Defeatist talk

"Even in a world where every ship suddenly had a massive kite achieving 30 per cent efficiencies, that would equate to barely a one per cent worldwide CO2 saving, which would be wiped out by reasonable economic growth in less than 20 years."

Damn, I thought switching my main lights to diffuse energy saving bulbs was helping CO2 emmissions by reducing my electricity requirements by 1138 KWatts hours annually, but I note now that a growth in world energy consumption of 0.001% would wipe out that gain in 14ns.

So now I wish I'd never bothered!

Oh well, there's always the 80 Euros a year saving in electricity.

This only works efficiently...

downwind and with a favourable tide.

What cargo ships really need to make them eco friendly is a mast, some sails and less demanding delivery lead times.

Revolution in propulsion?

Shouldn't that be a "retrovolution"?

Where is the....

Government data loss angle?

1% saving is nothing?

It seems a pretty stupid comment to make to say that a 1% drop in global CO2 emmissions is a waste of time.

A solution to a specific sector that can result in a 1% drop across the whole world seems very nice to me....

(untitled)

'Shouldn't that be a "retrovolution"?'

Yea, didnt they used to do this years ago without masive engines? New technology ; my_arse_is_on_fire

They even discovered new continents etc... and now they cant find squat...

What a waste of technology.

Sounds familiar

Isn't there one of these monsters in dry dock in Portsmouth harbour

I seem to remember some chap called Brunel built one......

I'm eagerly anticipating the day...

when I can watch ten thousand cars an hour being towed up the M1 by kites...

The future of air travel

The romantic in me would like to see a return to the golden age of sail, even if it's only sail-supplemented motorised shipping. As the article says, the amount of carbon saved would be small, but a huge amount of carbon might be saved if aeroplanes took up the technology.

Of course engines will always be needed to get a flight airborne and up to cruising altitude. But once there why not pop up a massive spinnaker and let the jetstreams propel the 'plane? Pilots routinely plan their routes to take advantage of tail winds, and spinnakers are downwind sails so ideally suited. The speeds of the winds in the lower stratosphere are enormous. And an aeroplane could fly a kite above, below and to either side, capturing a lot of wind. It wouldn't matter much if the pilot's view were obstructed since there's little to look at up there.

Air travel is one of the main culprits in polluting the atmosphere with CO2; an innovation like this could save the world.

football pitches are equivalent to?

so it's a sail the size of a football pitch - UK, European, American, and how Paris Hiltons or lines of beluga caviar or yak horn combs does that convert to?

and it's hardly impressive, is it? if it was "the size of Wales" I'd be much more interested.

No Paris Hilton angle in this at all, or IT; sure this isn't Sailing Weekly or A Sailing Man and his Rough Shag?

Bring on the Nobel prize for physics

Why not Add another three kites and have a 120% efficiency? This way you will generate energy from nothing, breaking an age old scientific law, and thereby create a massive black hole, sucking up all the CO2 in the atmosphere and solving our global warming/greenhouse gas problem once and for all.

Ciao.

@lewis page

The author of this article clearly has some kind of chip in his shoulder, or is just a little misguided.

"a one per cent worldwide CO2 saving, which would be wiped out by reasonable economic growth in less than 20 years."

Surely if this invention saves 15% now, won't it also save 15% in 20 years when demand is higher?

Doh!

As the worst pollutant in Bunker Fuel 6 is about 3% sulphur, that fertiliser that makes Mediterranean volcanoes so attractive to farmers. If it was funnelled directly into the sea it might help conserve plant life in the oceans.

And as for the idiocy in Paris' article, the sail system if it works looks like it could <s>single</s>no-handedly compensate for <s>projected</s>his projected figures for future carbon use.

Not that I am a glowball warmonger.

Lord Thomas Admiral Cochran

I hope I got that right. I am not good with english titles. I am sure he is spinning is his grave with glee. In his Autobiography he mentiones doing exactly this. It gave a big boost in speed to his ship.

That should make for an interesting "prior art" patent fight.

@John - jet stream spinnakers

The only reason that a stratocruiser (remember them?) stays airborne is because of its relative motion to the air; air needs to be flowing over and under the wings to generate the lift. You will notice that if your airliner has a tailwind, you'll get to your destination sooner. The pilot can't reduce the engines to idle and coast along on the airstream: if he slows down to the same speed as the air, you'll fall out of the sky. So being towed along at altitude by a kite is not feasible.

The skull and crossbones, not for the piracy angle, but for its danger connotation.

@ Jonathan Richards - jet stream spinnakers

Damn, my plan would have worked perfectly, if it hadn't been for those pesky wings.

Back to the drawing board then. Let's do away with the wings and get lift from somewhere else. Rotors perhaps. Deploy a spinnaker from a helicopter. Choppers really are fuel-guzzlers, so there's even more scope for world-saving reductions in consumption. The effort from a whirlybird's engines has two components - lift, and forward motion. Tethering the wind at least would save the fuel used in propelling the vessel forwards. And probably move helicopters faster than they've ever moved before. Go green and go faster!

I hope I'm not going to hear next that choppers can't get high enough to harness the jetstreams. Enough with that "can't do" attitude - let your imagination reach for the skies. Think of the polar bears, man! The helicopter fuselage itself wouldn't need to get into the stratosphere, just the sail. A long enough halyard would do the trick.

In fact why limit ourselves to just spinnakers? A good Bermudan rig can sail upwind as well. And as I mentioned with my original aeroplane idea it needn't go on the top where it would interfere with the rotors. It could go underneath, upside down (in respect to sailing boats). Just stick a mast out the bottom of the chopper, with a jib and a mainsail and a boom.

This technological revolution may know no bounds! One day we'll sail to the moon.

Surely renaissance

not revolution

@John - jet stream spinnakers

Heliocopters have a maximum horizontal speed. Due to one blade moving forward while the other moves backwards. So when they reach this speed they'll flip. I'm not sure about if it's being dragged by a kite etc, but it will almost certainly proove lethal (which would seem to explain how helicopters don't like heavy winds)

@Colin Millar - Never underestimate ...

Never underestimate the data-loss capacity of a cargo ship carrying HMRC Backup Tapes hurtling towards $phishers...

(with apologies to Andrew Tanenbaum)

Not, not prior art...

Not unless you're referring to kitesurfers. Then, I suppose you'd have a point. Nelson, et al, didn't use kites, they used sails - you know, big billowy things firmly attached to masts and yards?

As for the keelson issue - most cargoships are so deep draft that the hull itself serves the purpose. Even if it didn't, simply applying a little cross rudder, and you've met the need. Yeah, you might lose a couple of those percentage points of savings, but savings is still savings, even if it's not as much as before.

The winds, and steadiness of same, issue was explicitly addressed in the article - you get the kite up above about 1000 feet, and winds are much more reliable.

Modern attempts to recreate the modern sail have partly failed because of the relative sail area vs. hull size - You wind up with staggeringly large masts and sails to get any kind of real savings, and the added weight and complexity wind up deminishing your returns. Kites, OTOH, don't require massive, complex masts, and can reach stronger, steadier winds.

I like the whole idea, myself.

@ John

Helicopter blades are simply wings that are moving faster then the aircraft. If you stop the helicopter blades (in order to surf off the winds with your kite) your helicopter will fall out of the sky. As helicopters have a tendency to fall out of the sky anyway (even without a kite) your idea may not be the safest!

Quote: "If in your aircraft the wings are moving faster then the body - its a helicopter and therefore unstable"

Baseload power source

Why is one needed?

Sailing ships never had them. A ship on the open ocean can always drift, while one in coastal waters can anchor.

(Anchoring is a common technique in yacht racing when becalmed).

How about...

... making convicted felons do the rowing for you?

Harder than it looks

A couple of guys have been trying this for a few years on leisure sail boats, but it's a lot harder than it looks (the kite falling out the sky in lulls mentioned above is just one prob). See http://kiteforsail.com/ and http://www.kiteboat.com/kb_killer_kanaha.html

From the comments above, it's clear that most readers misunderstand how power kites work -- they act like wings generating lift, not like giant parachutes.

I also rather think the global warming skeptics utterly miss the point again... burning lots of oil inefficiently creates air pollution, wastes resources and ultimately costs companies and ultimately consumers more money. Whether or not you believe CO2 causes climate change, reducing air pollution, saving fuel and reducing costs are good. Even right-wing economic conservatives with a borderline-sexual obsession with the Wonders of the Free Market System can see that, surely?

Just ask yourself. What Would Bill Gates Do?

Only 1%? Best not bother then...

If everyone with a possible idea to reduce the ecological impact of their industry were to think "Oh, even in the best-case, idealist's-wet-dream scenario that'll only make a 1% reduction on emissions worldwide - what's the point in bothering?" then I'd hate to think what state our planet will be in a couple of decade's from now.

Yes, it's a small improvement, even at best.

But let's say it reaches even a 0.5% worldwide improvement. Then imagine that 9 other people have ideas which bring about similarly small improvements. Suddenly we have a 5% reduction. Start to seem worthwhile yet?

If this was going to do something aweful like cost the tax payer a few more pennies of their income (shock horror!) then I could see an objection - but when it not only saves on emissions but on cost as well, I can really see no reason to pooh-pooh the idea.

And also - isn't the idea of huge ships being pulled by giant kites just inherently *cool* in and of itself?

A size of football field?

That's a lot of ad-space, man! Let Google invest in it, let them advertise and help us protecting the environment! Hey, don't be evil, guys - buy some kites for pour ship-owners! If they manage to enlarge those kites, I’ll be happy to them in Google Earth!

BTW, what about zeppelins with kites? I mean, really BIG zeppelins with BIG kites (and with BIG ads, if you like)?

@Hein Kruger

Don't laugh !! I hear that a fart-powered one is on the drawing board ....