What you are suggesting in the best case is completely uncompetitive with current ships both in terms of weight and cost. Even the charging costs for 1GWh is absurdly high compared to Heavy Fuel Oil. An orders of magnitude more expensive.

Not to mention dedicating 15-20% of deadweight tonnage (and a higher percentage, maybe 30-40% of its gross tonnage) would make a ship instantly uneconomical, especially as the batteries must be laid along the keel for stability, meaning the ship loses the ability to carry many cargoes.

What's possible in the medium term are Heavy Fuel Oil/Electric hybrids that use battery power in regulated Emission Control Areas instead of Low Sulfur Marine Fuel Oils or Diesel, and using HFO in blue waters and to charge batteries.

Transoceanic battery-powered cargo vessels are probably 100 years away - fusion will arrive first.

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Tepix 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Even the charging costs for 1GWh is absurdly high compared to Heavy Fuel Oil. An orders of magnitude more expensive.

Burning 250 tons of oil to get 1GWh of energy releases around 800 tons of CO2. Let's assume a $100 CO2 tax. We want to prevent the worst of global warming, right? That would add ~25% to the price of oil.

There is likely to be an oversupply of renewable (solar) energy less than 5 years from now.

So I wouldn't be so sure about that 100 year prediction.

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closewith 3 days ago | parent [-]

Even under the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), where shipping companies already must buy allowances for CO2 emissions from large vessels calling at EU ports, costing roughly €80-€90 per tonne of CO2 emitted, batteries aren't remotely competitive with HFO/LSMFO.

Even if the electricity was free, the cost (both CAPEX and in mass/volume) is not close. We need an improvement in mass energy density and volumetric energy density of 200-1,000% and a complete redesign of all shipping and ports to migrate to battery transoceanic shipping.

SMRs, renewably cracked hydrocarbons, and fusion will all be mainstream beforehand.

Once again, this is one of those areas where HN commenters believe they can understand a complex industry based on Wikipedia-level stats.

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jillesvangurp 3 days ago | parent [-]

> Once again, this is one of those areas where HN commenters believe they can understand a complex industry based on Wikipedia-level stats.

Please elaborate your math here. I just outlined the cost of batteries, the cost of fuel, the cost of electricity. Is my math wrong? Because if it isn't, it's at least feasible. You seem to assume very different numbers here. Which I would argue are probably a combination of dated and wrong.

> SMRs, renewably cracked hydrocarbons, and fusion will all be mainstream beforehand.

We'll know in a few years how wrong you or I will be. I don't find your argumentation very persuasive though. You might be eating your proverbial hat by the 2040s. I'm betting somebody will manage to stuff a few gwh of battery in a ship by then. A shipment of 7-9K EVs at 50kwh each, pretty much gets you there. That's the capacity of some of the new ships that BYD uses for transporting their EVs around the world. 2000EVs is basically about 1 gwh of power.

	▲	closewith 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, your maths is off by roughly an order of magnitude because the starting assumptions are wrong. > The mwh price is 80–90$, so 3 gwh (3000mwh) would be about 240K $ You’re effectively designing around ~3GWh for an ocean leg, but a large container vessel at 40–60MW continuous draw burns roughly 1–1.5GWh per day at sea. A 20–30 day crossing needs on the order of 20–40GWh of shaft power, not 3GWh. 5,000t of HFO actually corresponds to ~50–60GWh of chemical energy and ~25–30GWh delivered to the propeller at realistic engine efficiencies. > The mwh price is 80–90$ $80–90/MWh is a generation/LCOE number, which you're comparing to $500/t HFO delivered, stored, with global bunkering logistics already in place. You're not accounting for the cost of delivering tens of GWh at hundreds of MW into a hull, in a tight port stay, via infrastructure that simply doesn’t exist. Even if you grant free electricity at the fence, the capex for multi-hundred-MW substations, converters, cabling, connectors, etc completely dominates. > A shipment of 7-9K EVs at 50kwh each, pretty much gets you there. That's the capacity of some of the new ships that BYD uses for transporting their EVs around the world. 2000EVs is basically about 1 gwh of power. 2,000 EVs * 50kWh ≈ 100MWh. 9,000 EVs * 50kWh ≈ 450MWh. That’s still one to two orders of magnitude below what a long-range deep-sea vessel actually needs on a single leg. > We'll know in a few years how wrong you or I will be. Anyone in or close to the maritime industry knows now. Not even the most bullish consider economic transoceanic shipping by battery-powered vessels by the 2040s remotely possible. Realistically pure-battery transoceanic cargo ships will never happen, because other superior zero-carbon options will become viable long before batteries close the energy density and infrastructure gap. We'll obviously see batteries in tugs, ferries, short-sea and hybrid ECA work become the standard much sooner.

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jillesvangurp 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You forget that fuel is really expensive as well. And per gwh, electricity can be quite affordable if you don't do something as silly as pay grid prices for it. The mwh price is 80–90$, so 3 gwh (3000mwh) would be about 240K $. That's a lot of money. But filling up the tank of container ship is actually more expensive. Something like 5000 tons of fuel would be what you need. At 500$ per ton, you are looking at 2.5M $ in fuel.

Sourcing the electricity cheaper than that should be possible. E.g. wind and solar are closer to 20-30$/mwh.

The main issue is harbor infrastructure and battery production and scaling this. But from a cost point of view, sacrificing 20% cargo for an order of magnitude reduction in fuel cost is going to be very tempting.

> Transoceanic battery-powered cargo vessels are probably 100 years away - fusion will arrive first.

Or 3 years according to CATL. One of you is probably a few years off. I personally think 3 years is a bit ambitious. But ten years sounds like we might see some proof of concept at least. I have a hunch that CATL is going to be very eager to deliver such a proof of concept.

	▲	closewith 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		As stated elsewhere, even if the electricity to charge was free, batteries won't be economically competitive with HFO/LSMFO in this century. > But from a cost point of view, sacrificing 20% cargo for an order of magnitude reduction in fuel cost is going to be very tempting. No, it's not and this shows a profound misunderstanding of the maritime sector. Not to mention, it would be at least 20% of DWT and probably 40% of gross tonnage, and all at the most valuable (lowest/most-stable) part of the hull. > Or 3 years according to CATL. CATL make no such claim. They claim that they will be able to show electric ocean-going vessels, which there already are. They make no claims about transoceanic shipping, other than partnering with Maersk, which as stated above, will be for hybrid propulsion to avoid expensive low-sulfur fuels in ECAs and will be charged from HFO at sea.