I love all the multi-mode power options being trialed by the shipping industry right now. This article does a surprisingly good job of surveying all of the different options (that I am aware of, at least), from rigid sails, to hull design, to wings of various sizes and shapes: https://www.theengineer.co.uk/wind-ships-marine-propulsion/ One particular detail of the Airseas "Seawing" idea (basically a kite/parasail off the front of the ship) caught my fancy, and that's the device mounted on the parasail that causes it to constantly adjust outside of its "comfort zone" and be in a constant state of correction. Apparently the parasail is most efficient when returning to equilibrium, so the automated control systems always keep it slightly out of balance, to increase the amount of time it is operating at maximum efficiency! What a weird world. But I LOVE a future where ALL power systems everywhere are multi-modal, and derive their energy from multiple sources. That's a future full of innovation and good jobs.
So, as someone who's actively thinking about what our future looks like because I'm getting ready to write a speculative fiction novel, this is something I'd thought about as a potential solution, and it's interesting to look at the ways in which people are starting to work around fossil fuel without batteries.
Oouu, biopunk. will check out, for sure, if only to see what he thinks about energy storage. Flywheels, gravity batteries, springs, it's all interesting but none of them solve the problem as effectively as chemical batteries do. I could create some sort of magic to do it, but I'd rather see what I can extrapolate from first.
"Flywheels" made me think of an interesting test that was done with city buses in Germany, I think. A giant flywheel was mounted horizontally under the floorboards of the bus, and "charged up" when the bus was in motion. As the bus pulled away from each stop, it used the stored power of the spinning flywheel to do the hard work of getting the bus up to speed. Which allowed the bus to have a tiny engine (like a 3-cylinder, or something crazy like that!), and still carry a full load of passengers. Of course, a spinning flywheel has a LOT of potential energy stored, and any little problem can cause them to come apart, and destroy everything around them. So they developed a flywheel that was entirely spun of fiber (maybe carbon fiber? kevlar? can't recall), so if anything went wrong, the whole thing instantly turned itself into a giant ball of fluff! All the potential energy was released in one massive discombobulation that resulted in a cavity full of cotton candy, rather than pieces of metal flying everywhere in the cabin of the bus. I assume this didn't work out in the end, because I heard of this maybe 20 years ago? And haven't heard peep of it since then.
So, Baader-Meinhoff, I just saw a video on this the other day, maybe even yesterday. They were also used in the Phillipines. I think the idea was ... "fine"? But not good enough to keep improving as the cost of gas was cheap. Definitely something swipeable for future-tech.
hahahahaha was wondering why there was no pictures of BAR's design anywhere. ------------------------------------------- I am a sucker for anything about sailing though. BAR and B9 are both talking about essentially a normal tanker/bulk ship and just raising sail & cutting the engines back when running down wind. A hull that can sail cross or up wind is completely different than a hull that can carry heavy cargo. The Preussen is the largest sailing cargo ship ever built (in 1902, after steam ships had already shown sail was done for) and it had a capacity of 8000 tons. 8000 tons is a small coastal tanker by today's comparison. The biggest are half a million tons now.