China Ocean Shipping Group launches world’s largest electric container ship, with a 50 MWh battery.
  • NataliePortland@lemmy.caEnglish
    97·
    19 days ago

    Dude awesome. I mean you gotta hand it to them. Killing it with affordable electric cars, solar panels and now this. It’s a step in the right direction, and that’s more than you could say about UK

    • ramenshaman@lemmy.world
      36·
      19 days ago

      Still doesn’t really seem all that big. Some EVs have 100 KWh batteries. A container ship with the battery capacity of 500 cars doesn’t sound like much.

      • bitfucker@programming.dev
        40·
        19 days ago

        Until you realize that the energy requirement is also different. Land transport in general is very inefficient. Ship is in fact one of the most energy efficient means of transport.

        • ramenshaman@lemmy.world
          14·
          19 days ago

          I don’t disagree but every time I’ve seen a diesel engine on a cargo ship it was absolutely massive.

          • bitfucker@programming.dev
            29·
            19 days ago

            Size wise, it is small relative to the ship size. Look at car engine. How many % of volume is taken up for the engine and fuel tank of car? I think it is close to 30-40%

        • Wahots@pawb.social
          6·
          18 days ago

          194 nautical miles isn’t terribly far, though. For port to port, sure. For oceanic shipping, I don’t think 194 is going to cut it. I think we will probably have to do SMRs or efuels to really cut cargo ship and cruise ship emissions when crossing the Pacific or Atlantic. Though I don’t know where nuclear powered shipping (in non-military applications) is in terms of progress.

          • anguo@lemmy.ca
            1·
            17 days ago

            I do think that cargo ships are the one vehicle where solar panels would make sense though. Add that and a sail, and you should be able to increase the range considerably.

      • HydraulicMonkey@lemmy.world
        10·
        19 days ago

        Ships are much more efficient than cars. Having said that, this wouldn’t have a huge range, nor is it terribly big by container ship standards.

      • COASTER1921@lemmy.ml
        8·
        19 days ago

        Yep, and the Chevy Silverado EV manages 200kWh now. This cargo ship better be small and efficient because 250 American pickup trucks worth of battery really isn’t much.

          • COASTER1921@lemmy.ml
            7·
            18 days ago

            It’s still not a lot of energy though. Some rough napkin math for how far this would get you is below:

            Typical medium size cargo ships in the Panama Canal travel around 25 knots burning 63000 gallons per day of fuel with 5000TEU of cargo. That’s roughly 600mi/63000gal or 1142miles per ton gallon. That Silverado EV somehow weighs 4 tons (totally safe to be driving at highway speeds), so this is the equivalent of roughly 285.5mpg per Silverado. The Silverado is 67mpge on its own, so the ship is just over 4x as efficient (and slower which is ignored here but would impact the vehicle efficiency).

            So using the Silverado’s 450 mile optimal range we can say it has at most an optimistic 7 gallons equivalent fuel in its 200kWh battery. 50 MWH would be enough for a theoretical 1750 gallons equivalent if efficiency were the same. But for the efficiency difference this corresponds to a 4.2x improvement to 7350 gallons equivalent. Therefore this is enough to run that typical ship above for 2.8 hours. So with 65000 tons of cargo in the above ship to do a 200 mile route this ship would need roughly 3x as large a battery. More likely it will just carry ~1/3 the cargo or have charging stops en-route.

            The 19.4km/h top speed of this ship suggests they’re well aware of the extremely limited range this will have for its size and it sounds like the Shanghai to Nanjing route will be pushing it’s limits despite being less than 200 miles.

            • Gabu@lemmy.ml
              5·
              18 days ago

              You took the worst possible path to calculate all of this. Just compare energy to energy, that’s the whole point of Watts.

              • COASTER1921@lemmy.ml
                1·
                17 days ago

                True but efficiency is not the same and not as simple to compare since we don’t know how much of the ship’s battery is converted into motion. Similarly we don’t directly know it’s mass. ICE cars can use ~20% of the energy in fuel while EVs 90%+ of the energy in a battery. But now much can that ship effectively use? I have no idea how efficient boats are or aren’t, hence the roundabout method above.

  • chiisana@lemmy.chiisana.net
    32·
    19 days ago

    Having seen some spicy pillows in my times… I’d hate to be onboard if any of the battery containers becomes a bouncy castle.

    • B0rax@feddit.de
      16·
      18 days ago

      Using standard container sizes as battery modules is kind of genius. That way they can be swapped out when they get older and newer technology comes along, they could even be swapped between ships.

    • Pretzilla@lemmy.world
      11·
      19 days ago

      I expect they are using LFP which doesn’t do that.

      Fortunately energy density is not a concern with boats.

    • Ptsf@lemmy.world
      7·
      18 days ago

      These batteries are likely far more complex in packaging, design, and thermal management that any consumer electronic cell. They’ll likely “fail safely” if/when they do fail.

        • Fidel_Cashflow@lemmy.ml
          5·
          17 days ago

          Posting this while Boeing is killing whistleblowers for talking about how many corners they’re cutting is absolutely wild lmao

        • Ptsf@lemmy.world
          5·
          17 days ago

          China is a massive economy and country with some of the most advanced manufacturering and tooling in the entire world. Yes, it could be shoddy, but it’s in a ship and is going to be far more regoriously scrutinized by their regulatory bodies than a normal stationary battery would be. I understand the plausiblity of your comment, but it seems to be rooted in prejudice or extreme ignorance.

        • davel [he/him]@lemmy.mlEnglish
          2·
          17 days ago

          Are you kidding me? iPhones and most smartphones and laptops are Chinese products. The vast majority of high speed rail in the world are Chinese products. The Tiangong space station is largely Chinese products.

  • PowerCrazy@lemmy.mlEnglish
    22·
    19 days ago

    Why not an electric train? There is contiguous land between the two cities, and then you don’t have to carry your fuel with you or build giant batteries out of rare earth minerals, while risking run-away shorts that will surely endanger everyone on board, and ensure the cargo is lost.

    Plus the distance is <300kms.

    • kugel7c@feddit.de
      23·
      19 days ago

      Probably because trains are limited in both weight and volume compared to ships and also less efficient. If you have this short route and know it’ll need this amount of cargo shipped it likely makes sense.

      This single ship can carry more containers than any train could be expected to pull, likely by at least one order of magnitude.

      All in all I’d guess the advantages are roughly:

      • Reduced staff
      • reduced energy use (land based shipping is less efficient almost by default)
      • no need for infrastructure except ports (if you assume there is no train line or this shipping would move existing lines over capacity building this ship is likely cheaper or at least in line with 300km of rail)
      • simpler logistics (loading / unloading)

      Disadvantages:

      • Speed (a train would likely move at 3-5x the speed)

      I would also not expect the risk for catastrophic fires to be all that high. This ship has the batteries be containers. So once you’ve designed a container that is a large battery, you’ve already spent so much that a proper BMS including proper battery fire suppression as well as proper breakers/contractors are things you’ve built into it without even thinking about cost. The separation provided by building containers as the battery is the next line of defence if one container fails spectacularly, it also allows the batteries to be maintained on land, much cheaper than if they were part of the ship.

      • Pretzilla@lemmy.world
        5·
        19 days ago

        I expect they are using LFP which isn’t fire prone.

        Fortunately energy density is not nearly the concern with boats and trains as it is with cars.

        And agreed, the modular batteries are a nice touch.

          • erwan@lemmy.ml
            5·
            19 days ago

            It’s slow and you depend on the wind blowing.

            If sails were that great we would still be using them for freight, we didn’t switch to petroleum for the fun of it. Environmental issues put aside it’s a pretty great source of energy.

            • Gabu@lemmy.ml
              3·
              18 days ago

              you depend on the wind blowing.

              For achieving maximum speed, sure. To simply guarantee you get there? Not at all - the Iberians knew how to navigate solely on maritime currents 500 years ago.

              If sails were that great we would still be using them for freight, we didn’t switch to petroleum for the fun of it.

              We started using pretroleum because capitalism requires infinite growth as fast as you can muster it. Particularly with modern refrigeration techniques and automation, time insensitive navigation for transport could easily be done with sails.

      • nix@midwest.socialEnglish
        3·
        19 days ago

        Thoughtful contribution that really explained your position while repudiating theirs. I can tell you’ve thought deeply about your position.

          • nix@midwest.socialEnglish
            2·
            19 days ago

            I am home, and saying literally anything besides an insult isn’t “debate”. Are you just afraid of actual discussion? Why are you saying anything at all?

            • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
              9·
              19 days ago

              I’m not afraid of actual discussion, and I’ve had plenty of long discussions on this subject here. That’s how I know that discussion with the likes of you is just a waste of my time. And I could ask you the same question.

              • nix@midwest.socialEnglish
                5·
                19 days ago

                Honestly I looked at your comments and they’re all just aggressive, and I was genuinely wondering why. You’re not trying to share info, and you’re not trying to convince anyone of anything. What’s the point? Is this helpful to you? It just seems like you’re upsetting yourself.

                EDIT: Actually, I take that back partially. You are sharing links. On my mobile app I only saw your comments, not your posts.

                • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
                  9·
                  19 days ago

                  No idea why you claim I’m upset about anything, seems that you may be projecting here. You certainly seem upset about my original comment you replied to.

    • davel [he/him]@lemmy.mlEnglish
      10·
      19 days ago

      By that logic most of the world is helping Russia fuck Ukraine, because they’re also still trading with Russia. Even the US and Europe still are, despite the sanctions they’ve imposed on themselves.

  • NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone
    5·
    19 days ago

    I can see lots of disappointed shipping magnates going to the shops on Boxing Day to get the batteries that weren’t included in the box.

  • Xavienth@lemmygrad.ml
    4·
    19 days ago

    I don’t think you could sustain an electric ship with solar panels, but I wonder if you could appreciably extend the range of this ship by adding solar panels.

    Hell, if panels get cheap enough you could slap panels on top of all the battery modules. If they happen to be covered by something else, so be it.