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