MNN - Mother Nature Network

My buddy Philip Proefrock over at EcoGeek found a cool story about a project to test the efficiency-boosting properties of blasting tiny bubbles of air over the bottom of cargo ship hulls. In theory, the bubbles will act like a lubricant and allow the ship to move through the water using less energy. The bubbles would be released through custom blowers placed all over the hull and could cut a ship's fuel use by 5-20 percent. Even a 5 percent reduction in fuel costs on a ship that burns thousands of gallons of fuel per hour adds up to big savings, and cargo ships burn bunker oil, a particularly dirty variety of oil, so every gallon that we can prevent from being burned is a small step in the right direction.

 

Click over to Midwest Energy News for the full story.

 

It's crucial that we figure out how to move our cargo around the world using a whole lot less oil, and eventually we'll need to find a way to do it without using any oil. Another fuel-saving technology that's being tested uses high-flying kites attached to the cargo ships to harness the power of wind to pull them along.

 

 

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