Supertanker uses 9.8% less fuel thanks to 130-foot sails | Hacker News Reader

Supertanker uses 9.8% less fuel thanks to 130-foot sails

newatlas.com

40 pointsgeox18 comments

This has been around for a while and the benefits well understood. This video gives a good guide to why sails aren't more common: https://youtu.be/GYNKW_w95lA

TL;DW, fitting sails (or other wind power) is paid for by the ship's owner, but the benefits go to the ship's charterer.

The same reason landlords are reticent to invest in energy efficiency.

Or builders.

You can spend $4000 to get an 80% furnace (i.e. 20% of energy burned is wasted), or $4200 to get a 95% effecient furnace (5% of energy burned is wasted). As a homeowner, its a nobrainer as the second one pays for itself in a few months. As a builder - The house sells for the exact same price, so you put in the crappy one and pocket another $200.

Multiply by similar decisions of many things (windows, heat pumps, insulation), and millions of homes, and it's a pretty huge difference.

Indeed. The only way to prevent it is to update minimum code to require a higher level efficiency.

Which works good in this case, someone middleclass or higher buying a house.

But it also screws the poorest people, as it is very regressive to push expensive requirements down to the poor.

So you need to also include some kind of rebate for lower income folks..

"Reluctant" rather than "reticent." Reticent means taciturn, and it indicates unwillingness of expression rather than of action.

It seems like they could come up with an agreement that would unlock that value, no?

> TL;DW, fitting sails (or other wind power) is paid for by the ship's owner, but the benefits go to the ship's charterer.

Okay? But if I could charter two different ships and one would cost X$ and the other X+10$ (due to extra gas usage) wouldn't I charter the ship with sails?

Considering the amount of money we’re talking about here I would think it should be possible to work something out and align the incentives properly. Like the charterer offering a better deal for ships with sails.

No idea what these sail systems cost, but it seems like the payback period on these sails would be pretty quick. Using 10% less fuel on a 10-day voyage at current bunker fuel prices would be about $150,000 in savings.

Global warming or not, I like seeing optimizations like this.

Everybody loves green (as in money) tech.

Must everything be a zero sum game in your mind?

A zero-sum game is where one party has to lose for another to win. This is seemingly a win-win scenario, where there's both money to be saved and there are important ecological benefits. That makes it a lot easier to adopt, although still far from free in the sense that it requires new equipment, training, etc.

there's a certain irony to this just cant put my finger on it.

I'm pretty sure they didnt do this to for the benefit of the planet and more for the bottom line

And why would that be a bad thing if the two happened to align?

That's the whole point of carbon (and other Pigouvian) taxes - harness narrow self-interest into better global decision making. Badgering everyone to become a saint seems like a low-percentage plan.

Good, because you don't solve global warming by turning everyone into a tree hugger.

Make the environentally sound decision cheaper and you win.

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