Green Materials

[sam shepherd]

Hello everybody,

I was hoping to open a discussion on green boat building materials and green techniques of building. What are the least damaging materials to the environment to use for large vessels (say over 40-50m), and are there any techniques for building that are environmentally friendy. Does going green relate to a much more expensive product? Will it be economically viable in the near future? I am just trying to research the boat building industries carbon footprint and would love to hear some experienced opinions.

Thanks

Sam

[marshmat]

Does going green relate to a much more expensive product? Most certainly not! While there are companies out there pushing "green" materials and technology that costs a fortune, if you're really interested in minimizing the environmental impact of your build, you'll be looking for locally sourced materials, often recycled or used materials, stuff that hasn't had an excessive amount of factory processing and that hasn't been shipped back and forth in multiple trucks and trains. If current theories of economics make any sense at all, taking out all that "value added" transport and processing ought to reduce your costs, if anything. Where there will be added costs is in cleaning up old-tech equipment such as engines and refrigeration loops to meet new standards; the standards are evolving quickly right now and it's expensive for manufacturers to keep up. Once the requirements stabilize somewhat and the various technologies involved become more widespread, the costs will drop, just as has happened with EFI, catalytic converters, PCV systems, and all that jazz.
What are the least damaging materials to the environment to use for large vessels (say over 40-50m) Jeeperz. Big boats! Wood's renewable, at least if you buy it from folks who are managing the forests sustainably. (That's not hard to do, just ask some of the better logging firms in northern Ontario, who are finding that it's more profitable long-term to harvest sustainably and keep the ecosystem reasonably intact so that it can regenerate. Look up the Forest Stewardship Council.) But it's hard to build 50+ m ships in wood. Recycled steel is plentiful, and brings substantially less (although not zero) environmental impact than virgin steel. Same for recycled aluminum; the recycling techniques for that metal are now good enough that the difference from virgin aluminum is only noticeable with ultra-thin anodized finishes, and even then just barely so.

On the designer's end, there's plenty of opportunity to try to extract the best possible fuel economy out of the ship. Even if the build costs go up slightly, the owner's fuel bills can drop dramatically, and he then has the added benefit of being able to advertise that he's doing what he can to be low-environmental-impact. Look at Steve & Linda Dashew's FPB 83 prototype, Wind Horse, compared to a typical 40-tonne production motoryacht as an example of how changes in design philosopy at the front end can translate to substantial reductions in both the owner's operating costs and the pollution produced by the vessel.

Will it be economically viable in the near future? It's economically viable now. If you start from the beginning of the design phase, a commercial or institutional building (projects I'm familiar with) or in your case a big boat can be made much cleaner and more efficient at very little added cost; the extra cost of a few of the advanced systems gets paid off by the energy savings over the years. There's no reason why a boatbuilder should need to increase his costs significantly in order to clean up his environmental impact. It's more a matter of being aware of your supply and waste chains, and changing old habits accordingly. I know of at least one major construction project where less than 2% of the construction debris ended up in landfill. It was all sorted, recycled and resold at minimal net cost.

I wouldn't call this an "experienced opinion", but I am a LEED AP and have worked on two solar cars and several "green buildings" projects. The principles of 'cleaning up your act' are essentially the same regardless of which industry you're looking at, although the actual technologies and solutions chosen will be different.

[sam shepherd]

marshmat,

cheers for a quick reply. Im interested in the recycled aluminium. Would you think that using imported recycled aluminium from across the globe would be better than using virgin aluminium from the location of build. I suppose where I am going with this is what energy costs are involved in the recycling process. All the best

Sam

[marshmat]

Here's a report from the US DOE on the energy intensity of aluminum production: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mecs/iab/aluminum/page2e.html It's about eight years out of date but the processes haven't changed significantly in that time. Ballpark figures: try about 4 kg of bauxite, 13 kWh of electricity and about 0.5 kg of petroleum coke for every kilogram of virgin aluminum. For recycled, about 0.6 to 0.7 kWh per kg of aluminum. By going with recycled, you're saving 12 kWh and 0.5 kg of coke for every kg of aluminum; this would have to more than offset all the transportation fuel. (Which it probably will, but you'd have to do the calculation for your particular case.)

[PAR]

Duct tape and empty milk jugs. Lots of milk jugs if your need armor plate . . .

[rasorinc]

I'm a wood man. In the Pacific Northwest you have Douglas Fir, Western Larch, Alaskan Cedar plus a few other boat building woods. Wood lasts generations when taken care of and now with epoxy it can last hundreds of years. Just my vote on materials. All of these lumbers are farmed trees. Be very careful of recyled aluminum if it is imported--They can lie about the grades and do. You have some great wood for boat building in OZ

[sam shepherd]

geez,
great info guys. can a wood hull compare to an aluminium hull for a luxury motor yacht? getting the curves right would be very difficult i would imagine. A vessel from wood would cost alot more wouldn't it? Are there ongoing maintenance costs that are significant? Do you know the main plantations used in the marine industry?

[Jimbo1490]

The US is currently growing ~9 billion (9 thousand million) board feet of lumber in the Pacific NW every year; yet currently harvesting only ~1 billion board feet. Please, use some lumber before it just burns up:rolleyes:

Jimbo

[sam shepherd]

jimbo,

do you have any sites that sell that lumber?

[rasorinc]

Wood will cost less than aluminum. The curves will look and be better. The maintenance is the same if done right with epoxy. The strength of wood is greater than aluminum. And you need less flotation. Need I say more. Use ironbark (eucalyptus) which grows in your backyard and is farmed. Wood is at it's lowest cost in over 40 years. You can fill a small container for under $6,000.00 and shipping costs are way down also.

[PAR]

Epoxy's base chemicals are petroleum based, so not so green after all. The trees are harvested with lots of diesel sucking machines, also not very green, though renewable.

Vessels of 120 to 150+ feet can't be made of wood very economically, compared to other materials, even with modern methods, goos and techniques. There's nothing especially economical about a vessel this size.

Sail power and alternative energy sources will help lower operating cost, but building realistically, vessels of this size are so well out of the realm of "pleasure craft" that being "green" is purely advertising fodder. This is particularly true when it sucks down more fuel in 5 minutes of operation, then a year's fuel supply for the average pleasure craft (about 10% it's size).

There are only commercial and naval applications for boats of this size, other then the opulent flaunts of the ostentatious. It certainly is a consideration for both the commercial and naval fleets. The latest breeds of naval and commercial craft have been addressing efficiency to a fairly high degree. No one, (business or government) wants to pay more for operation then they have to, but doing so "green" just isn't cost effective yet.

Mandates and legislation will change this, but as yet very little of this has occurred. Once everyone is completely convinced we are over the "hump" in oil production, then we'll see some huge gains, because we'll be on the downward slope of oil reserves. Currently, there's considerable debate as to when the hump will be reached. Personally I think we've just crossed it, but many suggest this will not occur until 2010 - 2012, with some head in the sand types thinking this will be in 2030. When everyone is on the same page and sucking the dregs from the bottom of the current holes we've drilled, things will change quickly. In the 10 years following this "revelation" just about every imaginable alternative fuel source will be seriously developed by the same stalwarts of the current energy suppliers.

As far as "green" ship building, well, it's the least of their concerns right now, so research is quite limited, but this too will change.

Maybe once they figure out how a barnacle manufactures it's glue, we'll be able to use seaweed and a synthetic version of this goo to laminate kelp ship hulls (reinforced with synthetic silk), with genetically enhanced bamboo superstructures, propelled by cloned super sized octopus that have been breed to cling to the ship and drive it on command (or electrical shock).

[sam shepherd]

ive used those octopi, and they work great, for some reason the female is better than the male. I understand that "luxury pleasure craft" are ridiculous but the fact is that more are being made now than ever. The chinese have got a taste for them and there is no turning back, these superyachts will continue to be made and if we can help to reduce the carbon footprint by any means it would correspond to quite a savings to the environment. I have not found many "superyachts" that are made from wood, and im sure that the cost of build is far too high and i am wondering if it is at all possible? what are the limiting techniques, given that cost is not a factor? thanks for your comments PAR.

Sam

[PAR]

I know of a 150' strip planked ketch, done in the last 15 years.

Yes, there are a surprising number of mega yachts being built, but their concerns with being green has typically taken a back set to looking cool and being bigger then the film producer, next door neighbor's recent purchase.

China will be the last to go green. They'll "span the gap of empty oil well holes with the bodies of workers", before thinking about green anything. You're talking about probably the most potential for decades of environmental abuse the world has ever seen, making even the USA's abuses pale in comparison. They're just at the beginning and their social and political arrangements are just ripe for long term, undisclosed abuses that could take centuries to dislodge.

Green and China in the same sentence is much like mentioning ethics and politicians in the same breath.

[rasorinc]

hear / here Par

[kerosene]

marshmat,

cheers for a quick reply. Im interested in the recycled aluminium. Would you think that using imported recycled aluminium from across the globe would be better than using virgin aluminium from the location of build. I suppose where I am going with this is what energy costs are involved in the recycling process. All the best

Sam

As far as I know by far most (80-90%) aluminum is recycled - processing virgin aluminum is extremely energy intensive thus recycling is pretty efficient.
As a result using "recycled" aluminum doesn't really provide much difference to just "normal" aluminum boats.

Aluminum is not very eco-friendly at all. :(

edit: marshmat cover aluminum's issues already. Just wanted to add that with this kind of material that is efficiently recycled the use will directly result in need of more virgin material. While one could boast that he uses recycled material its not really that good if more needs to be mined to replace it.

[sam shepherd]

ok,

so all materials we use for boat building are obviously bad, but unfortunately they will still be built, so what do we think is the best option for building a luxury superyacht.

thanks everyone.

[rasorinc]

If It Is To Be Green--------it Is Wood, Wood, Wood, Wood.........Old Ironside is over 225 years old. White oak clad in pig iron
a perfect recipe for fast Rot. She still floats in Boston Harbor.

[PAR]

Actually The USS Constitution (only 212 years old) is built from live oak, which is in the white oak family, but a much more dense and tougher material then regular whites, because of it's interlocking grain and specific gravity.

Efforts could be made to green up mega yachts, though I don't see an incentive for them to do so currently. It's all about legislation and availability. If you don't have to, because you're not required to, then it generally doesn't get done. If green products are more readily available then conventional materials (or more cost effective), then these will get used.

So long as special interests, conservative political action influences and big industry essentially run our governments, then you can rest assured the status quo will remain for as long as possible. They're not going to willingly knock over their own apple carts, they'll have to be forced.

Why do you think no major push has been made by all automotive manufactures to get more environmentally friendly cars out there? They've done 20 year projections and damn well have known what's coming, but the market isn't there yet, so why bother. The same is true of all the "new alternative energy" industries. Solar has been telling the world, "the next big break through in battery technology will do it" for the last 40 years. The funds aren't being supplied, because the oil and related industries are either buying controlling interests and breaking them up or through the use of politician pressure, insuring they don't get federal help. Wind power is rising, but it too has to butt heads with the well entrenched petrol based industries and is having the same difficulties. In fact all the new "green" industries are up against a wall of corporate greed and old school politicians who know where their re-election funds are coming from.

See, most don't realize what actually comes out of a barrel of crude. Yep, gas, diesel, aviation fuel, etc., right? Wrong. All plastics, including our precious epoxy, the vast majority of cosmetics, huge hunks of medical equipment and supplies, including medications, all man made fabrics. The list is massive folks.

We are so entrenched in petrol chemicals, that it will take nearly world wide collapse to instill change. I was hoping this latest "adjustment" (price spikes this past summer) would be the jump start needed, but it was an unsustainable attempt by OPEC.

Now in 5 years, when the oil production hump is clearly passed and China and India's consuming needs rise at predicted rates, then the hand writing will be on the wall and change will begin (slowly). By then the petrol industries, which will have been heavily divested into these green industries, will call in their "markers" on their hedged bets, made in the last couple of decades and they'll remain in control of the energy supplies of the world, which is the whole point of their existence. They'll still have the political might, the purse strings and the sources of supply.

Why do you think the oil man T. Boon Pickens is all hopped up about going natural gas? Maybe he's seen the future in a vision? He's talking about our dependence on foreran oil (which he's heavily invested in by the way) right? Wrong. He's one of the counties largest producers of natural gas and sitting on a gold mine if he can get it shoved down our throats. He doesn't care about our oil dependence. He does care that his reserves are running dry and would really like to sell his huge stock piles of natural gas though. It's a simple business decision for him, not as he'd have you believe and a moral issue.

[Boston]

simple way to look at green building materials is by observing the embodied energy of each material considered

plank on frame, steam bent, bronze fastened uses no epoxies, little metal and most likely has the lowest footprint

I would think composite or aluminum construction would have the highest embodied energy and so the largest footprint

good luck and great question
B

[PAR]

I would think the largest footprint would be a 'glass hull. It's entirely made from petrol chemicals.

[Boston]

http://www.yourbuilding.org/download/attachments/7635060/Energy%20figure%2017.jpg

fiber glass reenforsing mats are about 55
epoxy is about 125
I think the ratio is suposed to be 60% mat and 40% resin

aluminum is about 230

wood kiln dried about 0.5

[peter radclyffe]

Hello everybody,

I was hoping to open a discussion on green boat building materials and green techniques of building. What are the least damaging materials to the environment to use for large vessels (say over 40-50m), and are there any techniques for building that are environmentally friendy. Does going green relate to a much more expensive product? Will it be economically viable in the near future? I am just trying to research the boat building industries carbon footprint and would love to hear some experienced opinions.

Thanks

Sam
hello, pine ,larch, a lot of the big wartime wooden boats, they lasted well were strong & the timber was/ is often closer to the yard, & quick to grow & less toxic to work, like a lot of industries, the super yacht one will not adapt to new materials because their all in bed with each others support ,their afraid to change, really what % of a modern yacht is green? almost none of it ,as so many firms are going bust this may be a good time for you to educate them to new less selfish ways

[kerosene]

"Bauxite is strip mined (surface mining) because it is found at the surface, with little or no overburden. Approximately 95% of the world's bauxite production is processed into aluminium. Bauxites are typically classified according to their intended commercial application: metallurgical, abrasive, cement, chemical and refractory.

here's how. Bauxites are heated in pressure vessels with sodium hydroxide solution at 150-200 °C through which aluminium is dissolved as aluminate (Bayer process). After separation of ferruginous residue (red mud) by filtering, pure gibbsite is precipitated when the liquor is cooled and seeded with fine grained aluminium hydroxide. Gibbsite is converted into aluminium oxide by heating. This is molten at approx. 1000 °C by addition of cryolite as a flux and reduced to metallic aluminium by a highly energy-consumptive electrolytic process (the Hall-Héroult process). "

Creating aluminum is extremely energy intensive.

[Jimbo1490]

There's so much aluminum already refined that exists as 'scrap', that aluminum is actually not as energy intensive in the 'real world' because it recycles so easily. Recycling aluminum is not terribly energy intensive.

Jimbo

[Boston]

well this graph got butchered in the process but you can still clearly see that the even just a portion of the embodied energy of aluminum in its recycled form is about 190 times that of virgin wood which is listed in a previous post

190 times is a significant number
and remember this graph only deals with the btu's involved in one step of the process so the actual embodied energy is higher

think of it this way
it takes about 19 times more energy to smelt glass cullet than it does to re-manufacture aluminum

making recycled aluminum probably the most energy intensive re-manufacturing process other than maybe titanium

Energy required
to produce from
virgin material
(million Btu/ton)

Energy saved
by using
recycled materials
(percentage)

Aluminum
250

95

Plastics
98

88

Newsprint
29.8

34

Corrugated Cardboard
26.5

24

Glass
15.6

5

[Jimbo1490]

Boston,

Try to reformat that, it seems all the data got

dis

com

bob
u
lat
ed


:D

Jimbo

[Boston]

working on it
thanks for the tip

sorry that data wont come up in the form it is originally
basically if you read the top number from directly under the material its the btu in millions per ton from virgin ore
the second number is from recycled material

so aluminum is 250 million btu per ton new
and 95 million btu per ton recycled

pretty much the highest of em all
at least on that list

[rasorinc]

Wood..............................We have many,many, many tree farms. It is the Greenest material. And if cared for, lasts the longest.

[Boston]

ya the embodied energy of wood all types except teak is something like 0.5
hands down the most enviromentally friendly thing to build out of
now if we can just come up with some good old fashioned glue instead of all the chemically heinous stuff like epoxy and the formaldehyde based glues

[peter radclyffe]

ya the embodied energy of wood all types except teak is something like 0.5
hands down the most enviromentally friendly thing to build out of
now if we can just come up with some good old fashioned glue instead of all the chemically heinous stuff like epoxy and the formaldehyde based glues

did your ancestors arrive in a boat built without glue, we dont need glue

[Boston]

actually my ancestors were already here

http://swa-gaming.org/files/BigIndianTransparentFixed.png

[peter radclyffe]

actually my ancestors were already here

http://swa-gaming.org/files/BigIndianTransparentFixed.png
how interesting where did they come from

[Boston]

anthropologists are always trying to BS there way rather than admitting they dont know
lots of theories but no real consensus as to the origins of man in the America's
some say walked from a land bridge
some say sailed from Polynesia
some might even say aliens did it
in the end they dont have a clue

[Jimbo1490]

And then there's the Melungeons

:D

Jimbo