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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the not-quite-production-ready dept.

Dubbed the "Solar Impulse of the Seas," the first boat to be powered solely by renewable energies and hydrogen hopes to make its own historic trip around the world.

A water-borne answer to the Solar Impulse—the plane that completed its round-the-globe trip using only solar energy in July—the Energy Observer will be powered by the Sun, the wind and self-generated hydrogen when it sets sail in February as scheduled.

The multi-hulled catamaran is in a shipyard at Saint-Malo on France's west coast, awaiting the installation of solar panels, wind turbines and electrolysis equipment, which breaks down water to produce its component elements, hydrogen and oxygen.

"We are going to be the first boat with an autonomous means of producing hydrogen," says Frenchman Victorien Erussard, who is behind the project—confidential until now—with compatriot Jacques Delafosse, a documentary filmmaker and professional scuba diver.

The round-the-world trip is projected to take six years.


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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:08PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:08PM (#401903) Journal

    Green powered ships? Clipper ships. Fast bastids - they raced each other from Asian ports to Western ports, trying to get those seasonal goods to market ahead of the competition. Wasn't it Vespucci who circumnavigated the world first, in a green-powered ship? Amerigo Vaspucci? The Americas got their name from him. The man didn't burn any coal, no gas, nothing like that. Maybe a little tallow for lighting, and some wood in the cook stove.

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  • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:22PM

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:22PM (#401912) Journal

    The ship in the article has also circumnavigated the world Vespucci style:

    FTA: The vessel itself has a storied past.
    The catamaran won the Jules Verne trophy, for a team sailing non-stop round the world, in 1994.
     
    I can't tell from the article whether they have removed the sails or whether the energy collectors are in addition to sails.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:04PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:04PM (#401941)

      From the drawings on their website (not linking, script mess), no masts, just solar panels.

      The irony of taking a sail-powered thing, replacing the sails with electronics, panels and motors, and calling it green, must be lost on them.

      There's gotta be a way to power a boat slowly with automatic rigid sails (small ones if you don't have a skipper to anticipate a capsize). That would feel greener and still allow solar-powered motors for quiet days.

      Related: I had a chat with a lady writing the software for kayak-size boats powered by the amplitude difference between the top of a wave and a few metres down. That sound like a nice, if pretty slow, way of getting unlimited power.

      • (Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:20AM

        by el_oscuro (1711) on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:20AM (#402118)

        Why not combine the old with the new? Have a traditional sailing ship for when the winds are good and allow your (hopefully) high capacity batteries to relax and recharge. Then when the wind dies, use your fancy solar powered engine to put some nice knots down.

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  • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:47PM

    by TheRaven (270) on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:47PM (#401927) Journal
    The problem with conventional wind-powered ships is that their journey times were highly varied. This is a real problem in a world of modern inventory management, where it doesn't matter if your cargo is slow, as long as you expect it to be slow and it gets there on time. There have been some attempts to power large boats with kites up in the jetstream (where the wind is more predictable), which look promising.

    Unrelated, did anyone else hear Lord Percy from Blackadder II announcing 'I have obtained pure green!' when they read the headline?

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:59PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:59PM (#401937)

      Unrelated, did anyone else hear Lord Percy from Blackadder II announcing 'I have obtained pure green!' when they read the headline?

      No, but I did hear Samuel Johnson muttering "Sausage?" when I read your comment.

    • (Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:21PM

      by wonkey_monkey (279) on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:21PM (#401974) Homepage

      Unrelated, did anyone else hear Lord Percy from Blackadder II announcing 'I have obtained pure green!' when they read the headline?

      No, but I do know he's had a fear of the sea ever since he was savaged by a turbot.

      (I didn't know what a turbot was for years, but I still found that line hilarious)

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @08:34PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @08:34PM (#402001)

      It took Francis Drake three years to go around the world. These guys will do it in six. I'll take Drake's three years plus variability over a dependable six years most of the time.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @11:22PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @11:22PM (#402059)

        It goes twice as fast when the turbot button is depressed.

    • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday September 15 2016, @01:01AM

      by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Thursday September 15 2016, @01:01AM (#402088)

      Unrelated, did anyone else hear Lord Percy from Blackadder II announcing 'I have obtained pure green!' when they read the headline

      "I have forged a nugget of the purest Green my lord"!

      Also "Big, blue wobbly fing, what mermaids live in".

  • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday September 15 2016, @12:57AM

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Thursday September 15 2016, @12:57AM (#402084)

    I think Magellan was first in 1519. Well not actual Magellan, he was killed in the Philippines, but his expedition.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @05:27AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @05:27AM (#402144)

    "We are going to be the first boat with an autonomous means of producing hydrogen" is the claim. Ships from late in the 19th century could have made producer gas for lighting. Whether they really did, I've no idea.