Cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland 'was loaded with spying equipment'

Re:Cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland 'was loaded with s... by reactordev on Saturday December 28, 2024 @12:01AM (#42528731)

Ships are often balanced between providing power and consuming it. Excess power gen is wasted fuel. Excess power draw is a blackout so it’s very typical of a ships captain or owner to max out power consumption while minimizing power generation. Its a cost index.

I do this on my own sailboat with a solar power source and battery setup.

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Re:Cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland 'was loaded with s... by applied_heat on Saturday December 28, 2024 @01:59AM (#42529164)

Diesel generators simply use less fuel if there is less load than the maximum.

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Re:Cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland 'was loaded with s... by GenerocUsername on Saturday December 28, 2024 @02:22AM (#42529248)

But it's not perfectly linear, and as should get bigger, the incentive to optimize grows

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Re:Cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland 'was loaded with s... by bluGill on Saturday December 28, 2024 @09:19AM (#42531199)

Not exactly. A diesel engine uses less fuel at 80% load than 50%. At maximum load it uses the most fuel but in general as load increases the engine gets more efficient and so the calculations are weird.

Note that generators need to run at constant rpm to provide the correct ac frequency. Your car has gears so that it can run at lower rpm at low loads and so you won't see the same effect.

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Re:Cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland 'was loaded with s... by giantrobot on Saturday December 28, 2024 @11:40AM (#42532203)

An independent diesel generator could have been loaded onto the ship as easily as the spy equipment. It was a tanker, there was plenty of room for a genset and its own fuel. Then the ship's power plant wouldn't be taxed at all.

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Re:Cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland 'was loaded with s... by reactordev on Saturday December 28, 2024 @12:03PM (#42532407)

Then you have radio equipment in addition to an independent diesel generator and fuel to explain…

Yes it was a tanker. The bigger the ship doesn’t mean it has more people or more power generation like a cruise ship. A tanker has a crew of 4 plus captain, maybe?

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Re:Cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland 'was loaded with s... by giantrobot on Saturday December 28, 2024 @03:19PM (#42534255)

You've got the spying equipment to explain if boarded. An extra generator is hardly a concern. If anything an auxiliary generator can be explained as a backup/replacement for the ship's mandated backup generator.

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Re:Cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland 'was loaded with s... by bluGill on Saturday December 28, 2024 @11:45AM (#42532240)

Generally the people ordering radios don't think about that. They are used to land where you have more power to the building than you could possibly use.

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Re:Cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland 'was loaded with s... by mensetmanusman on Saturday December 28, 2024 @10:12AM (#42531579)

Less fuel less efficiently

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Re:Cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland 'was loaded with s... by slow_typist on Saturday December 28, 2024 @04:12AM (#42529666)

There are many parts on a ship of that size which need power and are critical for safety. That is not comparable to leisure craft.

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Re:Cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland 'was loaded with s... by watt on Saturday December 28, 2024 @04:34AM (#42529765)

Thank you for your insight. Hard to believe nobody else thought of it before.

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Re:Cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland 'was loaded with s... by Normal_gaussian on Saturday December 28, 2024 @05:13AM (#42529919)

Whilst basic, its a critical and valid point. It is being made on a forum where shipping, ships, and related engineering issues are not well known (at all).

It does lead to questions about how backup and failover power work on large ships. Secondary generation? Central batteries? Per device battery failover?

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Re:Cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland 'was loaded with s... by pas on Saturday December 28, 2024 @05:28AM (#42529995)

Batteries, yes. And there's an emergency generator that runs on diesel (big ships run on "bunker oil") which can be started with batteries or manually.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_Y2VNS5TFFY (this one with a hydraulic hand pump)

https://marineengineeringonline.com/emergency-generator-on-s...

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