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62 Comments
- Xeth, on 07/16/2009, -0/+46General Electric builds nuclear reactors on Navy ships, and General Atomics builds electric drives and rail guns on Navy ships *confused*
- ubernoggin, on 07/16/2009, -0/+24"promises to save up to 12,000 barrels of oil a year per ship" = awesome
- Homerr, on 07/16/2009, -2/+23The Navy has used hybrid diesel electric subs for ages.
- RealmDown, on 07/16/2009, -1/+16To be fair, it *is* progress, and progress means innovation, which leads to further improvement and continuously improving ROI.
You have to start somewhere, and just starting is often the hardest step. - ViperCTW, on 07/16/2009, -0/+11You also have to take into account that by using less fuel it lowers foreign dependence on oil. And there is always the chance that prices could go way up.
- lex0nyc, on 07/16/2009, -2/+11That's an expensive Prius.
- RealmDown, on 07/16/2009, -0/+9Those barrels must take up a *lot* of room on those ships. There must be a better way....
- spritom, on 07/16/2009, -0/+8Given the role of the Arleigh Burke class, it wouldn't appear to solve for much given the large initial cost of setting up nuclear propulsion. Carriers and subs benefit greatly from it, but I'm not so sure about the smaller destroyers.
- tizle, on 07/16/2009, -0/+8Not that I think $33 million is a small number, but doesn't that sound too small for a project like this? Recently the word "billion" seems to be thrown around so easily.
- emomakesmecry, on 07/16/2009, -2/+9Floating Prius? Will all the sailors on the ship instantly become self-righteous douchebags, guzzle gallons of Starbucks, and coat the back of the ship with tree-hugging ***** stickers?
- zacharytelschow, on 07/16/2009, -3/+9A reduction of just 12,000 barrels of oil for an additional $25.9 million per ship (plus development costs). Assuming oil costs $150/barrel, that's a payback period of 14.4 years. That's a pretty darn low ROI.
- entrancer1224, on 07/16/2009, -0/+5"The addition of this equipment would reduce DDG-51 ship fuel use by about 16%. This option would have an engineering cost of $17.1 million and a recurring cost (including both equipment cost and installation cost) of $8.8 million per ship, the Navy stated."
I read it as $25 Million First ship. and $8.8 every one after. So 14 years ROI for the first at $150/barrel and only 7years 4 months for the rest assuming $100/barrel. I think that's a pretty good ROI considering the life expectency of a DDG-51 to be 35 years.
http://www.fas.org/man/congress/1997/cbo_deficit/d ... - brad3378, on 07/16/2009, -0/+5There's other advantages to fuel efficient ships besides the direct costs. In a war time scenario, fuel may not always be easily available.
- Chairboy, on 07/16/2009, -0/+4Instead of running the prop directly, the diesels are generators that charge storage devices and/or provide electricity to electric motors. The slight drop in efficiency is fine, though, because you get a MUCH higher flexibility on power. You can generate massive amounts of electricity on demand (a normal ship diesel can't, really, it's power creation abilities are secondary at best) and apportion your power as needed between systems.
You could shut off the engines on a hybrid ship and sneak around on electrics only, for instance, or run the diesels at high power to charge up power systems quicker than a direct drive ship.
The efficiency comes when you don't need a lot of propulsion but need power. Instead of running huge drives designed to turn thousands of lbs of steel to propel a ship (so you can take a little sip of electricity) you only generate the power you need. - 4AntiStupid, on 07/16/2009, -0/+4Only people that have no idea of history would compare it to a Prius. We just used to call "hybrids" diesel electrics and they were around before Toyota was even founded.
- chevyorange, on 07/16/2009, -1/+5Yeah so screw it. Hell, let's make them less efficient because WE CAN!
- inactive, on 07/16/2009, -0/+3Am I the only one who doesn't get, from reading the article, how the hybrid system actually works? I mean, are there underwater turbines that recover energy from braking?
I wonder how effective building wind turbines on top of the ship would be. - Yazilliclick, on 07/17/2009, -0/+3The ship will still have the same powerful diesel engines if it's designed properly ( the tech already exists and is in use, don't know why they're paying for another company to try and reinvent it) so it won't lack power. It simply has the option to use electric motors, stored battery power or generators when they don't need the power. In actuality if everything is done right it could have even more power in the end by allowing the electric motors to augment the power of the diesel engines when needed.
- santiago1, on 07/16/2009, -0/+3 Thaaaaaaaaaaanksssssssssss!
- ViperCTW, on 07/16/2009, -0/+3"I wonder how effective building wind turbines on top of the ship would be."
You mean sails? - zacharytelschow, on 07/16/2009, -0/+3@ViperCTW: I already assumed $150/barrel in my projection. It's never been that high, and is very generous in lowering the ROI. Also, this lower dependence on foreign oil while the ban on domestic drilling and possibly cap and trade increase our dependence drastically.
@RealmDown: Yes, someone has to start somewhere, but that someone doesn't have to be the government on a project this large on the taxpayer dime. - moliver21, on 07/16/2009, -1/+4Well, I guess I can scratch THAT one off of my list of things I'd do with 33 million dollars.
- Turst, on 07/16/2009, -1/+4Hybrid simply means multiple sources of energy. I highly doubt that there is any energy recovery for these ships. The idea is that by running in 'series mode' (like the chevy volt) the gas turbine can run at its most efficient speed and then that power can generate electricity which can be used with a variable speed drive to turn the propulsion motor. Another thing to realize is that it uses a lot of fuel to throttle up and down gas turbine engines. By 'hybridizing' these ships they simply using the gasoline in a more efficient manner and not recovering breaking energy as in the prius.
- zacharytelschow, on 07/16/2009, -0/+2The article said it would drop use by 12,000 barrels of oil per year, or 16%, which means the ships use ~75,000 barrels of oil per year, so the savings would be equivalent to 1.92 months of fuel, not 4.
- inactive, on 07/16/2009, -1/+3these ships get like 40 feet to the gallon.
12,000 barrels of oil is probably 4 months of use for one of these ships. - xsecretfiles, on 07/16/2009, -1/+3Do I get to ride it?
- mrmidgetman, on 07/17/2009, -0/+2If it provides a tactical advantage im all for it but its just stupid if the main purpose is to save fuel at the cost of effectiveness of our armed forces.
I can understand if it is quieter or can go on longer missions but if those are the only benefits and it is for a major loss of speed/power then they may as well be burning money. - samanathon, on 07/16/2009, -0/+2Moronic title (from the original article). Good information.
- Chairboy, on 07/16/2009, -0/+2TANSTAAFL, abw1987. If you put wind turbines on the top of the ship, then you're increasing drag. You pay for it.
- lhbaker, on 07/17/2009, -1/+3Yeah, think how many he could have built in his first six months in office. WTF was he thinking?
- wineinc, on 07/16/2009, -0/+2Looking at only the economic benefits of 16% fuel efficiency gained, I agree the project has questionable (near term) return on investment.
I'll bet the Navy is primarily concerned about making the ships more effective at their missions rather than reducing costs or being environmentally astute. When including the possible tactical benefits in the feasability assessment, this could be a rational project for (at least) the following reasons.
1. Assuming the project is not reducing the size of the destroyers' fuel tanks, improved fuel economy means the destroyer will spend less time being highly vulnerable while taking on fuel from support ships. Less fuel use per destroyer also means each fuel supply ship will be able to support more destoyers or spend less time being in dangerous waters, improving the fuel supply ships odds of surviving combat as well.
2. If the destroyers are able to run relatively silently when in pure electric mode they will be more effective against submarines until their batteries are depleted. I'm totally guessing about whether this benefit will exist. (But I know pure electric power helps me when I'm sneaking up on pedestrians in the parking lot in my Prius. :>)
For the money this project costs, it seems like a great idea. - conceptracr, on 07/18/2009, -0/+2I served on a destroyer(DDG-61) in the mains and oil lab and they use diesel. They can run on jet fuel as a last resort, but the JP-5 on board is for helicopter refueling. Jet fuel is way too expensive to be buying 250,000 gallons at a time.
- lhbaker, on 07/17/2009, -0/+2Oh snap. I guess they didn't think of that. Thank God you're on the ball.
- milkmage, on 07/17/2009, -0/+1and stopped using them right after WW2.
the only reason there were diesels on board was to power to generators to charge the batteries that the electric motors ran off of. old subs has to remain on the surface while charging (to vent the exhaust).
so in the old days they used one engine to power another (not exactly a hybrid)
today, they're nuclear.
a true hybrid engine on a surface ship is awesome. - dmoney51, on 07/16/2009, -0/+1I had a friend working on the wind turbine on ships thing for the ferry operator he worked for. Me and my roommate both Naval Architecture students basically thought this was a ***** idea due to the law of conservation of energy.
Lets say there is no atmospheric wind, so all the wind turning the turbines is generated by the ship moving forward. The turbines create extra drag which the engines have to overcome to keep the ship moving at a constant speed. For this to work, you'd need a way to convert the rotational energy to electrical energy at 100% (possibly more I don't really want to think about the drag ratios and what not) efficiency, which isn't going to happen.
Granted if you had turbines you could put up while docked, produce electricity from that in port, then stow them when under way, that would be useful. - Genady, on 07/16/2009, -1/+2Oh... who's being naive....
- RGSPro, on 07/16/2009, -0/+1The diesel/electric boats are old school technology. They only use the diesel engines to generate electricity for the batteries so that when the sub wants to go silent they can run on battery power. US Navy Submarines don't use this anymore because its old school tech, and nuclear is quiet enough, more efficient.
You can't say a diesel/electric is a "hybrid" so to speak. They aren't working together like a real hybrid engine. - subliminalurge, on 07/17/2009, -0/+1It could be useful for charging batteries while at anchor. But, for the kind of energy we're talking about for a ship this size, you'd need a truly MASSIVE turbine for it to make a significant contribution.
I'm sure they have more crucial things to store in that space. - sharkd, on 07/16/2009, -0/+1See also: Diesel-Electric _and_ Air-Independent Propulsion Submarines
- 4AntiStupid, on 07/17/2009, -0/+1Nothing stupider than someone that stereotypes. Congratulations you make the stupid list.
- ergo98, on 07/16/2009, -0/+1See Also: Trains.
- inactive, on 07/17/2009, -0/+1Yeah that's what I figured. The laws of physics mean that you'd be wasting more power than you'd be generating.
- lhbaker, on 07/17/2009, -0/+1The entire point is to save money, dumb dumb.
- Yazilliclick, on 07/17/2009, -0/+1Probably because they still haven't really designed it or finished it. It's interesting stuff though, not sure why they're paying for a company to invent it all over again when it's already been done at least once and they could save money by just using existing tech.
- inactive, on 07/16/2009, -0/+1Haha no, I mean electricity generating wind turbines.
- 4AntiStupid, on 07/16/2009, -0/+1Yes, you can. It's exactly the same thing design wise. It's all old school technology shined up into a consumer product.
- Yazilliclick, on 07/17/2009, -0/+1Yes that's generally the idea and pretty that's all anybody is thinking of. It allows to use the diesel engines when you need the huge amount of power they bring to the game so they can run at their most efficient which is somewhere like 70%+ load if I remember correctly while allowing you to run on electric motors, batteries and generators when you don't need that much power (which is usually quite often with ships).
- Turst, on 07/17/2009, -1/+1Remember its actually a floating Chevy Volt!
- TheChampIsSteve, on 07/17/2009, -0/+0Something that may need to be stated is that U.S. Navy ships do not run on diesel fuel. They run on jet Fuel (Thanks Discovery Channel). I believe that Jet fuel is more expensive than Marine diesel, so the cost savings may be even greaten that you think.
- fabeetz, on 07/17/2009, -3/+3Digg was cool when it attracted a technological literate following. The idiotic "opinions" of this article show how much Digg has become a fond memory of the potential for intelligent discourse.
Electric propulsion has long documented strategic advantages that will eventually yield an all-electric boat.
But I can't write Digg off entirely - it provides the answer to the question of where people like Reagan, Bush, ad. naseum, find voters to pull the lever (although not in the case of unelected Bush). -
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