Battery Towing Tractors. A Cunning Plan to Replace Diesel Boat Engines

[Jen-in-Wellies]

12 minutes ago, Chris Williams said:

Are we back to Hamster wheels with the Duracell rabbit?

Duracell should update their adverts with a battery powered vole to appeal to the boating market.

Edited August 26, 2019 by Jen-in-Wellies

[jake_crew]

That orange towpath tractor is now freshly painted blue and is at the London Canal Museum.

 

It was at the Angel canal festival last weekend and has been re-united with its original driver Tony Byfield.

 

https://www.facebook.com/canalmuseum/?__tn__=%2CdkCH-R-R&eid=ARBQ3sO5g17A8_2fJCSUhBPWIZg2LQ03tot8pmuK8J_Tds1rlrBbIay_sk1BeC2oUAjfc-c4kcWAU8XT&hc_ref=ARSBDVenUiSGFZQHyOdlYoaE7v3Pv2RpHQYyO7q-Ifsb8kxTPAHjkMJ44psPA7S_9Kc&fref=nf&hc_location=group

Edited September 2, 2019 by jake_crew
added info

[Mike Todd]

On 24/08/2019 at 17:31, Jerra said:

Having done a little googling I have two points you might like to clarify for me.

 

1.  They are said to be very expensive to make so how does the average boater afford them?

 

2.  A quote from a website I was reading:

 

The manufacturing process creates carbon dioxide emissions for the fuel that virtually offsets all the gains that this technology offers from the user-end of the spectrum.

 

Why is this any better than say renewable electricity?

I don't think there is such a thing as renewable energy - doesn't entropy get in the way? All that solar, wind, coal, gas, oil are doing is converting energy from the sun by various, sometimes lengthy, means.

 

OK, so we do not expect the sun to run out any time soon but that, of course, was the expectation with fossil fuels . . . 

[Richard10002]

11 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

I don't think there is such a thing as renewable energy - doesn't entropy get in the way? All that solar, wind, coal, gas, oil are doing is converting energy from the sun by various, sometimes lengthy, means.

 

OK, so we do not expect the sun to run out any time soon but that, of course, was the expectation with fossil fuels . . . 

The sun will run out when it runs out.... I think the forecast is trillions of years...... and I think it takes the earth out when it goes  Until then, it will keep on burning and it neither knows nor cares whether the earth is in the way of its rays or not. The earth and us inhabitants being here and using the power makes no difference whatsoever to the life of the sun.

 

In this sense, solar power is truly free at every point where it hits the earth - no cost in money or environment.

 

I say free at the point where it hits the earth because we obviously have to do something to harness the power and make use of it. There is a cost, monetary and environmental, to the provision of solar panels, or whatever we might use in the future to collect the power of the sun, but there is no using up of the source of the power, as there is with coal, oil, and gas.

 

I suppose we have to weigh the costs against the gains, and with respect to alternatives.

 

I think the same can be said for wind and tides and hydro - free at the point of harnessing... the cost is in the harnessing.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

2 hours ago, Mike Todd said:

I don't think there is such a thing as renewable energy - doesn't entropy get in the way? All that solar, wind, coal, gas, oil are doing is converting energy from the sun by various, sometimes lengthy, means.

 

OK, so we do not expect the sun to run out any time soon but that, of course, was the expectation with fossil fuels . . . 

The difference is that coal, gas and oil, is storing the suns energy from tens and hundreds of millions of years ago in the form of carbon compounds. When it is burnt it releases that carbon in to the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide, which screws up the climate today. Solar and wind make use of sunlight falling on the planet now and don't add extra carbon. You can burn oil, coal and gas with no problem, if you can capture the carbon dioxide and stop it going in to the atmosphere for many thousands of years at least. Trouble is no one has yet demonstrated a way of doing that on a large scale. Entropy is only a consideration in closed systems. With the sun shining on it the earth isn't, hence increasing complexity and reducing entropy.

The earth has been around for around four and a half billion years. In another four and a half billion years the sun uses up its hydrogen and swells in to a red giant, obliterating the earth as it does, then cools and shrinks. We are OK for a bit.

 

Jen

Edited September 2, 2019 by Jen-in-Wellies

[Mike Todd]

16 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

The difference is that coal, gas and oil, is storing the suns energy from tens and hundreds of millions of years ago in the form of carbon compounds. When it is burnt it releases that carbon in to the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide, which screws up the climate today. Solar and wind make use of sunlight falling on the planet now and don't add extra carbon. You can burn oil, coal and gas with no problem, if you can capture the carbon dioxide and stop it going in to the atmosphere for many thousands of years at least. Trouble is no one has yet demonstrated a way of doing that on a large scale. Entropy is only a consideration in closed systems. With the sun shining on it the earth isn't, hence increasing complexity and reducing entropy.

The earth has been around for around four and a half billion years. In another four and a half billion years the sun uses up its hydrogen and swells in to a red giant, obliterating the earth as it does, then cools and shrinks. We are OK for a bit.

 

Jen

Right, let's engage in a thought experiment. Suppose someone invents a machine to convert solar energy into a liquid that works in a diesel engine but priced on the market at 50% of real diesel. And 25% less than charging a battery for the same distance, including capital costs. Would you use it? In other words, how far are your environmental concerns able to be modified by market prices?

[Jen-in-Wellies]

3 hours ago, Mike Todd said:

Right, let's engage in a thought experiment. Suppose someone invents a machine to convert solar energy into a liquid that works in a diesel engine but priced on the market at 50% of real diesel. And 25% less than charging a battery for the same distance, including capital costs. Would you use it? In other words, how far are your environmental concerns able to be modified by market prices?

Just the thing. No conflict in that case between environmental concerns and market price. Provided that the carbon in it is in a short circular loop, CO₂ out of the air, in to fuel, then burnt, or used in a fuel cell in the vehicle back to atmospheric CO₂, then great. The only thing then to look out for is local pollution. Soot particles and NO_x compounds being made if it is an internal combustion engine. Anything that is not overall increasing the CO₂ ppm in the atmosphere (world wide bad effects), or introducing stuff harmful to people (local bad effects) wood be good. This hypothetical wonder fuel might not be carbon based of course. A way of storing large amounts of Hydrogen without needing substantial pressure vessels, perhaps improved metal hydrides.

 

A potential conflict is if large areas of land are dedicated to producing this wonder fuel, rather than food, in which case the market price comes with poor people starving to death.

 

A liquid hydrocarbon fuel has pretty much the highest energy storage per volume and weight going, without getting in to actual explosives. It is why it is used for almost all aviation and most road and boat transport, so a way of making it direct from solar energy would be ideal.

 

Jen

Edited September 3, 2019 by Jen-in-Wellies

[Jen-in-Wellies]

22 hours ago, Mike Todd said:

I don't think there is such a thing as renewable energy

The phrase renewable energy comes from decades ago when people were more worried about oil running out than they were about global warming from releasing carbon that has been out of the atmosphere for tens and hundreds of millions of years. The idea was that once oil started to run out it would get more expensive and long term you would have to go to energy resources that are continuously renewed, like solar, wind, tide etc until the sun destroys the earth, rather than a one off store of oil. Since then, global warming has become more noticable and new sources of oil and gas have been discovered. Enough that if it were all burnt we would all be on a planet drastically different in terms of habitability from now.

Between then and now the phrase renewable energy has stuck.

 

Jen

Edited September 3, 2019 by Jen-in-Wellies

[Sea Dog]

14 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

A liquid hydrocarbon fuel has pretty much the highest energy storage per volume and weight going, without getting in to actual explosives.

Getting into "actual explosives" won't help much: there's more energy in a pound of butter than a pound of cemtex - the latter merely releases what energy it has rather more quickly.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

36 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

Getting into "actual explosives" won't help much: there's more energy in a pound of butter than a pound of cemtex - the latter merely releases what energy it has rather more quickly.

Good point. I wasn't actually suggesting explosives powered narrowboats, before MI5 start a file on me!

Edited September 4, 2019 by Jen-in-Wellies

[rusty69]

34 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Good point. I wasn't actually suggesting explosives powered narrowboats, before MI5 start a file on me!

They already have...Code name Jen-in-Jelignite.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

A recent post by @Loddon of a film along the Grand Union, Thames and Wey in 1965. In it are several scenes of small tractors towing loaded wide beams.

These boats must have easily weighed 60 tons loaded up, yet the squashed dinosaur juice powered tractors are not particularly large. A smaller version, powered by batteries to haul a roughly 20 ton leisure narrowboat would not need to be a big beast.

Jen

[Tim Lewis]

On 28/11/2020 at 17:40, Jen-in-Wellies said:

A recent post by @Loddon of a film along the Grand Union, Thames and Wey in 1965. In it are several scenes of small tractors towing loaded wide beams.

These boats must have easily weighed 60 tons loaded up, yet the squashed dinosaur juice powered tractors are not particularly large. A smaller version, powered by batteries to haul a roughly 20 ton leisure narrowboat would not need to be a big beast.

Jen

There is another, very short, clip of a towpath tractor at work in this film at 5.45 minutes

 

Look at Life Vol 01 Transport Where No Tide Flows 1963 - YouTube

 

Tim

Edited November 29, 2020 by Tim Lewis

[Tracy D'arth]

I am training a Duracell rabbit to run down the towpath wearing the harness.

[LadyG]

1 hour ago, Tracy D'arth said:

I am training a Duracell rabbit to run down the towpath wearing the harness.

What's his name?