Engineering On The Edge

Reducing fuel consumption for an individual car can result in some savings for the owner; reducing fuel consumption for a massive oil tanker can reduce costs by hundreds of thousands of dollars per trip.

Sauter Carbon Offset Design (headed by chief designer Richard Sauter) has come up with an innovative design for a hybrid supertanker that could save millions in fuel costs while reducing greenhouse gas emissions, all using existing technologies. We last told you about  Sauter in September when the company introduced a new super yacht design. The proposed supertanker would rely on liquid natural gas (LNG) for 50% of its power, and obtain the other half from solar and wind sources.

The Emax Deliverance is a 2 million barrel, 330,000 DWT supertanker designed for the recently enlarged locks at the Panama Canal. The ship would be longer, narrower, and have less draft than previous ships, and thus produce less drag; that, in conjunction with a hybrid propulsion system, would reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by 35%, according to Sauter. Emax is expected to generate an additional 20% to 30% reduction using 500,000-square-meter DynaWing boom furling sails, and another 15% to 20% reduction via a Solbian solar power generating array.

Under Sauter’s proposed design, the ship would leverage a “bubble” hull from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries that reduces frictional resistance between the vessel hull and seawater using air bubbles. The Mitsubishi Air Lubrication (MAL) system is already going to be included in the design of three grain carriers for Archer Daniels Midland. Sauter also used Wartsila‘s LNG hybrid power systems in the design.

According to Sauter, oil companies could conceivably save $60 million per year in operating costs over a traditional tanker.

Sauter previously revealed another hybrid tanker design, the Black Magic. There are some hybrid and solar ships already in operation. You can see photos of the German Planetsolar ship here. NYK Lines also operates a solar-powered cargo ship (the car carrier M/V Auriga Leader), which you can read about here.

Source: Sauter Carbon Offset Design