Is it possible for ocean vessel to generate from sun panels as much as needed for moving? I would suggest vessels does not need scarce Lithium, it is too needed for some other uses.
Unfortunately, it's not even close. Maybe 1-2% in a highly optimistic scenario.<p>- 20k square meters of hull space<p>- If fully covered with solar panels, on a sunny day, you could expect 1-2 MWh (when averaging in night time)<p>- Current diesel engines typically output 60MWh continuously while underway.<p>And that's not factoring in the solar panels getting covered in salt over time and losing efficiency. Plus preventing the ship from actually loading / unloading cargo efficiently.<p>It's not just a matter of panel efficiency either. If we had magic panels that could absorb 100% of the suns power over the 20k sqm deck, it would only equate to about four times as much (8% of the overall power need).
Lithium is not scarce, and not a limiting factor for scaling up batteries.<p>There's more than enough lithium out there, more discovered every month, and the perception that we are limited by lithium is mostly out there because certain media sources are trying to help out there fossil fuel friends by delaying the energy interchange by a few years.<p>Whether battery ocean shipping containers make technical sense is a different question, but I wouldn't worry about lithium use!
All resources are "scarce" at very low price points, below which most nations are unable or unwilling to extract them.<p>Lithium, rare earth metals, and a bunch of others are only "scarce" because right now China is the only country willing to put up with the pollution levels that the cheap, dirty version of their extraction produces.<p>Everything can be produced cleanly, safely, etc... but that comes at a price.<p>It's like when employers complain that "nobody wants to work". That needs to be translated to "nobody wants to work for the low wages I'm willing to pay".
There are examples of solar electric catamarans - but they are much smaller than a cargo vessel. It's not nothing, but we're some ways away.<p>I wouldn't underestimate what creative and dedicated engineers can accomplish.
No.<p>I’m too lazy to do it myself but 5 minutes of searching and calculating will show you that the area of solar panels required to move a ship is far, far, larger than the area of that ship.<p>Not to mention that a container ship’s deck is typically completely covered with, well, containers.<p>Also, lithium isn’t scarce.
No, but with wind it's possible. Either vertical windmills or sails with modern signal processing.<p>Honestly DJI and Boeing should get into this business. A boat's sail basically a plane's wing, aerodynamically speaking. They share a lot of similarities with endurance gliders.
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