IS BC FERRIES MISSING THE BOAT?
By
William “Voltman” Thomas

In 2003, the government of British Columbia began a 15-year program to replace 22 of its 37 aging ferry vessels at an estimated cost of $1.2 billion. The initiative was long overdue. But are the right choices being made? [businessedge.ca]

With ridership across the Gulf of Georgia showing a steady upward trend, and the provincial population just as relentlessly growing, “obviously” Super-sizing three big new “boats” with enough unused car deck space to allow increased future capacity was one way to go.

Welcome to Peak Everything.

Just as BC Ferry's own projections predicted, compounding ferry fare increases are already seeing riders abandoning ship in droves. Besides further depressing ferry revenues, this rippling out effect is eroding the incomes of islanders, the many businesses they patronize - and the provincial tax base.

Can you spell m-y-o-p-i-c?

If the government's aim is to liberally destroy rural communities, stifle entrepreneurship and self-sufficiency, and depress their own tax and transportation revenues - you have to give them full marks.

Now what? Fuel prices are going to double and double again. More smaller ferries are going to have to be replaced. And surprise on surprise - with each increase in motor vehicle costs, there is a direct correlation between decreased in vehicular ferry use and increased foot passenger demand! [businessedge.ca]

Oops.

BOXED IN?
Here is an idea: If you happen to be sitting in a box placed atop a stove burner that is quickly being turned up - hop out of the box!

Where to?

Here are some headline hints:

“A contract has been awarded for the construction of an electric ferryboat to ply the Hudson River between Highland and Poughkeepsie which, according to the contractors, will be the first electric ferryboat around New York.”

That's from the New York Times. October 22, 1921 edition!

How about this recent echo:

Canal Boats, Inc., a division of Water Taxi out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida has launched its new bio-diesel/electric hybrid ferry. Sold to Florida's Mass Transit Department, Clay Shaw will be joined by other electric ferries to carry foot passengers through Broward County's 300-miles of canals.

Instead of using diesels to drive electric motors, like Gulf Islands ferries, these new Florida ferries are each powered by a bank of 40 6-volt lead-acid batteries driving a 240-volt electric motor.

The difference is major. Diesel motors hooked to propellers waste 70% of their energy in heat and friction; only 30% of the fuel burned actually turns the prop. Even then, torque does not rise until the RPMs are cranked on, increasing fuel use yet again.

Whether inside an electric hub, like my converted “BikeE” bicycle - or a ferryboat's propeller - electric motors deliver about 80% of their energy directly to the “wheel” - with instant massive torque, zero noise and zero carbon emissions.

How cool is that?

The Florida ferries recharge their battery banks with a 100KW John Deere bio-diesels burning an 80/20 mix of diesel fuel and vegetable oil. Sure, we're back to carbon emissions. But because each biodiesel is running a generator instead of a propeller, up to 50% less petroleum is being burned.

In Chattanooga, Tennessee (where I learned to be a rebel while attending a military academy there), a Coast Guard Certified 42-foot “Water Bus” manufactured by Canal Boats has been taking 72 mind blown passengers down the Tennessee River. [hybrid-vehicles.net]

In Austria, electric ferries carry up to 200 passengers on trips across lakes where petrol or diesel engines are banned.

Founded in 1970 in Costa Mesa, California, the Duffy Electric Boat Company is the largest producer of electric boats worldwide. Designed, tested and marketed on the Pacific Ocean Duffy's various-size, fully enclosed 48-volt electric launches are already proving ideal for short-haul ferry routes offering shoreside battery recharging between runs. ( Each boat is powered by 16 6-volt Deep Cycle Marine Batteries.)

In Milwaukee, where this writer attended university, a 12-passengers Duffy electric launch is shuttling people to different stops along the downtown RiverWalk. "It's another way to experience the river," says co-owner Aaron Kelly, who operates Inner Harbor Marine. Fares are $5 to ride one way. All-day fares l cost $10.

Desiring pollution-free people transport across precious bodies of freshwater, Belgium is into Duffy electric launches, too.

And the Singapore Zoo has also elected to operate four 21-foot electric Australia-produced Solarboats across a major drinking water reservoir. Full electric ferry service is scheduled to begin in June 2008. [solarboat.com.au; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Mar 14/08; myquietboat.be]

Vancouver False Creek shuttle-ferry operators take note!

ELECTRIC BOAT NEWS
Just before total outrage kicks in, you've got to admire how thoroughly Big Oil interests and their political pals have censored history. Did you know that the first cars, first airships and first engine-propelled boats all used electric motors?

At the turn of the 20th century, The 65-foot, 80 passenger Viscountess Bury plied the Thames between 1888 and 1910. Hundreds of other private and public Edwardian electric launches ranging from 15 to 45 feet overall hummed quietly along with her. In 1904, the world's biggest electric passenger ship, the 93-foot Victory, carried 350 passengers upriver above Westminster Bridge.

The Thames Valley Launch Company offered 29 electric launches for hire, many fitted with feathering propellers. In Leeds, the 70-foot Mary Gordon took either 75 adults or 120 children around Waterloo Lake. While Messrs Andrews & Sons electric Angler was whirring King Edward VII, Queen Alexandra and their royal party up the Thames, across the Atlantic, American millionaire John Jacob Astor's luxuriously fitted out 72-foot Utopia boasted twin 25-hp electric motors.

The more powerful, easily refueled internal combustion engine drove electric cars, airships, launches and ferries from land, skies and seas. But 100 years later, Rear Admiral Percy Gick and Lord St. Davids founded the Electric Boat Association after Admiral Gick took his electric Trentcraft cruiser 600 miles up the Thames, and Lord St. Davids hummed his electric-outboard-powered Silver Sail over 4,000 miles. During the 1980's, 200 “Frolic” fiberglass electric launches were sold in England alone.

WATTS UP?
Today's cheap, lead acid batteries store three-times the watt hours of their 1896 counterparts - and should last at least seven years if topped up with distilled water every few weeks, not discharged more than 80% of their capacity, and carefully recharged immediately after use. Nickel Metal Hydride batteries are half the weight, twice the cost and can be completely discharged in use.

This huge increase in power and range is doubled again with Lithium Ion batteries, which are half as light again - and about to see a major decrease in their currently breathtaking cost as 15 huge “Li-Ion” factories come online in China this year.

Looking at foot-passenger launches, a 6hp diesel engine is expensive, heavy, difficult to start, easily blocked by dirt in their injectors, and require even more heavy, expensive, maintenance-prone cooling and transmission systems. Not to mention increasingly scarce fuel.

The latest electric motors in widespread use are just 5" x 8" diameter, provide up to 8.5kw of power, weigh 24 pounds and are 90% efficient.

The more amps drawn by the motor, the higher the speed but the lower the running time. A 21-foot passenger launch drawing 50 Amps at 48 volts, for example, can reach a calm water speed of 6.5 mph with a range of 36 miles. This means power to spare to handle rougher waters, say between Denman and Hornby. And reduced recharging times between loads. [Boater June/98]

The End Of The Oil Age is now seeing interest in efficient, silent, pollution-free electric motors picking up some serious voltage. Developed at a cost of $50 million by NASA to power its Mars Rover, “the Electric Wheel seems an ideal marine motor,” reports the Electric Boat Association.

And not just for peapods. A heavy displacement, 50-foot wooden Herreshoff sailing yacht has already replaced her 45hp diesel with a 100KW Wheel. A 15kw generator to assist solar panels and a wind generator were also fitted to top up her 10 220-amp carbon fibre batteries.

Designer Dave Tether converted his own 33-foot heavy displacement cruising yacht into the prototype by replacing his heavy 22hp diesel with a bank of 10 deep-cycle marine batteries weighing 500 pounds, and a 50-pound Electric Wheel motor. Rated at just 4.5kw - or 6hp - the wheel propels his 9-ton Seaward at 6 knots for six hours.

There you have it: A far more efficient 6hp electric motor doing the work of a 22hp diesel. Scale that up, Bubba!

But wait… 18 months later Tether reported that he had never used his big generator, nor dockside charging facilities to recharge his boat's batteries.

Say what?

Turns out that when under sail, his propeller-driving electric motor becomes propeller-driven -spinning in reverse as a dynamo!

"It's an 80% efficient generator," Tether teases. With a ratio of sailing to motoring time of say, 4:1 there is plenty of time for charging. And the changeover is instantaneous. Even when motoring, if the boat slides down a wave, the “motor” will instantly start charging.

Try that in your Cadillac!

GO FIGURE
An 18hp diesel currently costs $7,500. The price for a 4kw Wheel equivalent is $6,500 - and heading fast for $5,500 to $4,500. Go ahead, add another $1,000 for batteries - and forget the diesel fuel tank, fuel system, exhaust system, stern gear, maintenance maintenance maintenance.

And fuel.

Forever!

"The key to it all," insists naval architect John Perryman, "is to dispense with the generator and exploit the self-generating properties of a DC motor such as the Wheel being 'driven' by a variable pitch propeller when the yacht is sailing. Fit a Kort-type nozzle around the prop, and you could improve thrust by as much as 40%, which also means 40% improvement in battery duration."

What's next?

Zemar's “Electrochemical Engine” combines hydrogen carried in a fuel tank (“cell”) with oxygen from the surrounding air to produce electricity and water. The electrical energy is stored in batteries to feed the electric motor. You can drink the pure water. Noiseless and far cheaper to run than a conventional engine, the ECE is claimed to be "the marine power of the millennium". No moving parts! The ECE's only drawback is a current cost of $16,000 for 5kw of power.

Patented by a Scot in 1816, Victron Energie's “external combustion” Sterling engine is allegedly 90% efficient. “Noise levels are that of a fridge,” Electric Boat reports.

And hey!

“Don't forget sails,” urges this online and print magazine - “the ultimate energy-saving device, invented over 5,000 years ago.” [electric-boat-association.org.uk]

A popular attraction during the Sydney 2000 Olympics, the following year, the world's first solar powered ferry won the Australian Design Award of the Year. She also won the International Cargo Handling and Co-coordinating Authority's award for “outstanding initiatives in cargo handling.” [ABC Innovations Feb 20/01]

Solar Sailor says its intention is to take their technology to the world: “Green ferries for blue highways.”

Dr. David Suzuki agrees. The Canadian eco-icon launched his book, Good News For A Change by giving interviews onboard a Solar Sailor in Sydney.

FERRY WINGS
For those ready to fly out of the inter-island passenger box, airship ferries are just about here.

Again.

In May 1914, the New York Times reported on an “aerial ferry" that had just started "carrying passengers regularly" across San Francisco Bay.” The tickets did not mention swimming. But balloonist Silas Christofferson, his aerial ferryboat, Airmaid, and a woman and man riding as plucky passengers were towed ashore after going for a dip in the bay. [New York Times May 15/1914]

Nearly a century later, the 75-meter German Zeppelin NT (“New Technology”) has logged over 10,000 flight hours carrying a dozen passengers and two pilots over Germany's Lake Constance with no incidents other than euphoria.

Unlike the 900-foot Graf Zeppelins, also flown without accident in regularly scheduled service across the Atlantic Ocean from Brazil to Berlin in the 1920's and 1930's, two 100hp tilt-rotor engines provide helicopter-like agility for their smaller namesake. Two more aft-mounted engines help push these 250-foot dirigibles at around 70 mph.

Being aerostatic - the same density as the air around it - the Zeppelin NT never really settles on the ground. “It just bounces to a stop on its single wheel, balancing there and pirouetting with the wind like some graceful, ballet-loving whale,” says one smitten passenger. “Basically, you're flying in a big wrap-around picture window, which bubbles out so you can look straight down if you want to.” [airshipventures.com; zimbio.com ]

NT Airships are now regularly flying in Germany, Japan, England, China, Africa and the Caribbean. In September 2008, another NT will be wafting delighted passengers over California's “wine country” in the Napa Valley.

UP SHIP!
Voyager Airships expects to complete DOT Certification for its slightly bigger dirigible in early 2009. Based in Newmarket, Ontario, this advanced Canadian airship will accommodate 19 passengers and 2 pilots in much more spacious gondola offering “plenty of walk-around space and magnificent panoramic views from the finest window seats in the world.”

Whether a partial glass-bottom floor induces awe or vertigo, an onboard washroom and a bar will succor airship initiates. (Or remove the "pub" and booze for more seats.)

The Voyager is powered by 4 turbo-diesel motors mounted in ducts far enough from the gondola to assure low noise outside the airship - and conversations “at a normal level” in the magic-carpet cabin.

With maximum speed in still air of just over 100 km/h, a Voyager or one of her bigger cousins could float passengers in and out of islands along the BC coast in winds up to 30 mph. Easily maneuverable at all speeds from zero to full, their ability to land and take-off vertically requires only one or two ground crew members to assist. [zimbio.com]

With at least six companies currently flying production or prototype airships, electric motors run by fuel cells or lightweight batteries recharged by acres of solar panel skins - augmented by plug-in power on the ground - are also under development.

ARE WE OUT OF THE BOX YET?
"Little" 20-passenger 250-foot airships may be too small and weather-restricted to replace high volume, inter-island ferries. But what about gas-gulping floatplanes? What about scaling back our needs and expectations? (Think "sustainable".) Though airships and electric launches can be scaled up, the real point is to start getting ahead of the Peak Oil-Climate Shift curve with innovative solutions - while we still have enough affordable energy to act.

When BC begins offering prizes for Sustainable Transport afloat and ashore, we'll be on the right course at last. Till then, if you or your offspring plan to be moving by motor across land, sea or sky beyond the next few decades - start considering: “Voltswagens”!

Alas.

The trap of conventional practice is how quickly it is rendered irrelevant and obsolete by changing technologies, distant events - and instant public response to stabbing pain inflicted on their fiscal pressure points.

It seems only common sense that that North American corporate managers dealing with fuel-guzzling motor vehicles, jet airliners or big ferries would notice skyrocketing oil prices and carbon emissions about to intersect at the edge of a precipice - beyond which any petroleum-powered conveyance would plunge to extinction like the dinosaurs they'd become.

But nothing, it seems, is more uncommon than common sense. Amazingly, officials elected and hired to foresee were too busy raising their already exorbitant salaries to catch the “Bridge Out” signs we are speeding past.

So here we are. Fuel prices are climbing almost as fast as atmospheric carbon, melting icesheets threaten to render every ferry ramp on the BC coast inoperable, and North American's first carbon tax is about to impact each BC fuel user.

EASY DOES IT
This 100-passenger vessel can be operated by a single captain and a deck hand - an important consideration in BC, where many of the fleet's most experienced hands are nearing or already past retirement and nonsense-tolerance age. Wing positions are monitored and adjusted by computer for optimum sailing, while closed circuit TV aids visibility round the vessel. No fossil-fuels are stored or burned below deck.

Primarily powered by solar and wind energy, Dobert Dane's first $3 million Solar Sailor continues to ferry 100 passengers across Sydney Harbour at 12-14 knots with virtually no wake washing onshore. While world governments grapple with rising fuel and carbon pollution costs, the Solar Sailor is already annually saving a quarter-million litres of diesel fuel and 670 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

No wonder, the BBC calls this marine transportation technology as "possibly the greatest evolution in boats since the advent of steam."

Still, bucking long-established, soon extinct thinking and technology can be as tough as trying to talk sense to an addict. As the company itself says: “The key challenge in marketing to a traditional industry is building their awareness of the long term benefits both to the hip pocket and to the planet: lower operating costs, improved reliability and technology that exceeds all existing and proposed environmental regulations.”

Happily, the Solar Sailor is making enough compelling sense for former Australian Prime Minister turned company chairman Bob Hawke to bring these “bio-mimicking” watercraft - along with hybrid electric power systems and Flexicell solar panels - to Taiwan, China, Singapore and the USA, where San Francisco city managers are considering “going electric” to carry people across the Bay to Sausalito.

Already, with her 168 square-metres of “solar-sail” panels unfurled, the Solar Sailor “has exceeded the operator' expectations and received universal positive feedback from customers,” the company reports.

"The operators love it, the passengers love it, and it produces zero water pollution," Dare enthuses. “We have designs for inter island trade-wind vessels where the wings extend beyond the beam of the boat, and have a higher aspect ratio when sailing,” he adds. “We have concept vessels where the wing not only uses solar and wind power but also creates lift.” [San Francisco Chronicle Feb 6/01; solarsailor.com; solarnavigator.net; solarsailor.com.au]

So far, more than 50 “expressions of interest” have been received from tourism, eco-tourism and passenger transport markets - including San Francisco.

SOLAR SAILOR
While British Columbians argue over oil-driven ferry coasts, way Down Under, Aussie sailor Robert Dane scanned sea and sky and realized: The two most abundant forces on the water are the sun and the wind. Why not invent a solar wing than can sail and collect solar energy?

So he did.

As Dane explains his 1996 invention: “It is modeled on nature where insects evolved wings initially as solar collectors and then used them to fly. Integrated with back up electric power storage and generation, the solar wing creates a vessel that is reliable, versatile, potentially has unlimited range, can refuel at sea, is economical, pleasant to be on and has minimal impact on the environment.”

Patented in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Turkey and 26 other regions, his uniquely flexible, high-efficiency “Solar Wings” allow his ferryboats to sail.

At the same time, solar collectors covering each pivoting wingfoil channel photons arriving three-million miles from the sun into lead-acid gel batteries that drive a high-efficiency electric motor. Featuring only one moving part, this maintenance-free motor drives the ship's propeller directly without the need for a gearbox.

If it gets windy, the wings are over-engineered to withstand more than 40 knots of wind before being stowed for protection. (Photo above.) Then a propane-powered diesel generator kicks in to charge the batteries, which continue to drive the propeller. The fuel burned is at least 50% more efficient because the batteries - not the diesel - run the electric motor. Even under LPG power generation, there are zero diesel fumes, zero particulate emissions - and 50% less greenhouse gas emissions.

The aluminum vessel herself has an expected lifespan of at least 30 years. Recharging off the grid using overnight off-peak power, the batteries are expected to last 8 years. When not in use the ship pumps power back into the grid, earning peak rebates for her owners, Captain Cook Cruises.

When the “green” of the planet matches the “green” in your wallet, it's time to shout, “Win-Win!"

I LEFT MY HEART IN ALCATRAZ
MSNB's Miguel Llanos reports that two Solar Sailor tourist ferries “powered in part by the wind and the sun” will soon carry visitors across San Francisco Bay to Alcatraz island.

“The public is going to be excited to get on a vessel like that,” says Hornblower President Terry MacRae. Especially since they will not be incarcerated at the infamous prison.

“Riding one of these ferries will be like switching from a gas-guzzling SUV to a hybrid car,” chimes in Teri Shore, “Director for Clean Vessels” at Bluewater Network, an enviro group supporting the project. “The ferries will get far better mileage and pollute half as much because they will run on electricity or sail much of the time.”

The costs could be around $5 million each - about 50% more than a diesel-only ferry.

“Bluewater likened the overall concept to a gasoline-electric hybrid car, only in this case it would be diesel-electric,” Lianos writes. The original hubrid boat, which provides solar-electric-sail ferry service across Australia's Sydney Harbour uses a propane-powered generator to recharge batteries as necessary.

As Bluewater describes it, “Large batteries on board the vessels will store electricity generated by the diesel generators and collected by solar panels. The electricity then powers the electric motors.”

Once in service within two years, the first of four ferries will unfurl its solar wings to sail across the notoriously windy bay. The diesel generators will be shut down. and the vessels plugged into an shorepower when alongside the boarding ramp.

Advanced pollution controls on the low-sulfur fueled generators will cut emissions by 70 to 90 percent compared to conventional marine diesels.

“In the event of an earthquake or other disaster,” Bluewater adds, “the boats can operate at low speeds for emergency purposes on wind and electricity without any fuel, and could potentially help to shuttle commuters across the bay if necessary.” [MSNBC May 25/06]

Is anyone in Vancouver or Victoria listening?