 Mashed potatoes and gravy for the hungry mind |
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We’re serving up a feast of good news this Thanksgiving. Here’s the third
course.
Item 3
Solar
Sailor Sun Sails To Be Fitted to Chinese Cargo Ships
Late last month, the Australian Solar Sailor company announced they’d
signed a deal with China’s biggest shipping line, COSCO, to fit some of their
jumbo jet sized solar-powered sails to a tanker and bulk carrier.The 30 metre long sails, festooned in photovoltaic panels are expected to
catch enough wind to reduce fuel costs by between 20% and 40%, whilst those
PV cells will provide the ships with 5% of their electricity. A computer automatically
angles the sails for maximum wind and solar efficiency, and if all goes to
plan the sails will have recovered their initial cost within four years.
The Good News
Where technology is concerned, what goes around frequently comes around. Ideas
that have been replaced by two or three generations of subsequent technology
suddenly resurface as new and viable. A good example of this sort of thing is
the mechanical model of computing — something Charles
Babbage would have been perfectly comfortable with — re-emerging with molecular
nanotechnology.
100 years ago, sailing technology was all about obsolete for serious shipping
applications. But it could make acomeback today, making ships much more efficient
and environmentally friendly.
Not to mention cool-looking.
Live to see it!