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

[tree monkey]

1 minute ago, Tumshie said:

In the case of a tractor it's the turny bit at the back - the engine diverts power to the turny bit at the back which then powers the implements attached to it. But you get smaller ones too. 

To be serious for a bit, the 3 point system is genius 

[Tumshie]

9 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

To be serious for a bit, the 3 point system is genius 

It's been doing its genius thing for a long time now but what they find for it to do just keeps growing and improving, for such a standard thing it can do some pretty amazing stuff. 

Edited August 22, 2019 by Tumshie
spelling

[Mike on the Wey]

Yes, I have read the entire thread and the idea of electric towpath tractors (possibly self-propelled) becomes all the more unfeasible the more I think about it.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

9 hours ago, Mike on the Wey said:

Yes, I have read the entire thread and the idea of electric towpath tractors (possibly self-propelled) becomes all the more unfeasible the more I think about it.

You've still not said what is actually unfeasible about it. Not sure that I should engage. These internet arguments rarely go anywhere, other than generating a lot of ill will, but here goes.

 

Is towing a boat from the bank side impractical? Of course not. It was used right from the start of the canals and before with navigable rivers. The canals were built to do it and rivers modified. It continued to the end of commercial hauling in the 60's with equines and internal combustion engine tractors. These were commercial boats. 30 plus tons fully loaded for a narrowboat, 60 plus for a widebeam. A typical leisure narrowboat is 15 to 20 tons. Diesel engines on board never completely displaced towing, although they took the majority of the work. That is 200 plus years of towing experience.

In the last 50 years, since commercial carrying ceased, almost all leisure boating has been with on board internal combustion engines. As a consequence, a lot of the infrastructure, like tow rope rollers on masonary edges, strapping posts and so on has been lost. BW and CaRT have added features like gates on the tow paths and fences that make towing hard. Added infrastructure, like new bridges, hasn't been designed with towing in mind. Towing has been restricted to a few short routes with horse drawn tourist boats. The most famous being at Llangollen. The only two groups I know who tow regularly over longer distances are the Horse Boating Society and the Chesterfield Canal Trust, with their replica Cuckoo boat Dawn Rose. The horse boating society have to do a reconnaissaince  first to find the problems that changes will cause them before attempting a new section and need extra people to hold the line over moored boats with lots of stuff on their roofs. Most canal tow paths were allowed to degenerate in to narrow muddy tracks, with trees and bushes growing between the path and the bank.

 

Any wide scale return to towing would need to be on a canal by canal basis, with upgrades to the tow path and towing infrastructure. Fortunately, the upgrade of many tow paths to cycle ways has done a lot of this work already. Some canals would need more work than others. The Chesterfield is largely already done. In its commercial days, it was entirely horse drawn. Nowadays, the Canal Trust regularly do sponsored bow hauls of their Cuckoo boat along the connected route. Others would be harder. Tunnels of any length would need electric tugs, or other ways than legging to get through and their routes over the top restored. Again, this is only a return to an older way of doing it. The Harecastle tunnel had an electric tug for many years. Rivers would also need tugs, or restoration of their tow paths, if they had them. All these would be major projects requiring investment. If you boating is entirely leisure, or liveaboard, on, say, the Midland narrow network and you don't go on rivers, then going to electric towing early on would make more sense than if you boated on, say the Aire & Calder, or the Thames, or the Severn, with long river stretches and no tow path. The Wey navigation may also be in this list. I don't know, I've not been there yet. Diesel boats can currently go anywhere, however, Amsterdam have already announced a plan to ban on diesel boats older than 15 years from 2030 to reduce local pollution from soot particulates and nitrogen oxides. Not beyond the realms of possibility that a similar ban could come in for London and other major cities.

 

The examples of battery electric mowers and quad bikes that have been linked to, show that the technology for small electric tractors already exist and that their power requirements are significantly less than with a battery electric boat turning a propeller. Within the capabilities of roof top solar to supply in Summer. Winter boating will need recharging from the grid and this will need investment in recharging points on the canal. However, fewer people boat at that time of year, so the demand on them will be less. Some very rough calculations suggest that a frequency similar to Sani stations may be enough. This is Something that needs more work and may restrict cruising during the short winter days if the numbers turn out to be less favourable. On the plus side, tractor batteries should be small and light enough to carry to a charging point, so we should be able to avoid the cost of miles of bank side charging points that would be needed for on-board boat batteries.

 

Skill levels and single handing. Boating by towing would require us to learn new skills. Personally, I'd love to do that, but I enjoy doing new stuff. Others want to stick with the comfort of the familiar. Single handing is going to be a problem initially. As could be hire boating, where the skill level required may be too much for novice hirers. Both could be solved with self driving tractors. That technology is advancing very fast with cars and lorries, so adapting it to the much slower and more predicable canals is technically fine. The cost of doing so is more of a problem, with the relatively small number of inland boats, compared with cars and would need investment from the hire boat industry and CaRT. The savings in fuel could be enough of an incentive for the big hire boat companies to invest in their development.  Single handed boating only became practical for most people when BW installed ladders in almost all the locks as an 'elth'n'safety thing. Before that it was much more difficult. Not impossible, but tricky.

 

I think that part of the push back is that many boaters do love their diesel engines and the sense of independence that this gives them to go anywhere. This may be part of the reaction I'm seeing from several forum members. I don't like diesels. My boat has one and even with a hospital silencer and insulation in the engine room I find it too noisy. Personally I'd love to go to silent electric boating, but the current technology is too restricting on how far I could cruise. I've seen and been very impressed with @peterboat 's conversion, but it's not for me yet. The tractor idea was a potential way to get round some of those problems. As with all solutions, it has problems of its own, but nothing yet I can't see a solution to.

 

I'll get howls of protest saying this, but vole drive will always be impractical and nothing anyone can argue will convince me otherwise! So there...

 

Jen

 

 

[peterboat]

1 hour ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

You've still not said what is actually unfeasible about it. Not sure that I should engage. These internet arguments rarely go anywhere, other than generating a lot of ill will, but here goes.

 

Is towing a boat from the bank side impractical? Of course not. It was used right from the start of the canals and before with navigable rivers. The canals were built to do it and rivers modified. It continued to the end of commercial hauling in the 60's with equines and internal combustion engine tractors. These were commercial boats. 30 plus tons fully loaded for a narrowboat, 60 plus for a widebeam. A typical leisure narrowboat is 15 to 20 tons. Diesel engines on board never completely displaced towing, although they took the majority of the work. That is 200 plus years of towing experience.

In the last 50 years, since commercial carrying ceased, almost all leisure boating has been with on board internal combustion engines. As a consequence, a lot of the infrastructure, like tow rope rollers on masonary edges, strapping posts and so on has been lost. BW and CaRT have added features like gates on the tow paths and fences that make towing hard. Added infrastructure, like new bridges, hasn't been designed with towing in mind. Towing has been restricted to a few short routes with horse drawn tourist boats. The most famous being at Llangollen. The only two groups I know who tow regularly over longer distances are the Horse Boating Society and the Chesterfield Canal Trust, with their replica Cuckoo boat Dawn Rose. The horse boating society have to do a reconnaissaince  first to find the problems that changes will cause them before attempting a new section and need extra people to hold the line over moored boats with lots of stuff on their roofs. Most canal tow paths were allowed to degenerate in to narrow muddy tracks, with trees and bushes growing between the path and the bank.

 

Any wide scale return to towing would need to be on a canal by canal basis, with upgrades to the tow path and towing infrastructure. Fortunately, the upgrade of many tow paths to cycle ways has done a lot of this work already. Some canals would need more work than others. The Chesterfield is largely already done. In its commercial days, it was entirely horse drawn. Nowadays, the Canal Trust regularly do sponsored bow hauls of their Cuckoo boat along the connected route. Others would be harder. Tunnels of any length would need electric tugs, or other ways than legging to get through and their routes over the top restored. Again, this is only a return to an older way of doing it. The Harecastle tunnel had an electric tug for many years. Rivers would also need tugs, or restoration of their tow paths, if they had them. All these would be major projects requiring investment. If you boating is entirely leisure, or liveaboard, on, say, the Midland narrow network and you don't go on rivers, then going to electric towing early on would make more sense than if you boated on, say the Aire & Calder, or the Thames, or the Severn, with long river stretches and no tow path. The Wey navigation may also be in this list. I don't know, I've not been there yet. Diesel boats can currently go anywhere, however, Amsterdam have already announced a plan to ban on diesel boats older than 15 years from 2030 to reduce local pollution from soot particulates and nitrogen oxides. Not beyond the realms of possibility that a similar ban could come in for London and other major cities.

 

The examples of battery electric mowers and quad bikes that have been linked to, show that the technology for small electric tractors already exist and that their power requirements are significantly less than with a battery electric boat turning a propeller. Within the capabilities of roof top solar to supply in Summer. Winter boating will need recharging from the grid and this will need investment in recharging points on the canal. However, fewer people boat at that time of year, so the demand on them will be less. Some very rough calculations suggest that a frequency similar to Sani stations may be enough. This is Something that needs more work and may restrict cruising during the short winter days if the numbers turn out to be less favourable. On the plus side, tractor batteries should be small and light enough to carry to a charging point, so we should be able to avoid the cost of miles of bank side charging points that would be needed for on-board boat batteries.

 

Skill levels and single handing. Boating by towing would require us to learn new skills. Personally, I'd love to do that, but I enjoy doing new stuff. Others want to stick with the comfort of the familiar. Single handing is going to be a problem initially. As could be hire boating, where the skill level required may be too much for novice hirers. Both could be solved with self driving tractors. That technology is advancing very fast with cars and lorries, so adapting it to the much slower and more predicable canals is technically fine. The cost of doing so is more of a problem, with the relatively small number of inland boats, compared with cars and would need investment from the hire boat industry and CaRT. The savings in fuel could be enough of an incentive for the big hire boat companies to invest in their development.  Single handed boating only became practical for most people when BW installed ladders in almost all the locks as an 'elth'n'safety thing. Before that it was much more difficult. Not impossible, but tricky.

 

I think that part of the push back is that many boaters do love their diesel engines and the sense of independence that this gives them to go anywhere. This may be part of the reaction I'm seeing from several forum members. I don't like diesels. My boat has one and even with a hospital silencer and insulation in the engine room I find it too noisy. Personally I'd love to go to silent electric boating, but the current technology is too restricting on how far I could cruise. I've seen and been very impressed with @peterboat 's conversion, but it's not for me yet. The tractor idea was a potential way to get round some of those problems. As with all solutions, it has problems of its own, but nothing yet I can't see a solution to.

 

I'll get howls of protest saying this, but vole drive will always be impractical and nothing anyone can argue will convince me otherwise! So there...

 

Jen

 

 

I am at Sheffield now, I came up the flight yeaterday it was a long trip under the DIY flight! The ponds were empty so Dave was more interested in draining water down than helping me!! I set off from Rotherham at 0730 and arrived at Sheffield at 1500 with 40% left in the batteries, it had been a long day because I was up at 0415 taking the daughter to Manchester airport. It wasnt very sunny so i was running on batteries with about 7 amps coming in at best from solar, its only six miles but some sections are very weedy so I could see the amps going up and the RPM going down every 10 seconds which means a burst in reverse etc you all know the story well.

Still today the sun is shining and the batteries will be charged again

Edited August 23, 2019 by peterboat

[Jen-in-Wellies]

4 hours ago, peterboat said:

I am at Sheffield now, I came up the flight yeaterday it was a long trip under the DIY flight! The ponds were empty so Dave was more interested in draining water down than helping me!! I set off from Rotherham at 0730 and arrived at Sheffield at 1500 with 40% left in the batteries, it had been a long day because I was up at 0415 taking the daughter to Manchester airport. It wasnt very sunny so i was running on batteries with about 7 amps coming in at best from solar, its only six miles but some sections are very weedy so I could see the amps going up and the RPM going down every 10 seconds which means a burst in reverse etc you all know the story well.

Still today the sun is shining and the batteries will be charged again

I've been helping some boating neighbours come back up the flight this morning. Same problem with some of the pounds being low. Dave running water down again to bring them up.

[peterboat]

2 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

I've been helping some boating neighbours come back up the flight this morning. Same problem with some of the pounds being low. Dave running water down again to bring them up.

I will be at the top of the flight tuesday evening ready for the off on Wednesday maybe catch you then?

[Chris Williams]

14 hours ago, peterboat said:

Single handed boating only became practical for most people when BW installed ladders in almost all the locks as an 'elth'n'safety thing. Before that it was much more difficult.

Strange, I managed without any problem, even Somerton Deep. Proper ropework helped.  I learned on the Thames.  My ffirst trip was Reading to Braunston.

Edited August 23, 2019 by Chris Williams

[Jen-in-Wellies]

9 hours ago, Chris Williams said:

Strange, I managed without any problem, even Somerton Deep. Proper ropework helped.  I learned on the Thames.  My ffirst trip was Reading to Braunston.

Which is why I said "most people". Lock ladders decreased the skill level required so more people could single hand, including, at the time, complete novices like me! It wasn't the aim when BW did their installation program, but a happy consequence.

 

Jen

[mayalld]

Well, it was an interesting read.

 

It goes some way to address the issue that affects all electric vehicles, namely that those planning it know that they will charge up in the office car park and outside the garage of their gravelled drive, without thinking that for 90% of people that isn't an option.

 

The other thing a bout all this electric malarkey is that it isn't saving the environment. It is destroying it in new ways, but not in this country, so that is OK.

 

Ever looked at a Lithium Mine? Huge areas of once fertile land laid waste, Not sure how that helps the environment. And there just isn't enough of the stuff to meet the demand if we go all-electric.

 

The reason that internal combustion engines are so ubiquitous is all to do with the viability of your energy source. A liquid energy source that can be onloaded in minutes and gives enough energy for weeks, as opposed to an energy source that takes hours to on-board, and lasts a day.

 

The tractor idea is also impractical for another reason. Who is going to install all that infrastructure for a system that might take 20 years to be in common use. Existing boats won't work with it (they require the prop-wash to steer)

[Jerra]

3 minutes ago, mayalld said:

Well, it was an interesting read.

 

It goes some way to address the issue that affects all electric vehicles, namely that those planning it know that they will charge up in the office car park and outside the garage of their gravelled drive, without thinking that for 90% of people that isn't an option.

 

The other thing a bout all this electric malarkey is that it isn't saving the environment. It is destroying it in new ways, but not in this country, so that is OK.

 

Ever looked at a Lithium Mine? Huge areas of once fertile land laid waste, Not sure how that helps the environment. And there just isn't enough of the stuff to meet the demand if we go all-electric.

 

The reason that internal combustion engines are so ubiquitous is all to do with the viability of your energy source. A liquid energy source that can be onloaded in minutes and gives enough energy for weeks, as opposed to an energy source that takes hours to on-board, and lasts a day.

 

The tractor idea is also impractical for another reason. Who is going to install all that infrastructure for a system that might take 20 years to be in common use. Existing boats won't work with it (they require the prop-wash to steer)

So your suggestion is..............

[mayalld]

6 minutes ago, Jerra said:

So your suggestion is..............

Hydrogen fuel cells.

[Jerra]

Just now, mayalld said:

Hydrogen fuel cells.

Are they currently available/suitable for boats and cars?   If not why not electricity as a halfway house so to speak?

[mayalld]

1 minute ago, Jerra said:

Are they currently available/suitable for boats and cars?   If not why not electricity as a halfway house so to speak?

They will certainly be available and suitable in the timescale that we talk about phasing out diesel engines.

 

[Graham Davis]

33 minutes ago, Jerra said:

Are they currently available/suitable for boats and cars?   If not why not electricity as a halfway house so to speak?

Google "Riversimple" and read about their two cars.

EDIT.
Link for you:
https://www.riversimple.com/

Edited August 24, 2019 by Graham Davis

[Jen-in-Wellies]

7 minutes ago, mayalld said:

The reason that internal combustion engines are so ubiquitous is all to do with the viability of your energy source. A liquid energy source that can be onloaded in minutes and gives enough energy for weeks, as opposed to an energy source that takes hours to on-board, and lasts a day.

For energy density and ease of transfer and storage, liquid fuels are hard to beat. Any suggestions where we can get some that doesn't involve either burning squashed dinosaurs, or taking up acres of agricultural land?

 

Just now, mayalld said:

Hydrogen fuel cells.

The hydrogen around now is mostly derived from fossil fuels, so no solution. Electrolysing water needs huge amounts of electricity, which you get from ... Hydrogen fuel cells were a big thing a few years ago with the automotive industry as "the future". They have all gone battery electric instead. Don't know what the reasons are, but there will be some good ones. Again, a few years ago, people were saying that laptops and mobiles would be powered by tiny methanol, or hydrogen fuel cells that could be refilled very quickly. Today they are all Lithium battery.

 

14 minutes ago, mayalld said:

Ever looked at a Lithium Mine? Huge areas of once fertile land laid waste, Not sure how that helps the environment. And there just isn't enough of the stuff to meet the demand if we go all-electric.

A problem with every large scale industrial activity. Suggestions?

 

15 minutes ago, mayalld said:

The tractor idea is also impractical for another reason. Who is going to install all that infrastructure for a system that might take 20 years to be in common use. Existing boats won't work with it (they require the prop-wash to steer)

Much of the infrastructure is already there. It just needs restoring. Charging points are the only new bit. Yes, the sterns of boats need a rebuild to increase the rudder area considerably to cope with the slower water flow over them Also need a towing point at a suitable place to give the right stability.

 

Jen

[mayalld]

7 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

For energy density and ease of transfer and storage, liquid fuels are hard to beat. Any suggestions where we can get some that doesn't involve either burning squashed dinosaurs, or taking up acres of agricultural land?

 

The hydrogen around now is mostly derived from fossil fuels, so no solution. Electrolysing water needs huge amounts of electricity, which you get from ... Hydrogen fuel cells were a big thing a few years ago with the automotive industry as "the future". They have all gone battery electric instead. Don't know what the reasons are, but there will be some good ones. Again, a few years ago, people were saying that laptops and mobiles would be powered by tiny methanol, or hydrogen fuel cells that could be refilled very quickly. Today they are all Lithium battery.

 

Where do you get the energy to electrolyse water? Well from exactly the same sources that you get energy to charge batteries.

 

Energy storage and release is all about chemistry. You take electricity and force a chemical reaction, whether that be in a lead acid battery, Lithium battery or electrolysing water. You reverse the reaction, and electricity is produced.

 

Hydrogen fuel cells are currently lagging because it is easier to mine lithium. When we see that the raw materials for lithium batteries isn't sufficiently abundant, and that fuel cells offer a resource that is only limited by the capacity for green primary generation, they will be the answer.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

@Chris Williams has already suggested pedaloes as an ideal replacement. Here is another

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjmbgZ2wZvk

 

You may have problems persuading friends and family to come boating with you though.

 

Jen

[Jen-in-Wellies]

3 minutes ago, mayalld said:

Hydrogen fuel cells are currently lagging because it is easier to mine lithium. When we see that the raw materials for lithium batteries isn't sufficiently abundant, and that fuel cells offer a resource that is only limited by the capacity for green primary generation, they will be the answer.

Agreed. However, for now, Lithium batteries are the more mature technology, which is why I proposed them in my idea. They have had huge investment, compared with fuel cells, once they moved from the University small scale research to the big industrial development stage. I wanted to propose something that worked with existing mature and widely available technology, not something that needs huge development costs the canals can't support, or might have to wait years for someone else to do the work.

[Graham Davis]

26 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

The hydrogen around now is mostly derived from fossil fuels, so no solution. Electrolysing water needs huge amounts of electricity, which you get from ... Hydrogen fuel cells were a big thing a few years ago with the automotive industry as "the future". They have all gone battery electric instead. Don't know what the reasons are, but there will be some good ones. Again, a few years ago, people were saying that laptops and mobiles would be powered by tiny methanol, or hydrogen fuel cells that could be refilled very quickly. Today they are all Lithium battery.

Err??
See the link above, and how come BMW and others have developmental hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the road?
Also there are hydrogen fuel cell trains running in Europe.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

22 minutes ago, Graham Davis said:

Err??
See the link above, and how come BMW and others have developmental hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the road?
Also there are hydrogen fuel cell trains running in Europe.

The key word is developmental. The non internal combustion BMW's you can go out and buy right now are battery electric. A good article here on the reasons for this and why fuel cells currently make more sense for lorries and trains than they do for cars and how this could and probably will change in the future. For now battery electric is the more mature and cheaper technology for cars and probably narrowboating. A hydrogen fuel cell powered narrowboat has been built at Birmingham Uni. I see it passing the Uni by train regularly. It never seems to move, so I guess that the project is over.

 

Jen

Edited August 24, 2019 by Jen-in-Wellies

[cuthound]

2 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

@Chris Williams has already suggested pedaloes as an ideal replacement. Here is another

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjmbgZ2wZvk

 

You may have problems persuading friends and family to come boating with you though.

 

Jen

 

Surely they will have more problems returning to their old lives? ?

 

As long as you don't let any escape and tell others what is really happening, there will always be plenty of people looking for a "free" holiday. ?

[TheBiscuits]

4 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

Surely they will have more problems returning to their old lives? ?

 

As long as you don't let any escape and tell others what is really happening, there will always be plenty of people looking for a "free" holiday. ?

@Peter X likes crewing for random boaters ...

 

But I'm with @tree monkey on this one ...

 

 

[peterboat]

3 hours ago, mayalld said:

Hydrogen fuel cells.

Utterly wrong is the only comment! Have you checked what it does to metals have you checked how much energy it takes to create it? Do that and then you will see why electricity is dominating the cleaner vehicle market 

[peterboat]

3 hours ago, Graham Davis said:

Google "Riversimple" and read about their two cars.

EDIT.
Link for you:
https://www.riversimple.com/

It's a joke speak EV have ridiculed it for its total lack of safety and its huge cost to buy and its running costs.  Hydrogen is expensive and available in only 10 stations in the UK, one of which is in Sheffield, it's produced by a wind turbine so you might as well miss out the expensive and dangerous middle man (hydrogen) and just use the electricity to charge cars at home, work and charging stations