I bet you can’t say the title three times fast. Here is something that never crossed my mind that could be done with Solar Energy and that is to put them on tankers. At the end of last month Australian Sailor Company had announced that they would make a deal with China’s biggest shipping lane which is COSCO. What they are planning on doing here is placing huge solar powered sails to power and push the tanker.

Each solar powered sail will be 30 meters long and are expected to catch enough wind energy to reduce fuel costs between 20-40%. The solar panels added will then be used to power 5% of the boats electricity. A computer installed will then automatically angle the sails so that they catch as much wind as possible. If everything works out the way they plan it to these sails are expected to pay themselves off in about 4 years.

This is definitely one of the things that I would like to see in person because just by looking at the pictures it looks pretty cool. I’m only imagining the looks on peoples faces that haven’t heard of it. You can take a look at some of the planning pictures below. via th