Japan launches first solar cargo ship

December 19th, 2008

The Toyota Vehicle Distribution Center at the Port of Long Beach. The world's first cargo ship partly propelled by solar power took to the seas on Friday in Japan, aiming to cut fuel costs and carbon emissions when automakers export their products

The world's first cargo ship partly propelled by solar power took to the seas on Friday in Japan, aiming to cut fuel costs and carbon emissions when automakers export their products.

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• CreepyD - Dec 19, 2008
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  Do these things really guzzle that much fuel for that 0.2% to be worth it?
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• Jarrid - Dec 19, 2008
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  I suppose a little baby step is better than not trying it at all.
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• TJ_alberta - Dec 19, 2008
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  The cost of the solar cells are probably something like 0.2% of Toyota's advertising budget - which is probably where the money came from.
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• vlam67 - Dec 19, 2008
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  I hope this one has more luck keeping working than every single solar sail-powered apparatus/experiment that were launched into space that for one reason or another, never worked.
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• Velanarris - Dec 19, 2008
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  The cost of the solar cells are probably something like 0.2% of Toyota's advertising budget - which is probably where the money came from.

  
  Toyota doesn't ship anything other than plans. They're successful because they buy local resources, build a plant and start building cars, avoiding tariffs the whole way. As for a solar powered ship, does it even have enough surface area to devote to PV panels to go past 0.2%?
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• Corvidae - Dec 19, 2008
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  Do these things really guzzle that much fuel for that 0.2% to be worth it?

  
  Cargo ships measure fuel usage by tons used daily at a specific speed. Also, most of them burn bunker fuel, which is barely this side of coal as far as being dirty. As for being cost effective, I'm betting the para-sail idea would save more and cost less in the long run. I think I read savings of 15-20% on fuel costs from the sail, but that's probably exaggerated a bit.
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• runninglate - Dec 20, 2008
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  Toyota doesn't ship anything other than plans...

  says Velararris
  
  lol, Nippon builds a giant freighter and Toyota uses it to ship plans!!! Toyota must have a lot of paperwork... but according to the article, Toyota is using the ship to ship cars!!! Imagine that.
  
  
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• david_42 - Dec 20, 2008
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  "a solar-based propulsion system. So far solar energy has been limited to supporting lighting and crew's living quarters."
  
  TJ is probably right about the source of the money. You would have to be in marketing to be this clueless.
  
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• vladik - Dec 20, 2008
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  "Resource-poor Japan has been looking for ways to reduce its dependency on foreign oil."
  
  Fusion power is the only hope for humanity. All other options are just expensive waste of time.
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• zbarlici - Dec 20, 2008
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  Electric propulsion by means of a light-weight nuclear fusion reactor, which has just passed a milestone...
  
  http://tiny.cc/EnTJl
  
  I beleive they are trying to keep it low-key for the time being..
  
  The company that developed this fusion reactor has been contracted by the US Navy for over a decade to research and develop an electric propulsion to be used on tankers/carries/ etc.... and hopefully the next step will be a 100 megawatt continuous-operation scale-up.
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• zbarlici - Dec 20, 2008
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  R. Nebel - "If Polywell pans out, nuclear fusion could be done more cheaply and more safely than it could ever be done in a tokamak or a laser blaster. The process might be able to produce power without throwing off loads of radioactive byproducts. It might even use helium-3 mined from the moon. "We don't want to oversell this," Nebel said, "but this is pretty interesting stuff, and if it works, it's huge."
  
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• Velanarris - Dec 20, 2008
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  Toyota doesn't ship anything other than plans...

  says Velararris
  
  lol, Nippon builds a giant freighter and Toyota uses it to ship plans!!! Toyota must have a lot of paperwork... but according to the article, Toyota is using the ship to ship cars!!! Imagine that.
  
  

  
  Let's see 6,400 cars, that couldn't possibly be for the other islands in Japan's island chain would it?
  
  It's a short range experimental vessel, it won't be shipping the East West trade routes.
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