Well, it seems like not only the cars of the future will be powered by solar energy as two Japanese companies unveiled a project consisting of world’s first solar powered ship. Nippon Yusen KK and Nippon Oil Corp said the the ship will be just “partially solar-powered” thanks to the solar panels and each will generate around 40 kilowatts of electricity.
The ship will be a 60,000-ton, will transport cars of the Toyota Motor Corporation, and “the ship system is expected to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1 to 2%, or about 20 tons per year,” said Hideyuki Dohi, GM at Nippon Oil Corp.
Although Nippon Yusen KK will subsidize $1.4 million for this solar-powered ship project, the fact that this will lead to a cleaner world helps the company to forget about the money. If the estimations are correct, the solar panels would lead to a 6.5% less fuel usage, however, we are expecting to see this percentage highly increased until the ship will not be powered by diesel engines (but this is many years away.)
“If it’s possible, we want to aim for the full commercialization of the system in the next three to five years,” said Ikutoshi Matsumura, executive vice-president at Nippon Oil Corp, but in the meantime the ship should be completed by December this year.
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Does the picture of the aircraft carrier relate to the story in some way, or is that just some kind of ecoporn?
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:42 pm
‘Shopped!