doodad, thank you for your response,

“Certainly there are a many noble ways to generate power …”  Though the process may often be elegant, the generation of power will always remain an ignoble enterprise.

 

Transformation of the owner’s cash to caloric flow by rending the structure of hydrocarbon molecules is a violent business, subject to randomness and the threat of chaos. But that is not to say those acolytes in the temple of the gods of thermodynamics are not an exalted fellowship, far from it, they are at the pinnacle of nobility.

 

I believe time will convince you of the viability of DE and the concept of an integrated electric propulsion system. The big players have already moved in that direction and with the rapid rise in fuel prices many more will follow. Ships with operational profiles that demand high power for transit and high hotel loads between ports, followed by extended periods during which no propulsion is required with widely varying hotel loads are perfect candidates for DE power.

 

Tankships, cruiseships, and yachts share this profile. The cruise industry adopted the technology early on and a large percentage of new build tankers (which have very high power requirements during discharge) have incorporated multiple engine diesel-electric propulsion and power generation systems.

 

If by “the market” you mean the yachting market, you must remember that the yachting industry is among the more tradition bound groups at sea today. Those shipowners and designers who have moved to DE have approached the technology as engineers and businessmen, they know very well how to operate a ship efficiently and economically. They are in business to do just that and only that, and they do it extremely well.

 

In the yacht industry we are hindered by an overly (technically) conservative approach fostered by designers who value form over function, builders who stick to what has always worked for them (low risk), and that strange species peculiar to the industry, the “owners rep” who may or may not (usually not) have a clue about anything to do with converting the BTUs in a fuel tank to kW, or the application of appropriate technology yet have amazing power in the owner’s decision process.

 

The latest electronically controlled gensets are remarkably clean in comparison to their predecessors but are still prone to problems related to low output operation. What is not often mentioned is the fact that they require a higher level of maintenance to maintain the emissions level to which they were certified. I don’t know of many yachts that carry sufficient spares to change injectors every 25 days of running much less have an engineer who is prepared to change them.

 

There are technical solutions to exhaust problems. We can install soot reduction devices, catalytic converters and other palliative means to prevent annoying our neighbors or offending the charter guests, but these devices are not a solution to the problems created by continuing to apply old thinking to new operating conditions. They also require substantial machinery space volume, the lack of which and the reasons for that lack take us back to the origin of this discussion.

 

"the proximity of certain items of equipment to each other, just as a safety issue, the failure of one system, maybe a fire risk, high pressure fuel we know about, lubrications, oil, high pressure water near switchboards, and that sort of thing… Some of it is just corrosion, with the constant dripping, or failure of a gasket and it damages equipment below, or damages the seals. So there are some safety issues as well in the layout as well as the access and space issues."

Phil Noad of the Cayman Islands Shipping Registry, taken from discussions at the Global Superyact Forum 2007

On a large percentage of vessels, ships and boats, the engine room is located near the bottom, and at the rear, or aft, end of the vessel, and usually comprises few compartments. billig ugg stiefelThis design maximizes the cargo carrying capacity of the vessel and situates the prime mover close to the propeller, minimizing equipment cost and problemsugg stiefel  posed from long shaft lines. The engine room on some ships may be situated mid-ship, especially on vessels built from 1900 to the 1960s.ugg