My Board

New to the message board. I must say I like the new look.

I have been excited to research some of these awesome ships. Wanting to learn more about the new engines of the fleet- wondering if anyone has looked at electric propulsion.

Any leads on companies who might be working on electric engines for Lakers?

PS- Also interested in autonomous shipping too.

 

I don't know if any fleet has taken a serious look into an all electric laker.  I have often thought that the lakes would be a good place to pioneer such technology in a large vessel as even the longest runs are shorter than most ocean voyages and so the opportunity to dock and recharge batteries, or refuel hydrogen for fuel cells, would be much more frequent.  However, like all major technology changes of this sort it is having the support infrastructure that is usually the major hold up.  Well, that and the cost of course.

What has been done on the lakes in the past is diesel/electric or steam turbine/electric propulsion.  I believe United States Steel back in the 1960s took a pair of their boats that were near identical and put in a diesel/electric plant in on and a mechanical diesel plant in the other to determine which propulsion method was "better" for their needs.   I think Al Miller wrote a bit about this in his book "Tin Stackers".  Somebody more familiar about this than me will probably remember what boats were involved.  There have also been several other something/electric lakers over the years but at the moment I don't believe there are any in operation.

In my mind I have always thought that these kind of paradigm shifts in technology need to be done incrementally to catch on in a big way.  For example perhaps the first step would be to install a battery or fuel cell bank that would replace the generators that are used when the main engines are shut down.  If a fleet can make it work where they are all electric for everything but main propulsion, and the crews are happy and comfortable with it, then maybe they would take a chance and go all out with an entirely electric boat.

Just my thoughts.

DCN

Unlike a car which has a lot of coasting involved in their driving and driving using far less than the full potential of their power plants, boats at sea are running at full throttle and near full capacity on their engines.  I really don't see the ability for a battery powered system to generate 10-15,000 horse power with current technology in batteries & motors.     Besides, that's gonna be a big enough load that power plants would most likely need to be notified when they plug in.

Good points. Thanks for the response.

Here is just one of many articles you can find on both topics you asked about.

 

https://www.kongsberg.com/maritime/support/themes/autonomous-ship-project-key-facts-about-yara-birkeland/

Possibly the closest any laker would come to electric is a diesel-electric drive system similar to those used on cruise ships.  Even that is a stretch as the demands are quite different.  Cruise ships need large amounts of electric power for the passengers use and for all the bells and whistles.  The torque of an electric drive is beneficial but you also will have some loss in conversion to electric drive compared to directly connecting an engine to a shaft and spinning a propeller.

Maid of the Mist tours at Niagara Falls (on the US side) put two fully electric tour boats into operation last fall.  Seems to be an ideal situation for an all electric boat: short voyages followed by enough time at the dock to recharge.Washington Post Article