Land, air, water; three separate mediums through which the human race has learned to travel. Obviously we first learned to walk on dry land, and then we learned to swim or raft across open water. The air; now that is another story. Thousands of years passed before we invented hot air balloons followed by “heavy than air” aircraft.
This progression to air travel was totally dependent on the invention of the internal combustion engine. The largest air craft in the world is Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen’s, Stratolaunch. With a wingspan of 385 feet and a payload of 550 000 lbs the Stratolaunch just surpasses, the Antonov An-225, the jet designed to carry the Russian version of the space shuttle.
The Stratolaunch employs six of the jet engines typically used on the Boeing 747, and is designed for launching space vehicles into orbit from altitudes airliners travel.
Sea travel and large scale worldwide commercial shipping came to be what it is today, also based on the invention of the internal combustion engine. The largest reciprocating engine in the world is the Finnish made Wärstsilä RT-flex 96C, inline 14 cylinder marine diesel.
Built specifically for container ships the engine weighs in at 2300 tons and produces an impressive 107 390 HP (or 80 080 kW).
Without these large hydrocarbon burning engines, developed over the last 100 odd years, modern civilization would look far different. As much as we have come to enjoy the fruits of these developments we have also arrived at the realization that the mobility they afford occurs at a cost to our environment.
In Canada two sides have lined up over hydrocarbon and its effect on global warming. The “environmental” side prides itself in slowing and hindering progress from the “hydrocarbon” team. A huge waste of capital by all accounts, but perhaps more importantly a huge waste of valuable time.
Once again Norway, a hydrocarbon producing nation, has the foresight to use the revenue generated by its hydrocarbon resource, to fund research into addressing the issue. Point in fact, Norway is using their resource cash to help develop the world’s first autonomous electric cargo ship the ‘Yara Birkeland’.
The 70-metre long 14-metre wide container ship is designed to replace 40,000 diesel truck loads a year. It will deliver products and goods for Yara International, the Norwegian fertilizer manufacturer, once it goes into service in 2022.
This ship will use a seven-and-a-half to nine megawatt hour battery bank to power its trips between the ports of Herøya, Brevik and Larvik, and notably, all without a crew aboard.
Norway is the world’s leader in planning to conquer land, sea, and air travel with the use of non-polluting electric modes of transport. Perhaps the most important lesson in what Norway is accomplishing is not the advancements they are making in electric modes of conveyance, but in the way they use what they have learned from the past, financed by the present, to move towards the future.
Lorne Oja can be contacted at lorne@carbon2solar.com