Jimmy Cornell goes Electric, with a Cat

[geoleo]

Originally Posted by Bullshooter

There will be many failures over the long haul but kudos to those who are pushing the technology farther along. I believe that the alarming weather trends we are seeing lately are signs that catastrophic change is well on its way. I have hope that a switch to renewable energy can at least slow it down.

The Wright Brothers didn't just get their plane off the ground and suddenly we had jumbo jets. There were a lot of incremental innovations that got us there, and thanks is due to the contributors who will almost certainly improve efficiency of solar cells, batteries etc. over the coming decades.

Speaking of the Wright brothers- just how are airplanes going to fly on batterys??

[smj]

Originally Posted by geoleo

Duh -its called "finger pointing".

And a practice perfected by the 5th grade previous administration.

[AlfaGTV]

Originally Posted by geoleo

Speaking of the Wright brothers- just how are airplanes going to fly on batterys??

https://www.pipistrel-aircraft.com/a...ectro-easa-tc/

[harlem24]

Originally Posted by geoleo

how are you (yes you) going to get China, India and Indonesia to stop their fossil fuel CO2 burning since they contribute over 80% of the worlds total CO???

They are doing it for themselves.
Because renewables have the lowest price per kWh, compared to fossil and even nuclear.
China is the country with the highest growth rate of renewables in their mix.
They build more renewable energy production then any other country in the world.
Yes, they want want to participate on the wealth, so it is in our own interesst, to help underdeveloped countries to get there without doing it the same way as the western industrialiesed countries did.
And if you look at Africa, in the last years many people got phones there. Not landlines but mobiles. Why you ask? Because it is the cheaper solution. You don't need to build lines to every household, only to the towers. Instead of supplying two or three families with access to communication you get 100 or more connected.
The same will be with electrification in sunny countries.
It's much cheaper to build a solar array with a small battery in allmost every remote village, instead of putting a huge coal plant somewhere an run lines everywhere. At least in the near future.
India for instance is in the process of building hundreds of smaller solar pv parks all over.
And the more of those installations are build, the cheaper the material will be, also for us.

[Belezar]

As to the Pardeys - you digging Larry up?

As to carbon, the US is the second worse country, and by far the worst per person. Just as we are with trash. So on an individual level, we are freeloading off of everyone else.

As to electric planes, as a pilot I’d like one. Mechanical, especially piston engines suck. There is lots of research in that area and prototypes flying. The issues will get worked out, although probably only for small planes.

As a sailor and an EV owner, I’m not surprised at all that they needed shore power to top off. Without really strong current, these batteries take a long time to charge. At home on a 220/100 amp circuit, it takes me 5 hours for a full charge from basically empty. It’s three days on a household 110. And while many sailors are good at being miserly with their power, most of us run a combustion source once a day to do the real charging, and we are not using electric propulsion. Progress takes experimentation, investment and time. Money is made and lost, lives are lost, but over time we find solutions. Unfortunately, naysayers relish in these failures. That’s nothing new. I’m sure when the first wheel ran off down a hill and hit a tree, some cave men (not the women, I’m sure they were wiser) laughed and said “see, told ya so”. Small minds are comfortable in that arena. So, cudos to the pioneers and entrepreneurs.

And lastly, why the Cornell hate? I’ve never met him, but hey, I don’t see anyone else risking their lives to check it out on a practical basis.

[Bullshooter]

Instead of celebrating the failures along the way, I prefer to acknowledge the improvements in efficiency obtained in recent years. I saw a documentary about a solar plane circumnavigating, but those losers actually stopped repeatedly so shame on them! (<- sarcasm alert)

Meanwhile do the naysayers actually not notice the flooding in places that have not had that level of flooding in the past? The increase in storm frequency or strength? Comforting themselves that it is not really true because it is all an increase in global communications? Or content to ignore the warning signs if they can find a scapegoat?

It seems to me that any effort to reduce the buildup of CO2 should be encouraged in the hopes that it could at least partially slow the impacts. That said, it is in everyone's interest that these efforts be transparent and honestly shared wrt to data, as fudging any results is counterproductive.

Just my opinion.

[seandepagnier]

Originally Posted by Belezar

As to the Pardeys - you digging Larry up?

As to carbon, the US is the second worse country, and by far the worst per person.

Lots of smaller countries have higher percapita emissions, US is 16th worldwide. in qatar where there are also 4 men for every woman, they have more than double the emissions per capita

but despite this the US has by far the largest historical cumulative emissions than any other country, it isn't even close.

us run a combustion source once a day to do the real charging, and we are not using electric propulsion.

Then you basically don't know what you are doing with energy. I could also cut fruit trees down to get the fruit.

And lastly, why the Cornell hate? I’ve never met him, but hey, I don’t see anyone else risking their lives to check it out on a practical basis.

I don't think he risked his life. Nothing specifically against him more than any of the other failures, and it's nice of him to share details, but we already know how to fail with electric propulsion, so there isn't much to gain from his experience.


It is also a little annoying to hear about someone who literally spent 1000 times more money on his boat to just fail and go on backward to polluting when so many others succeed without engines. People like jimmy seem to ignore the correct advise and continue to listen to diesel junkies, and it seems to verify that the rich people are either selfish or ignorant, as the richest people have the easiest time of reducing emissions yet instead they tend to do exactly the opposite..

[CatNewBee]

You can use renewables whereever they fit, they are just not good enough for propulsion in autonomous mobile systems like ocean-crossing vessels or cars without big landbound infrastructure. The storage capacity and energy density is simply by magnitudes smaller than fossile fuel, and generation requires huge areas.

Where renewables are already good is for powering small households by solar and battery storage, cooking, baking, preserving food in fridges and freezers, washing clothes, making water - can all be done sustainably off the grid.

Propulsion is much higher demanding, it may be possible in 2 or 3 decades, but it is not there yet. A motoring range on batteries of 60nm is huge (in perfect conditions with following seas), but to the wind and with swell it may be only 20nm or even much less if you need both engines to fight a current. That can be even a big problem just in a tidal area near shore on a day trip. It would be not only stupid to not have an emergency backup system, it would be gross negligence.

[mglonnro]

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

Propulsion is much higher demanding, it may be possible in 2 or 3 decades, but it is not there yet. A motoring range on batteries of 60nm is huge (in perfect conditions with following seas), but to the wind and with swell it may be only 20nm or even much less if you need both engines to fight a current. That can be even a big problem just in a tidal area near shore on a day trip. It would be not only stupid to not have an emergency backup system, it would be gross negligence.

But, surely, there has to be some room for voluntary risk-taking? It is (I guess) generally okay for people to attempt to climb Mount Everest, so it should be ok to do something likely a bit less dangerous, like sailing a sailboat without an engine?

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by mglonnro

But, surely, there has to be some room for voluntary risk-taking? It is (I guess) generally okay for people to attempt to climb Mount Everest, so it should be ok to do something likely a bit less dangerous, like sailing a sailboat without an engine?

Climbing Mt Everest without the use of oxygen I think you meant, for the analogy to cruising without an engine. Both can be done, but have more risks and require more skill than with oxygen/engine.

Electric motors are somewhere in between - possibly like not using oxygen but carrying one bottle of O2 for short term emergency use.

[44'cruisingcat]

I'm surprised he didn't just install a say 5kw generator and go again. Obviously with the intention of using the generator as little as possible.

IMO that would have been more instructive. To see just how little fossil fuel is needed, rather than just saying "it doesn't work.".

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

I'm surprised he didn't just install a say 5kw generator and go again. Obviously with the intention of using the generator as little as possible.

IMO that would have been more instructive. To see just how little fossil fuel is needed, rather than just saying "it doesn't work.".

Agreed, if he did a lap and said I used x amount of fuel because of the following reasons it would be good information. I'd like to hear it. It would be solid information that some people might say "that's good enough for my habits" or "that's better than I thought, I might have to keep an eye on this"

It doesn't have to be 100% for people to be interested but I think we are starved for solid information which causes mistrust so full disclosure might be a good marketing approach.

P.S. just to draw in on another thread about La Vagabonde. If they go electric I'm sure they will carry a generator and I'm as sure it won't run unless it really has to. We might get some real world numbers from them.

[mglonnro]

Originally Posted by fxykty

Climbing Mt Everest without the use of oxygen I think you meant, for the analogy to cruising without an engine. Both can be done, but have more risks and require more skill than with oxygen/engine.

Electric motors are somewhere in between - possibly like not using oxygen but carrying one bottle of O2 for short term emergency use.

Well, I actually thought that with or without oxygen, Everest would be much more dangerous. In the previous year of climbing (before covid) 12/381 = 3.1% of all climbers died

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-deadly-season

And I was comparing to sailboats without an engine. Like many are, and even more used to be. It seems contradictory to praise the Pardeys for their purist and wonderful engineless sailing, while at the same time calling Cornell reckless for having one.

Of course, if all of your safety is designed around having a functioning engine, it's a different case, but boats with electrical engines shouldn't be. They should be designed to be no less safe than boats without engines.

[Sos]

It seems to me that Jimmy was lead by the advice from Oceanvolt who said the system would work. Outremer told him to fit a generator but he decided not too. I would of thought Oceanvolt would be doing everything possible to get it to work now since it is not a good endorsement of their products. If they didn't tell him it would work then they should have made that clear to everyone including us!

[Tupaia]

It strikes me that this was a commercial rather than a truly eco exercise.


The Parleys have already extracted the very small commercial benefit from zero emissions, way before it became trendy. Others like Sean above have also circumnavigated without an engine with zero emissions with no commercial benefit at all.


No disrespect intended toward Mr Cornell, I have many of his books and he has achieved much, but there is very little commercial benefit in sailing a normal catamaran around the world without an engine, see RTW racing records. A zero emission high tech boat with a generator is no different from the majority of long term cruisers.


I admire people that experiment, I have seen a cruiser dump $110,000 of batteries after a maiden voyage because his charging system failed. I have seen a diesel / electric boat with electric only cooking tied to the dock for more than a year because of technical issues. These are unsung heroes.