- [Narrator] After years of research,
design and testing,
the Oceanbird concept
is ready to begin challenging
the way we think about international
marine freight movement.
When upwards of 80% of the world's goods
are moving by sea,
are we genuinely moving back
towards sailing ships
in this modern age?
It's actually a very
environmentally sensitive idea.
Pushing your car half a mile
would take a lot of effort.
The same thing could be accomplished,
at a much greater speed,
with less than half a cup of gasoline.
There is an immense amount of energy
hidden in the chemical bonds
of processed hydrocarbons
and we've learned to exploit
that extremely well over the years.
What we didn't know from the 1900s to 1960s
was that there were serious problems
associated with it that we
wouldn't really begin to notice
until the 1970s.
Los Angeles residents suddenly woke up
to the fact that they couldn't
see all the way across their
"city in the valley"
because of the perpetual smog,
and they figured out cars were to blame.
Rule changes were imposed
for the internal combustion engine cars,
and in L.A.
they were so remarkably strict
that the air taken in
by an internal combustion engine
actually came out of the exhaust pipe
cleaner than when it entered.
The cars were literally cleaning the air!
Score one for the environmentalists.
As a direct result,
all internal combustion engine cars
are much better now.
However, it is not just chemical pollution
that is the problem
for ocean-going transport ships.
The constant throb of these ships
travels through the water
for hundreds of miles.
Measured at the ship,
the sound level is in the area of 170 decibels
caused not just by the engines,
but by the spinning propeller churning
and cavitating the water.
For a human in air,
this level of sound energy
could cause burst lungs,
or pulmonary contusions, and embolisms.
170 decibels is like a rocket lifting off,
or a shotgun blast
next to your ear, except constant.
This is why NASA puts viewers
several miles away
from a launch site.
Over time, a sustained 85 decibels
can cause permanent hearing loss,
as experienced by thousands
of factory workers per year.
Now imagine being a dolphin, whale,
or any other creature
that uses sound to navigate,
and how much damage this could do
when there is nowhere to escape
the blast of sound waves.
Dolphin speeds top out around
32 miles per hour
because water cavitation
from swimming faster causes pain
and damage to their tails.
They would have to travel
at maximum speed for hours
to get away from a noisy ship.
Worse yet, all these aquatic creatures
use sound to hunt for food
and find mates.
If they are deafened by the immense noise,
they may not be able to eat or breed,
and will then decline towards extinction.
This is even more important than you think,
since whales hold massive
amounts of carbon in their bodies.
When they die, they take it
to the ocean floor
where it is sequestered.
During their lifetimes,
they poop, of course,
and that supplies the ideal food
for phytoplankton which, in turn,
produces two-thirds of every breath you take,
much more than the rainforests of the world.
Killing off the phytoplankton destroys
the very base of the global food chain.
Is it possible that noise pollution damage
to these giant sea creatures
is the reason that they run aground
and beach themselves?
Are they trying to escape
the painfully loud noise
near human shipping,
or are they so damaged
from constant high-level noise
as to be navigationally blind?
It seems certain that this is true,
and the cause is apparently
not so "mysterious" after all.
Right now, virtually all freight traveling
the world's oceans is still
propelled by fossil fuels
burned with wild abandon
because other choices are limited.
Container ships traveling
from Asia to Europe
carry millions of gallons of fuel oil
for every single trip.
They are responsible for 3%
of the world's CO2 emissions,
9% of the Sulfur Oxide emissions,
and up to 30% of all Nitrous Oxide emissions.
The CMA CGN Benjamin Franklin
is the largest container ship
docking in North America,
and usually carries
4.5 million gallons of fuel.
This is equivalent, in volume,
to more than 236
of those 40-foot shipping containers
sitting on its deck.
If those shipping containers
were actually filled with diesel fuel,
the ship could empty 3.5 of them
or more per day to run its engines
on a trip lasting 14 days
in each direction.
They would therefore burn nearly
1.8 million gallons of diesel fuel
for that 28-day round trip.
At designed cruising speeds,
these massive freighters can
consume 63,000 gallons
of fuel per day.
With fuel prices skyrocketing,
they have reduced speeds significantly
to save as much as 33%
of their fuel costs.
Of course, they need to add more ships
to the routes to meet the shipping schedule.
Apparently the savings seem to be worth it,
but what if we could completely
do away with fossil fuels for propulsion?
In 2018, the International Maritime Organization,
required a 50% reduction
in Greenhouse Gas emissions
for their 171 participating member countries
by the year 2050.
There are several strategies to achieve this.
Some ships use rotating vertical cylinders
for generating the Magnus Effect
to achieve additional propulsion.
This is similar to the Bernoulli Principle
for aircraft wings.
When the wind encounters
the fast-spinning cylinders,
air passing on one side
is accelerated while wind
on the opposite side is slowed.
The net effect is increased thrust
due to "lift" expressed sideways,
rather than upwards.
Fuel saving can be from 5% to 20%
by exploiting this energy gathering technique.
Others are flying automatic kites
up to 200 meters
above the ship.
The stronger winds at that level
help increase efficiency,
and reduce pollution, by 20%.
Fully automated, a captain pushes
the On/Off switch
when the navigation computer detects
ideal wind conditions,
and it self-launches or stows as needed.
Oceanbird is a Swedish ship
that can carry massive amounts
of RoRo, Roll-On/Roll-Off, cargo
at speeds approaching current freighters.
This is particularly true now
that conventional freighters
have slowed down to cut fuel costs.
A fossil-fueled RoRo freighter
previously taking seven days at normal speed
would outpace Oceanbird by five days,
but now they're heading towards
similar figures as conventional vessels
try to economize on expensive diesel fuel.
Oceanbird has rigid sails,
made of metal and composites,
each standing 20 meters tall.
They can extend telescopically
to nearly 80 meters,
in order to take advantage of the stronger,
steadier winds at that height,
or retract to deal
with severe weather conditions.
Added to the height of the deck
above the water line,
the sails will reach
a height of 105 meters
making this the tallest
of any ship on the oceans.
For efficiency, sails are computer controlled,
and automatically trimmed
to take best advantage of the wind.
A big advantage of the design
is the retractability of the sails.
Bringing them down makes most harbors
in the world easily accessible to them,
slipping easily under most bridges.
Of course they will still have thruster
and maneuvering motors for docking,
movement in harbors,
and avoiding an unpredictable problem
on the high seas.
The majority of the propulsion
will come from the wind.
Each of the five sails can freely
rotate 360 degrees
without interfering
with any of the others.
Oceanbird's functionality peaks
in a crosswind rather than
from directly behind.
With a tailwind the rearward sail collects
most of the energy,
leaving little for the forward sails to do,
but even a slightly angled wind
can push on all of the sails
generating much more power.
Theoretically, as they advance the design,
Oceanbird thinks it can achieve
a 90% reduction in fossil fuel use
and emissions of pollutants.
They can sustain 11 miles per hour,
according to the current design,
slower than fossil-fueled vessels,
but they've found that shippers
are quite interested.
The much lower impact of the vessel
will help improve their public image
and lead to positive feedback.
Adapting to a slower delivery schedule
is simple enough once established.
Two such vessels at 11 miles per hour
could deliver 7,000 cars and trucks each
in less time than one big diesel ship
carrying only 8,000 could
in two trips at 17 miles per hour.
And largely eliminating
the fuel budget
makes it significantly cheaper.
Using little to no fuel for propulsion,
but only to power necessary electrics,
electronics, lighting, and facilities
means that the ship is essentially silent.
Eliminating this particular impingement
on sea-life could mean the recovery
of the North Atlantic
right whale population,
which currently stands at just 366.
It could mean the recovery
of many sea populations
that have been the victims
of the acoustic fog
that currently blankets our oceans.
During a prolonged period
of ocean "quiet" due to COVID-19,
researchers found that whale song,
long distance communication,
was increasing in subtlety
to levels seen decades ago.
They expect it to fade again
as shipping resumes its usual levels
and communication becomes more difficult.
We've already done
the "easy thing" for decades.
Now it is time to do the "right thing"
and get off the fossil-fuel bandwagon.
Using the sea to move is great,
but destroying the sea to move is foolish.
Let's enjoy the silence of the wind.
If you enjoyed this video,
make sure to check out our video on
the "Genius plan to clean our oceans."
Thanks for watching,
I'll see you next time.