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Large, ocean-going transport vessels are numerous and useful
devices that represent a fairly mature technology. In general,
they are powered by enormous diesel engines specifically
optimized for efficiency. Nevertheless, such engines can
happily
consume 50-150 tonnes/day at 20 knots. This fuel
occupies
space,
costs money and represents a limit to the ship's range.
The ocean is apparently full of plastic, particularly in several
oceanic "Gyres". These Gyres are conveniently located in nice
spots between europe and N.America, N.America and Asia and
other regions that are essentially on the way for much of the
world's shipping. Ship fuel is pretty low grade stuff, some of it
not
too far away in properties from tar. Big, slow ship engines
manage to cope.
The Bussard ram jet <link> is a design for space propulsion that
scoops up gasses as it travels, compresses them and uses the
result as propellant. The main criticism of this system is the
lack
of gas. Space is, spacious, not full of gasses. However, if we
apply the same principle to an ocean going ship things look a bit
brighter. Firstly, plastic is reasonably energy-dense. It's
essentially the same as ship fuel. Secondly, it is much more
concentrated than space gasses. That plastic floats is
particularly
helpful, it concentrates all the plastic to a few mm at the air-
water interface. Sort of like a gravity-powered density gradient
centrifugation system.
So, the ship moves along through plastic laden seas. On the
front,
a huge scoop funnels/filters the surface plastics toward the
ship.
Here a large conveyor belt lifts the particles out of the water
and
processing begins. This will consist of slowly drying and
pulverizing the material. Then, it's fed into the engines. Hooray
for free fuel.
One slight drawback is speed. By extrapolating this graph <link>
The expected 3-5kg of plastic per square kilometer will mean
the
ship has to travel at around 2 to 5 micro knots if we consider
the
fuel cost of processing the plastic to be negligible.
Unfortunately
this means the ship will be unsuitable for the transport of
perishable goods, with the shorter transatlantic voyages taking
170,000 years or so. One upside of this speed is the
extraordinarily low damage sustained should the ship run into
another ship.
Bussard Ram Jet
https://en.wikipedi...wiki/Bussard_ramjet
[bs0u0155, May 05 2017]
(?) Speed fuel curves for ships
https://people.hofs...containerships.html
[bs0u0155, May 05 2017]
Solid lead model boat, floating
https://youtu.be/XrGUiz9Tnwk?t=1
[not_morrison_rm, May 06 2017]
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Annotation:
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Hmm. The basic problem is the extremely low density of plastic in the ocean. 5kg per square kilometer equates to 5mg (maybe a tenth of a small shirt button) per square metre. |
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The obvious solution is to have a conventional diesel ship travelling ahead of the Bussard ship, laying a trail of plastic. |
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Even better, potentially, would be to have a scoop beneath the surface, harvesting everything from plankton to dolphins. These could then be dried and burned as fuel. |
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Hmm, so I should go throw lots of plastic into the ocean, seems like a good idea to me [+]. |
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Like the space version, this would work well as a brake. |
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//The obvious solution is to have a
conventional diesel ship travelling ahead of the
Bussard ship, laying a trail of plastic. |
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Even better, potentially, would be to have a
scoop beneath the surface, harvesting everything
from plankton to dolphins. These could then be
dried and burned as fuel.// |
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That would be a pretty big scoop. I'd think you
could reduce the scoop size by coating the plastic
your lead ship lays down with poison so the marine
life would die, float to the surface and be easier to
collect, dry out and burn as fuel. |
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What about some kind of depth charge that you
could lay down that would explode and release the
plastic fuel AND process the marine life for fuel
utilization? |
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//coating the plastic your lead ship lays down// |
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That's a very, very bad idea. Lead ships are not only very expensive to make, but have much less bouyancy than conventional steel hulls. |
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^ Ground-breaking research. |
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Actually there is some video of a floating solid lead model boat. Linky. |
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//lead ship lays down with poison// |
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Careful use of widely available and ever cheaper "crude oil"
would get both marine life AND any birds that come looking
to snack on the dead fish. |
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// have an engine that could molecularly take apart the small parts // |
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So, a humonguloidous (sp?) solar-powered electrolysis plant which dines on sea water and the occasional plastic gyre and pelagic to produce hydrogen for motive fuel. Brilliant! |
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I can't help but feel we're headed toward a whale-towed
barge. That constitutes a reasonable efficient sun> algae>
krill> whale> propulsion system. Just send out one of those
lead ships to seed the ocean with minerals that promote
algal blooms. |
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That's all well and good until the whale decides it fancies a few giant squid for lunch, and dives. |
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That's what those retractable leashes on reels are for. |
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Yes, I've tried those. The important thing, really, is never to use on a chihuahua a retractable reel designed for a bassett hound. It doesn't end well. |
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No, more of an "Arf! Whoosh! Thwocka-thwocka-thwocka." |
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//Lead ships are not only very expensive to make, but
have much less bouyancy than conventional steel
hulls//
I think the problem with lead-based
vessel design would be hull strength, rather than
buoyancy. This is also why boats are rarely made out
of copper. |
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// I think the problem with lead-based vessel design
would be hull strength, rather than buoyancy. // |
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Should be alright if it's _solid_ lead, right? |
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If you do as the youtube link suggests and keep your solid
lead boat afloat by replacing ocean water with mercury
then you can avoid poisoning the plastic that it drops. All
the dolphins will float even if they're still alive. |
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This solution is more environmentally friendly because it
avoids the use of poisoned plastics. |
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Disappointingly less battery than the sort of ram-
ship I'd envisioned upon reading the title. |
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I think it would be important to paint the boat's hull, otherwise the mercury would dissolve the lead and over the course of a long trans-oceanic voyage there would be a danger of too much corrosion. Also it might pollute the ocean with lead, which would be unhealthy for marine life and the environment. |
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I would like to modify this idea into a beach going art project. It would be like the Strandbeests that dutch dude makes, except this would be the size of a Tonka truck with an onboard steam engine and would go along scooping up anything loose or different in color from the background. |
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This creation could also be released in the park at festivals and other similar venues. The black smoke belched out would not violate any regulations because it is art. When the boiler ran dry a subroutine could have it approach person-appearing shapes and beg for beer or urine. |
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I considered this as a separate idea but it is so derivative I will just leave it here. Plus I feel like I may have encountered a trash-burning urine begging steamboat somewhere else. |
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With 170,000 years to play with it may be more efficient to
just put the ship into the right currents in relatively short
bursts of relative speed. |
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