WIND PROPULSION: MASS DEPLOYMENT, THE NEXT GREAT CHALLENGE
by
Alistair Johnson
SUMMARY
This paper addresses the issue of the mass deployment of wind propulsion systems (WPS) across the global merchant fleet of 40,000 flat decked vessels. It argues the case for a standardised, modular WPS mounting system capable of accommodating all classes of WPS current and future. Analogous to a standardised rail gauge, this WPS mounting infrastructure will demand disruptive collaboration. This disruptive collaboration will be necessary to agreeing the design of this universal mounting as well as to forming the business organisation capable of scaling and funding this huge undertaking within the expected time frame.
1. INTRODUCTION
The challenge of deploying WPS across the global fleet of around 40,000 vessels is set to become one of the major challenges facing the shipping industry. The abstract suggests that the shipping industry has now reached the point of accepting the inevitability of incorporating WPS as an indispensable part of ship propulsion for the rest of time.
The picture is more fractured with some, including Knut Nilssen CEO of DNV being a leading convert, an early adopter if you like, but with the majority of ship owners and operators still lagging.
We are not yet at the tipping point but planning for that moment needs to develop serious momentum to avoid a chaotic and inefficient response to what will swiftly become an urgent problem.
2. BASIC REALITIES
2.1 Mass deployment of WPS is going to demand several things to be in place up front:
- Cross industry discussion and agreement
- The ability to step outside the box and think across a paradigm shift
- A standardised, modular mounting system, a WPS infrastructure
- A business model capable of scaling within the expected time frame
- A funding model capable of delivering on the expected scale
The expected costs are eye watering. Just this mass deployment of a mounting system will cost somewhere between $20bn USD and $30bn USD over the next decade. The additional cost of the WPS devices themselves will be at least the same again to a total of at least $60bn USD.
The overall challenge is to find a way to derisk this huge task of rapid WPS roll out.
3. ALTERNATIVE POWER
3.1 DNV ENERGY TRANSITIONS SUMMIT FEB 2024
In his opening remarks to the DNV Energy Transitions Summit held in Feb 2024 DNV’s CEO Mr Nilssen made the point that shipping currently draws 3% to 4% of global hydrocarbon production. Given the current and expected level of development of alternative fuel infrastructure, if shipping wanted to decarbonise using only alternative fuels then it would be drawing 30% to 40% of global production alternative fuel production which was simply never going to happen.
He went on to list the 5 things that shipping will therefore have to use to square the decarbonisation circle. Second after maximised efficiencies was WPS. I nearly fell off my chair. He went on to list hull lubrication, digitalisation, careful route planning to reduce waiting time etc
On his list of the drivers of shipping decarbonisation, after regulations, carbon costing etc came pressure from cargo owners. The first guest speaker introduced by the moderator was Sebastian Roche, GM of Total Oil’s Shipping Performance and Innovation who announced among other things that Total was insisting that their chartered tankers deploy WPS. This was again astonishing.
In April I attended the Innovation Zero conference at London’s Olympia. The three panels dedicated to the decarbonisation of shipping discussed the issues around alternative fuels. They stressed the problem of no one knowing which of the alternatives, methanol, ammonia, hydrogen etc were going to be the most practical and effective. They expressed concerns about investing in stranded assets, like LNG. They spoke about the sheer logistical problem of finding sufficient land near enough to transport links that would not encroach on land given over to critical food production to deliver these fuels in scale.
Through 3 panels, each of 4-5 members, not one of them mentioned WPS. This was bizarre. One of them had even gone to great lengths to say that delaying decarbonisation efforts by giving up good for perfect was a recipe for failure. WPS is precisely that low hanging good. So despite all their declared concerns about alternative fuels none of them were really taking the decarbonisation challenge seriously.
4. TAKING CARBON SERIOUSLY
The only reason capital expenditure/tax write offs appear on company balance sheets is because European nations competing politically, economically and militarily needed to ensure that their private sectors adopted industrial strategies which benefitted their national interests. Improved efficiencies and innovations were critical and capital investment in plant was essential to this end. By making capital expenditure a tax allowable expenditure, putting it on the balance sheet, the governments achieved this. Once the first government did it the others all had to follow as a matter of national interest and survival. But ultimately this taxation device is a cultural construct, an ideological fix which delivers very effectively.
Using figures derived from the Norsepower Flettner rotor installation on the Maersk Pelican of 2018 the WPS installation is 2 times more full carbon life cycle cost effective than the hydrocarbon propulsion system. Taking just the weight of fuel into account it is 9 times more thrust effective than the fuel per unit of mass. Against the whole hydrocarbon system including the fuel, engine, drive shaft and propeller it is 11 times more thrust effective per unit of mass. It saves 30 times its own mass of CO2 every year it is deployed.
These are extremely compelling numbers if you are taking carbon seriously. And none of them mean anything to businesses because carbon is not accounted for, it is not on their balance sheets. It is not a primary driver of their decision making.
Until carbon appears on company balance sheets it won’t be taken seriously. There will not be enough incentive to drive the sort of change with the sort of speed that shipping and the rest of society needs. For this to happen there would/will have to be multilateral intergovernmental global implementation of a new taxation category. ‘Dream on.’ I hear you saying. Until this happens carbon will not be taken as seriously as it should be. So what can we do in the meantime?
5. STANDARDISED MODULAR
The railway engineer George Stephenson was working for a coal company in Stockton, England which used a horse drawn railway to take the coal from the pit head to the river barge dock. The rails were 5′ on centre and 4” wide, giving a 4′ 8” inside edge separation. When steam locomotives and curved track arrived there were problems with the carriage wheels binding. Stephenson removed 1/4” from the inside of each rail and gave us the 4′ 8 1/2” rail standard.
Brunel later argued for 6′ wide gauge for faster speed and bigger loads. However it was soon shown that the extra width didn’t affect the load width or the speed enough to matter and the 4′ 8 1/2” standard was adopted. It also reduced the cost of the land needed. The standardisation and the macro business considerations won the day.
From that point on, the rest of railway infrastructure and of the rolling stock had to conform to the standard and this famously determined the dimensions of the space shuttle booster rockets.
Designs conforming to the infrastructure is the key to mass production systems and design thought. At the moment WA technology providers are quite understandably trying to tailor their designs to maximise effectiveness for each individual vessel. They are driven by high end, Formula 1/Ocean racing thinking.
Mass market, standardised, modular deployment demands a Ford Focus mindset. The designs are going to have to adapt to the mounting for the sake of the macro business effectiveness of the standardised, plug and play interchangeability.
With the mounting infrastructure already in place, the WPS designers will not have to bother designing any new mountings, focussing instead on the WPS devices themselves.
This standardised infrastructure will speed the development, turn round and roll out of subsequent generations of WPS devices.
6. DISRUPTIVE COLLABORATION
Achieving agreement on what the mounting will look like will require disruptive, collaborative discussion across a core of industry entities: WPS technology providers, ship owners, operators, charterers, ship managers, cargo owners, and academic researchers.
The production and deployment will add ports, ship engine manufacturers, fossil fuel companies, shipyards, repair yards, unions, and local governments.
The funding for all of this will add finance houses and national governments.
The need for a very short lead time with very long term, common good, value i.e. low yields and long ROI’s, points to bond issues as the only effective way to fund this.
No national government will be prepared to initiate this unilaterally which points to the creation of internationally backed pan governmental bonds – a Decarbonisation Bond, backed by governments perhaps in rank order of their GDP.
This effort within shipping offers a unique, wind powered, sustainable opportunity to showcase and test an approach to the critical decarbonisation effort which will to have to be adopted across global industry.
Whatever the standardised, modular design ends up looking like, the disruptive, collaborative discussions and financial instruments etc, the overall business model will have to be adopted.
7. MY SKIN IN THE GAME
I have designed the Tig Rig Retrofit Sail System. You can see it at www.dasivedo.com or on this 3.5 minute filmhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omfTwszge6k&t=63s.
Despite the simple, amateur square rigged sail design the Tig Rig produces competitive thrust savings at 4%-8% because it delivers up to 4 times the sail area/vessel of existing leading professional WPS designs.
With adapted, shorter versions of those professional designs on this mounting, the vastly increased sail area will deliver at least doubled savings and a fully plug and play, standardised global fleet mounting infrastructure.
8. CONCLUSIONS
In order to rise to the challenge of mass deployment of wind assist devices across the 40,000 vessel global fleet wind assist technology providers must begin to discuss and design a standardised, modular mounting for wind assist devices. This proposed wind assist mounting infrastructure will:
- offer ship owners a one time WPS capital expenditure
- offer operators a plug and play interchangeability of WPS designs
- facilitate the rapid assessment and roll out of improved WPS designs in future
- give WPS designers the freedom to create new designs without having to worry about new mounting designs for each improved device.
Achieving this mass deployment will demand flexible thinking and a disruptive, collaborative approach. This will lead on to a disruptive, collaborative business organisation or entity, a DCE. This DCE will include member companies/institutions from across the shipping industry together with governments, finance houses and global bodies such as the IMO. Only with this sort of organisation will it be possible to scale up the delivery of this mass installation within the required time frame.
This necessarily monopoly provider will be co owned by the customers
The funding of this low yield, long term ROI, common good technology will have to be done through bonds. The suggestion is for a Decarbonisation Bond supported by international governments based on their GDP/capita.
The adoption of this DCE by the wind propulsion/shipping sector offers itself as a demonstrator of the business and funding structures that the decarbonisation of our entire industrial society will soon demand.
9. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I want to thank RINA and IWSA for allowing me the opportunity to have this paper included in the conference papers.
I want to thank Tuomas Riski for his help in guiding me to the public reports on the performance of the 2018 Norsepower/Maersk Pelican installation which I have used to generate the performance, CO2 savings and full life cycle carbon figures
I want to thank Gavin Allwright in particular for his continuing support
10. AUTHOR’S BIOGRAPHY
Alistair Johnson is a UK born Canadian, living in BC near Vancouver. After completing an anthropology degree at UCL in 1982 he has done a number of different things including post graduate research, running a property business, writing fiction and non fiction as books, tv, film and stage plays on a range of subjects including anthropology and molecular biology, this last with a focus on alternative models of the DNA molecule.
With a day job as a journeyman scaffolder his interest in wind assist began in 2010 and by 2016 he had a provisional patent filed and had completed wind tunnel testing and routing analysis on the Tig Rig design. He now holds patents for the Tig Rig in US, Canada, China, and Japan with Europe still being assessed by the examiner.