Proposed new accessible electric narrowboat.

[Willonaboat]

4 minutes ago, magnetman said:

When the covids nonsense was in full swing and caused a dip in fuel demand the oil price went down not up. 

 

Nothing goes up (or down) in a straight line. The long term trend is up and will (if I'm right) accelerate.

 

The 'covid nonsense' is what started to open my eyes. The international co-ordination, the lock-step language being used, the fear-mongering, the mounting evidence that those at the top were not taking it as seriously as they were telling us we should take it, the draconian, authoritarian measures, the threats and bribes to get jabbed (again and again) against the real science (as opposed to politicised science) - there was clearly something else going on. That was the start. There is more to come.

[MtB]

1 minute ago, Willonaboat said:

 

Nothing goes up (or down) in a straight line. The long term trend is up and will (if I'm right) accelerate.

 

The 'covid nonsense' is what started to open my eyes. The international co-ordination, the lock-step language being used, the fear-mongering, the mounting evidence that those at the top were not taking it as seriously as they were telling us we should take it, the draconian, authoritarian measures, the threats and bribes to get jabbed (again and again) against the real science (as opposed to politicised science) - there was clearly something else going on. That was the start. There is more to come.

 

I swallowed the covid stuff whole, but I was rattled by the way those in charge did not take it seriously. This alone suggests quite strongly they either knew there was not much ris. OR, they were a bunch of idiots unable to really grasp what was happening. 

 

I still tend towards the latter given the excess deaths statistics. 

 

 

[magnetman]

 

The covids nonsense was a rehearsal. Of that there is no doubt. 

 

I think the climate change thing is the next one on the agenda. People have been conditioned around this for a long time. Fear is a powerful driver.  All Your Children Will Die In a Terrible Inferno...Unless...You do the Right Thing. 

 

Bit by bit more and more freedoms will be curtailed. Its bound to happen.

 

Aldous Huxley (I have not read the books but did watch the interview) knew what he was on about. 

 

The internet and associated devices is an incredibly powerful tool for manipulation. 

 

In his words 'people might find themselves doing things they don't really want to be doing'. How very astute. 

 

Various different drivers behind this mostly related to basic human instinct. 

 

I don't believe in hoarding food. 

 

 

 

[Willonaboat]

16 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

I swallowed the covid stuff whole, but I was rattled by the way those in charge did not take it seriously. This alone suggests quite strongly they either knew there was not much ris. OR, they were a bunch of idiots unable to really grasp what was happening. 

 

I still tend towards the latter given the excess deaths statistics. 

 

 

We were manipulated and lied to. I started to question things and eventually saw it for the international government psyop that it was but by then I'd had two jabs. Everything we witnessed was political theatre. I won't post links here but the information is out there for those who look for it. As Klaus Schwab said (or bragged) when he was covertly filmed, "we (the WEF) have infiltrated government cabinets around the world". Covid was the "opportunity" to implement The Great Reset (according to Schwab). The whole thing was game-played in late 2019. Look it up. Covid was planned. What we have seen so far is only the beginning.

8 minutes ago, magnetman said:

 

I don't believe in hoarding food. 

 

 

 

 

Not yet, maybe. But I suggest you have some sort of plan. What if... etc.

[ditchcrawler]

Merry Christmas to you all 

[Ronaldo47]

A poster on this forum mentioned that a heat pump manufacturer's information was that a water temperature greater than 5°C was essential, which is greater than typical canal water temperatures established by measurements taken during winter cold snaps. 

     Heat pumps work by extracting heat from one environment and delivering it at a higher temperature to another environment. Your domestic fridge is a type of heat pump. If the environment (canal water) from which you are extracting heat is already at a temperature close to freezing, then the act of extracting heat from it will soon cause the water in contact with the surface of the  "cold" heat exchanger to freeze, which will inhibit the pump's  ability to extract further heat.  The ice surrounding the "cold" heat exchanger will just get progressively colder, preventing the relatively warm canal water from which heat should be extracted,  from coming into contact with the surface of the "cold" heat exchanger.

 

     Heat pumps produce a certain temperature difference between their "hot" and "cold" heat exchangers, so the colder the "cold" heat exchanger becomes, so the temperature of the "hot" heat exchanger becomes correspondingly cooler. This is why air source heat pumps don't work effectively in really cold weather.  I understand that air source heat pumps may need to periodically heat their exterior heat exchangers in frosty weather to melt any ice that builds up, in order for them to continue delivering heat to the "hot" heat exchanger. Otherwise the ice would become cooler than the air from which heat was supposed to be extracted. 

       No practical experience of heat pumps other than domestic refrigerators, but I did study their theory in the thermodynamics module of my engineering degree course many years ago, and I don't think that the laws of physics have changed in the mean time. 

Edited December 24, 2023 by Ronaldo47

[magnetman]

I never got any covids injections and nor did the Woman and children. We saw through it immediately without any help from the t'internet. 

 

It was quite impressive to watch it all from the sidelines. As usual. 

 

Aloofness is a potential weakness.

 

 

 

 

I was mostly upset that the .gov didn't do a Social Distancing Reward Scheme. 

I could have been a contender!

[IanD]

1 hour ago, Ronaldo47 said:

A poster on this forum mentioned that a heat pump manufacturer's information was that a water temperature greater than 5°C was essential, which is greater than typical canal water temperatures established by measurements taken during winter cold snaps. 

     Heat pumps work by extracting heat from one environment and delivering it at a higher temperature to another environment. Your domestic fridge is a type of heat pump. If the environment (canal water) from which you are extracting heat is already at a temperature close to freezing, then the act of extracting heat from it will soon cause the water in contact with the surface of the  "cold" heat exchanger to freeze, which will inhibit the pump's  ability to extract further heat.  The ice surrounding the "cold" heat exchanger will just get progressively colder, preventing the relatively warm canal water from which heat should be extracted,  from coming into contact with the surface of the "cold" heat exchanger.

 

     Heat pumps produce a certain temperature difference between their "hot" and "cold" heat exchangers, so the colder the "cold" heat exchanger becomes, so the temperature of the "hot" heat exchanger becomes correspondingly cooler. This is why air source heat pumps don't work effectively in really cold weather.  I understand that air source heat pumps may need to periodically heat their exterior heat exchangers in frosty weather to melt any ice that builds up, in order for them to continue delivering heat to the "hot" heat exchanger. Otherwise the ice would become cooler than the air from which heat was supposed to be extracted. 

       No practical experience of heat pumps other than domestic refrigerators, but I did study their theory in the thermodynamics module of my engineering degree course many years ago, and I don't think that the laws of physics have changed in the mean time. 

 

That'll be why there are so many of them in Norway, then... 😉

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/23/norway-heat-pumps-cold-heating

 

(it's a myth that air source heat-pumps don't work when it's really cold -- their efficiency does drop a bit, but the COP is still typically around 3)

 

If the skin tank for a water-source heat pump is large enough and on the side of the hull not the bottom it won't freeze up, for the same reason that the canals have ice on the top and don't freeze solid -- water reaches at maximum density at 4C, below this it starts to expand and rises which is why ice floats and life on Earth isn't extinct. So this will set up a slow convection current with cold water rising and drawing in "warmer" water -- meaning, at 4C or above -- from below.

 

But because the temperature differences are small the skin tank would have to be really *really* big to be able to source 4kW or so of heat, probably tens of feet all the way down each side of the boat to avoid problems if the boat is moored right up against the bank or piling -- this is what engine suppliers often recommend for cooling when a boat is moored. And it would need the closed circuit to be filled with antifreeze, and have a heat pump which didn't shut down at 5C inlet temperature.

 

So it *should* be possible to make this work all year round, but AFAIK nobody's done it so far... 😉

Edited December 24, 2023 by IanD

[Ronaldo47]

The article does not make it clear what proportion of the heat pumps are air source and which are ground source, but all the specific examples given are  ground source. 

+++++++++++++++

Ole Øystein Haugen, a retired metalworker who lives just outside Oslo, convinced three of his neighbours to get ground-source heat pumps after he got one himself seven years ago. 

++++++++++++++++++

Likewise, the early Swiss and US examples quoted are ground source. Unless you are in a permafrost region, in the depths of winter, the ground temperature at moderate depth will always be above freezing and therefore  warmer than the air above it, and in mountanous regions,  the rocks will often  be warmed by geothermal heat emanating from the earth's core or, in the case of granite, by natural radioactivity.  

 

Climate can also be a factor. In the northern USA and Central Europe, especially in mountainous regions, the humidity in the depths of winter is often very low indeed, meaning that there is little water vapour in the air to form ice on the cold heat exchangers of air source heat pumps. Brits who are acclimatised to the damp climate of the UK will normally suffer from dry throats when taking skiing holidays in the mountain resorts of Austria or Italy, due to the lack of moisture in the air.   

Edited December 25, 2023 by Ronaldo47
typos

[MtB]

9 hours ago, IanD said:

(it's a myth that air source heat-pumps don't work when it's really cold -- their efficiency does drop a bit, but the COP is still typically around 3)

 

Quite. Air source heat pumps work fine in sub-zero temperatures, if at a lower CoP. Water-source heat pump have the problem that the heat collector turns into a giant ice lolly-pop once they cool the water they are collecting from below freezing point. 

 

The closer the canal temp to 0c, the less heat energy is available to collect before the phase change from liquid to solid happens. Hence the abitrary 5c boundary often stated. A way to work around this is to artificially arrange a high flow rate of canal water over the heat collector.

 

 

[magnetman]

It seems the answer would be to put a double baseplate in with baffles added and fill the resulting tank with an antifreeze mix. 

It could be 10mm base plate and the top of the tank made with 5mm plate then insulation then flooring. 

[Matt Wardman]

16 hours ago, Ronaldo47 said:

Friends who have recently bought a small EV as their second car are pleased with it and its range of  over 200 miles. They  have had a high power  charger installed at home, but tell us that the instructions are to use a slow charge after two three fast charges to keep the battery in good condition.

 

I find EVs interesting in that they are being sold on just one aspect of the problem - replace fossil fuel cars and their emissions by clean electricity.

 

EVs are inefficient - they are perhaps 50% or more heavier than necessary, and can accelerate so fast that large numbers of drivers (including probably me) are no skilled or experienced enough to handle the 0-60 in 5-6 seconds sprint appropropriately. Any crazy numbers of them are electric SUVs which are less safe for everyone not inside the SUV, but when the justifying reason happens, such as 'but it might snow', they slide off the road in confusion.

 

Yet EVs are also in some ways a very inefficient solution. They still clog up our roads with traffic, while a real answer would make alternatives practical and safe in the UK - whether e-scooters, cycles, mobility scooters, micro cars such as Smart of Citroen AMI, or just walking. On current trends we will have EVs racing up and down our narrow lanes making them just as dangerous as Fossil Fuel vehicles do.

 

Someone who lives in a village and loses their driving licence through sight-deterioration with age will be just as stuck as they are now.

 

17 hours ago, Willonaboat said:

 

Yes. This begs the question, what is the highest percentage of marina-based boats which typically cruise at the same time? Anyone know? I'll have a wild (optimistic?) guess at 10% sometime in August.

 

That's an interesting stat, perhaps suggesting that there are many thousands of boaters who can carry a large overhead without needing to worry about it.

 

It must be quite pricey to keep a boat in a marina for 95-99% of the year without using it, and paying all the licences etc.

 

BTW Happy Christmas everyone.

2 hours ago, MtB said:

 

Quite. Air source heat pumps work fine in sub-zero temperatures, if at a lower CoP. Water-source heat pump have the problem that the heat collector turns into a giant ice lolly-pop once they cool the water they are collecting from below freezing point. 

 

The closer the canal temp to 0c, the less heat energy is available to collect before the phase change from liquid to solid happens. Hence the abitrary 5c boundary often stated. A way to work around this is to artificially arrange a high flow rate of canal water over the heat collector.

 

Good point. I think for canals (especially adjacent mooring locations) a problem I see with water source is impact on the temperature of the canal, which could be quite marked. Because canals are quite restricted waterways compared to the amount of boat, especially on sections with adjacent moorings.

 

I had not really internalised how tight canal channels are until I did some consultation with cyclists who had ended up in canals when I was thinking about the safety aspects of tow-path cycling with clipped in pedals. Of the many cyclists who had ended up in canals, overwhelmingly they could stand up to recover. 

 

Ballpark numbers are that a water source heat pump may need several cubic m of water every hour. Three or four boats moored together running WSHPs may have a material impact on the slow flowing water in a canal - perhaps dropping the temperature by a couple of degrees(?).

 

So I would look more to air source.

Edited December 25, 2023 by Matt Wardman

[peterboat]

8 hours ago, Matt Wardman said:

 

I find EVs interesting in that they are being sold on just one aspect of the problem - replace fossil fuel cars and their emissions by clean electricity.

 

EVs are inefficient - they are perhaps 50% or more heavier than necessary, and can accelerate so fast that large numbers of drivers (including probably me) are no skilled or experienced enough to handle the 0-60 in 5-6 seconds sprint appropropriately. Any crazy numbers of them are electric SUVs which are less safe for everyone not inside the SUV, but when the justifying reason happens, such as 'but it might snow', they slide off the road in confusion.

 

Yet EVs are also in some ways a very inefficient solution. They still clog up our roads with traffic, while a real answer would make alternatives practical and safe in the UK - whether e-scooters, cycles, mobility scooters, micro cars such as Smart of Citroen AMI, or just walking. On current trends we will have EVs racing up and down our narrow lanes making them just as dangerous as Fossil Fuel vehicles do.

 

Someone who lives in a village and loses their driving licence through sight-deterioration with age will be just as stuck as they are now.

 

 

That's an interesting stat, perhaps suggesting that there are many thousands of boaters who can carry a large overhead without needing to worry about it.

 

It must be quite pricey to keep a boat in a marina for 95-99% of the year without using it, and paying all the licences etc.

 

BTW Happy Christmas everyone.

 

Good point. I think for canals (especially adjacent mooring locations) a problem I see with water source is impact on the temperature of the canal, which could be quite marked. Because canals are quite restricted waterways compared to the amount of boat, especially on sections with adjacent moorings.

 

I had not really internalised how tight canal channels are until I did some consultation with cyclists who had ended up in canals when I was thinking about the safety aspects of tow-path cycling with clipped in pedals. Of the many cyclists who had ended up in canals, overwhelmingly they could stand up to recover. 

 

Ballpark numbers are that a water source heat pump may need several cubic m of water every hour. Three or four boats moored together running WSHPs may have a material impact on the slow flowing water in a canal - perhaps dropping the temperature by a couple of degrees(?).

 

So I would look more to air source.

You shouldn't generalise some EVs arnt 59% heavier some are nearly the same weight. Our I3 is carbon fiber aluminium and plastic and light

[magnetman]

The answer is to move away from insividual transport solutions in favour of mass transit. 

 

This is why the 'hyperloop' story is so ironic. Vactrains have been proposed and studied for ages then along comes the Tesla geyser and makes out that he invented it. He didn't invent anything. 

 

The irony is that the 'hyperloop' was just a strategy to get a rail line shelved in favour of car transport. Joke. BUT, given actual funding it could work especially for freight transport. But nobody wants to fund it. Not even the rich guy trying to save the planet... He just wants to kill rail so he can sell more cars to gullible idiots. 

 

The 'Boring company'. Oh yeah what a funny name we are all laughing. Lets have multiple level tunnels and lifts and just keep people in their cars. 

 

The problem of urban transport has already been solved. You use underground tunnels with trains running on rails ! Clever eh? 

 

Its sad when people who are in a position to make positive change just go for the money. Not surprising but still a bit sad. 

 

 

 

 

[MtB]

31 minutes ago, magnetman said:

He just wants to kill rail so he can sell more cars to gullible idiots. 

 

Hang on, I just bought a car!

 

I bought it to use as a van as van break-ins are reaching ridiculous numbers since the fuzz stopped even going through the motions of responding to crime. They have other things to do with their time these days it seems. Like persecuting motorists. Shops are having the same problem with the fuzz refusing to do anything about organised shoplifting apparently. 

 

But back on topic, vans are usually stuffed with tools you can flog at car boot sales hence them being sitting duck targets for breaking into. Unlike cars which usually only contain old sandwich wrappers.

 

Rant over. 

 

 

 

[magnetman]

It is funny when people put stickers saying 'No valuables are left in this vehicle overnight'. 

 

Why would the thieves believe this ? I don't get it. 

 

Maybe better to say 'the only thing valuable in this vehicle is the 50 grand in used tenners under the passenger seat' then put a mousetrap under it. 

 

Or even better some fish hooks. 

[MtB]

3 minutes ago, magnetman said:

It is funny when people put stickers saying 'No valuables are left in this vehicle overnight'. 

 

Why would the thieves believe this ? I don't get it. 

 

Same here. In fact if I were a thief I'd be attracted to that vehicle as I'd be wondering why they bothered to put the sign on. If there was nothing inside worth stealing they'd probably not bother with such stickers. 

 

Several decades ago my brother in law was having a pint on his way home from running his market stand, £3k cash takings for the day in a supermarket carrier bag lying on the back seat of his blue BMW. Someone came into the pub and said "Whose it that blue BMW outside? The window is smashed and the radio nicked." Rushed outside to find the £60 radio missing and the £3k still there in the carrier bag. Phew... 

 

 

[magnetman]

These days the only thing they nick is the charging lead thus saving window damage. 

[Ronaldo47]

3 hours ago, magnetman said:

The answer is to move away from insividual transport solutions in favour of mass transit. 

That's a sensible philosophy in principle, but unfortunately successive governments seem to have been doing their best to make it difficult for people to use public transport.  It's fine in the large cities such as London where politicians seem to congregate, less so elsewhere.

 

When I lived in East London in the 1950's and 60's, no-where was more than 10 mins walk from a bus stop, and most buses ran a frequent service all day from before 6AM to midnight. All my extended family in East London and the suburbs lived no more than a few minutes' walk from a local tube station, and no-one needed a car to get around. Trains used to run on bank holidays, even including Christmas Day, when the  trains ran until about 2PM. We used to have christmas dinner at home and then catch a train to whichever relative was playing host that Christmas. 

 

When I moved to outer London in 1970, we were a few minutes from a station on the Liverpool Street line. Trains used to run all night, and although I then had a car, it was more convenient for a night out in the West End with friends to go by train. There was no last train home, the service was just less frequent at night, the longest gap being about 2 hours between 2.00AM  and 4.00AM, but there was plenty of seating at Liverpool Street and a number of vending machines for food and drink, even one selling ice cream and lollies.  There was also a night bus to Victoria every 15 mins all through the night, which I did use to get to Victoria at around 4.00AM to catch a night train to Gatwick for an 8.00AM flight departure. 

 

Unfortunately, in the run-up to privatisation, the government allowed (encouraged? instructed?) BR to cut back the less profitable all-night services to make them more financially attractive to potential franchisees.  My last trains back home from Liverpool Street  were cut back, firstly to  1.45AM, and later to its present 00.55AM, meaning that for a late night out I had to either take the car or else pay around £60 for a cab. 

 

I understand that It's even worse in rural areas, especially where there is not even a regular daily bus service, let alone a night bus service..  

 

So it's not really surprising that those who do not live in large cities, still need their own transport. 

Edited December 26, 2023 by Ronaldo47
typos

[MtB]

Here in rural Wiltshire I gather from people who care about such things, rural bus services have been broadly abandoned in favour of an "on demand" service. On gets on line and books one's bus which is actually a Merc minibus, expensively signwritten or film-wrapped. It is then sent to pick you up specifically. 

 

The best bit is having booked one's minibus (which always arrives empty as you will be the only one needing it, by the way), one has to go to the nearest "mobilisation hub" to catch it. Apparently. 

 

The mobilisation hub turns out to be what us ol' farts used to call "the bus stop". 

 

 

 

 

 

[ditchcrawler]

9 hours ago, MtB said:

   The best bit is having booked one's minibus (which always arrives empty as you will be the only one needing it, by the way), one has to go to the nearest "mobilisation hub" to catch it. Apparently. 

 

The mobilisation hub turns out to be what us ol' farts used to call "the bus stop". 

But we don't have Mobilisation Hubs in our village, still what's a mile walk in the rain with your shopping when you are the wrong side of 75

 

 

 

 

 

[Sailbadthesinner]

On 24/12/2023 at 23:23, IanD said:

If the skin tank for a water-source heat pump is large enough and on the side of the hull not the bottom it won't freeze up, for the same reason that the canals have ice on the top and don't freeze solid -- water reaches at maximum density at 4C, below this it starts to expand and rises which is why ice floats and life on Earth isn't extinct. So this will set up a slow convection current with cold water rising and drawing in "warmer" water -- meaning, at 4C or above -- from below.

Can't quite get my head round this.

I thought the water temp would be 0⁰ at the surface and 4⁰ at the bottom so a skin tank on the bottom of the boat would be slightly warmer than at the sides.

 

[IanD]

53 minutes ago, Sailbadthesinner said:

Can't quite get my head round this.

I thought the water temp would be 0⁰ at the surface and 4⁰ at the bottom so a skin tank on the bottom of the boat would be slightly warmer than at the sides.

 

It would, but also it would be difficult for the colder water to find its way out from under the flat-bottomed hull and up the sides so it might well freeze there -- especially if the canal is shallow and the hull is close to or sitting on the bottom at one side.

 

Either way, to keep the temperature difference between the circulating  cooling water (or brine, which is what ground source HPs use) and the canal small enough would need a truly massive area skin tank on both sides of the hull, not something that can be retrofitted -- and which would take at least a couple more inches off the internal width.

[Matt Wardman]

On 25/12/2023 at 19:51, peterboat said:

You shouldn't generalise some EVs arnt 59% heavier some are nearly the same weight. Our I3 is carbon fiber aluminium and plastic and light

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

I think the point about weight is interesting - especially on a thread for Low Energy Narrow Boats as afaics there are relatively few ways to reduce required propulsion energy.

 

In my head these seem to be reducing weight (and therefore draft / blocking ratio a little, but with stability implications), more streamlined or less draggy hulls, power train efficiency (from the motor to the propeller), and potentially reducing speed (a challenge when starting from an upper limit of 3mph).

 

A BMW i3 only weighs 1.385 tonnes and is relatively light - correct, but that is still double the weight of the first 4 seat hatchback I owned, which weighed 685kg, and the i3 battery is relatively small.

 

Moving up the size range, electric SUVs are headed towards 3 tonnes, and even a mid-size BEV Estate such as the MG5 is around 2 tonnes with a claimed range of ~200 miles.

 

My own full size diesel estate (Skoda Superb) is about 15% lighter than this.

 

An area deserving of more attention than it gets imo, especially as these can often go faster than most drivers (including me) are used to, and higher weight is linearly more energy to be dissipated in a collision which increases the consequences of error.

 

But I went a bit off topic for the thread, and have a number of areas relating to domestic energy consumption on an NB I am still reflecting on before offering an opinion - ventilation, windows, incidental heat gains and losses, and peak load for a few.
 

Edited December 27, 2023 by Matt Wardman

[IanD]

4 hours ago, Matt Wardman said:

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

I think the point about weight is interesting - especially on a thread for Low Energy Narrow Boats as afaics there are relatively few ways to reduce required propulsion energy.

 

In my head these seem to be reducing weight (and therefore draft / blocking ratio a little, but with stability implications), more streamlined or less draggy hulls, power train efficiency (from the motor to the propeller), and potentially reducing speed (a challenge when starting from an upper limit of 3mph).

 

A BMW i3 only weighs 1.385 tonnes and is relatively light - correct, but that is still double the weight of the first 4 seat hatchback I owned, which weighed 685kg, and the i3 battery is relatively small.

 

Moving up the size range, electric SUVs are headed towards 3 tonnes, and even a mid-size BEV Estate such as the MG5 is around 2 tonnes with a claimed range of ~200 miles.

 

My own full size diesel estate (Skoda Superb) is about 15% lighter than this.

 

An area deserving of more attention than it gets imo, especially as these can often go faster than most drivers (including me) are used to, and higher weight is linearly more energy to be dissipated in a collision which increases the consequences of error.

 

But I went a bit off topic for the thread, and have a number of areas relating to domestic energy consumption on an NB I am still reflecting on before offering an opinion - ventilation, windows, incidental heat gains and losses, and peak load for a few.
 

 

There's not much that can be done to improve narrowboat hull efficiency once you've gone to electric/hybrid drive -- most of the drag is due to displacement (length*width*draft=tonnage) and draft can't be reduced much while keeping a stable boat which will fit under canal bridges/tunnels, assuming a steel hull and cabin. Aluminium has been used occasionally in the past to reduce draft/weight but is ferociously expensive today.

 

Once you have a decent bow/stern shape with long enough swims -- which well-designed hulls already have -- there's little else that can be done to reduce drag with an almost-rectangular hull in a narrow/shallow canal, as the "eco bow" that was tried (unsuccessfully) some time ago showed what works in cargo ships on the open sea doesn't work on UK canals.

 

An electric drive with LFP batteries is already pretty efficient, something around 90% overall, so there's little room for improvement here. Energy used for propulsion is already smaller than a diesel engine because of higher efficiency, regardless of where the power comes from.

 

So really the only place that big efficiency improvements can come from is the power source. A diesel generator is about 25% efficient, and there's not much that can be done to improve this -- running on HVO does help hugely with emissions but doesn't save energy. Power from the shore is already quite good (UK grid power is heading towards 50% renewable) but the problem is lack of charging stations. Solar is great but there's a limit to the amount you can fit on a narrowboat (and it's not enough) and they're useless in winter -- panel efficiency could be improved (around 22% today) but the more efficient multilayer panels which might push this up towards 30% aren't cheap or available yet -- and are still useless in winter. Fuel cells -- like the boat being recently discussed -- sound attractive (>50% efficient?) so long as you don't look at where the fuel (hydrogen?) comes from, the CO2 cost of making it, and the problems with distributing and storing it (massive).

Edited December 27, 2023 by IanD