Renewable energy finally sails off into the past

Global shipping contributes 3% of global emissions the activists may scream, but it carries 95% of our global freight and activists should be promoting shipping instead of road freight, which generates 20 to 40 times the emissions per tonne / kilometre. Australia for instance, whose coastal highways carry most of the nation's freight and coastal shipping does not exist because it doesn't attract votes. Never mind the 1,300 road deaths and 18,000 serious road accidents that occur annually around Australia's coastal highways. The fools steering the nation need replacing.

Total solar power boats, like the catamaran Tûranor PlanetSolar, was the showcase at the 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference as a shining example of solar power's future.

With its 537m2 of solar panels, generating 93kW of power only when the sun is high on a clear sky, she managed a 2013 transatlantic crossing of 22 days, at only 10 knots without any payload at all.

Many commercial day ferries have solar arrays on the flybridge above the wheelhouse, which contribute to the AC and DC via inverters for the wheelhouse airconditioning, navigation and communications equipment, providing a useful safety alternative to communications in case of a power blackout.

I have been involved on the sidelines of methanol, ammonia, hydrogen, and LNG. I am involved in nuclear, which leads the field in ship propulsion with 162 ships in operation and many more on the drawing board, because nothing comes closer on cost/kw or energy density. Plus, there are no emissions and you don't have to carry many hundreds of tonnes of fuel and can carry that weight in revenue generating cargo. How good is that?

So with my hand on my heart and after designing commercial vessels for 47 countries, I can say with total conviction, that powering a ship with only wind and solar renewables will not work.

Only a fool would make that choice.

That ship has sailed.