lowered or the bio content is abandoned so that the food it is made from can be released to fuel starving, poor humans rather than the indulgences of the affluent West.

[GuyC]

What the war in Ukraine has identified, to me at least, is that if you are long term reliant on a geographical area that you do not control for your energy needs, whether that be oil, gas or lithium for batteries for example, then you are running a significant risk.

What we need is a resource that is ubiquitous and reliable.

I don't know but does that mean hydrogen should be the future?

[TmMorris]

Originally Posted by GuyC

What the war in Ukraine has identified, to me at least, is that if you are long term reliant on a geographical area that you do not control for your energy needs, whether that be oil, gas or lithium for batteries for example, then you are running a significant risk.

What we need is a resource that is ubiquitous and reliable.

I don't know but does that mean hydrogen should be the future?

Yup. We've had a hugely benign geopolitical environment for decades which has allowed the efficiencies of globalisation and the specialisation of labour to give us the benefit of cheap goods.

It's about balance. The U.K. could be good self sufficient if we're all happy to revert to eating turnips with everything. And fuel self sufficiency is potentially possible as we switch to renewables and if we use a lot less.

However, it's worth noting that no one would care about the price of fuel and food if our cost of housing hadn't gone through the roof over the last 20 years. By allowing the cost of housing to rise to such enormous levels along with high levels of consumer debt then households would have the capacity to cope with fuel and food inflation.

Hydrogen is a much more plausible form of energy storage than batteries for boats. You'd still have the problem of weight. You're not going to be carrying a vanadium steel, high pressure tank down the pontoon to your dinghy that's for sure!!! It would be like carrying Barry White with you.

The actual problem with hydrogen is that it doesn't yet exist and all the future supply from all the HIF type projects is already secured by the energy industry followed by the fertiliser industry and then the shipping and haulage industries. It'll be decades before there is any kind of excess at an affordable cost for burning in outboards.

In short, you can easily see petrol outboards banned from inland waterways as electric outboards work but offshore I don't think you'll see any viable change for a long time as there simply isn't any viable replacement to a C4-C12 hydrocarbon fuel on any near to mid term horizon.

[GuyC]

Originally Posted by TmMorris

You're not going to be carrying a vanadium steel, high pressure tank down the pontoon to your dinghy that's for sure!!! It would be like carrying Barry White with you.

You could try but it would be the first and the last time you did it.

[Iankristy]

https://youtu.be/iuJv_BFLOOQ

[Iankristy]

Originally Posted by Iankristy

https://youtu.be/iuJv_BFLOOQ

Yes I know it’s not a rib.
Clearly a moral not financial benefit but I could see this working.

[Iankristy]

Originally Posted by Iankristy

Yes I know it’s not a rib.
Clearly a moral not financial benefit but I could see this working.

Further reading

https://www.mby.com/features/best-electric-boats-116768

[Iankristy]

I don’t know whether to be excited by my very basic minded wind generation plan now. I do know of course. Was hoping for a few left fielders from someone though. I except the premise “its too small an industry no one cares petrol will see us out” btw

[TmMorris]

The problem with the idea of wind generation on a speed boat is that you're using energy to propel the boat forward through the wind, that forward motion is then driving your fans to generate electricity but it's not free energy like a sail or a static fan being driven by the natural wind. The energy is coming from the motor in the first instance and now you have greater drag so you'll actually be using more power than if the fans weren't there in the first instance. You're basic concept falls foul of being a perpetual motion device. As as the great Homer Simpson once said 'We obey the laws of thermodynamics in this house!'

[Pikey Dave]

Originally Posted by TmMorris

….As as the great Homer Simpson once said 'We obey the laws of thermodynamics in this house!'

I refer the honourable gentlemen to the answer I gave earlier

Generating power
https://www.rib.net/forum/f8/generating-power-88077-post852266.html

[Pikey Dave]

If money was no object….

https://themarketherald.com.au/fancy...le-superyacht/

[TmMorris]

Indeed.

It'll be interesting to see what the next evolution will be for smaller boats but I suspect it will only happen when there is a significant change in energy storage.