“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Albert Einstein
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The TRYBRID Project will deliver a technology demonstrator for the new energy agenda that has never before been seen: a project that will for the first time, close the loop on both use of renewable energy, and its onboard production. Photovoltaic solar energy will electrolyze, compress and store hydrogen, to be reused in extended ocean passages. Natural gas will be mixed with hydrogen to reduce the diesel consumption to around 15% of the fuel mix, and natural gas ‘reformed’ to make hydrogen. Hydrogen will also power a fuel cell, to power the main electric engine. The extreme trimaran hull form, with it’s demonstration solar hydrogen gear will be taken on a display tour of the worlds capital cities, in an effort to demonstrate that the new energy agenda is as much about today, as it is a dream of the tomorrow. Given soaring oil prices and carbon based climate change concerns, the TRYBRID project is ‘an idea whose time has arrived’.
Australia’s dominance as designer of the best of the world’s fast ferries, and a recent shift in the Australian government’s attitude around the dangers of CO2, and the risks of peak oil, combine to make the naval architectural design of this project, a logical Australian duty.
This website details the boats design purpose and features. We look at the designers, builders, academics, government and corporate sponsors who are engaged on the project, along with the aid teams with whom the boat will be working, after its world technology demonstration tour. The site follows the progress of the project, currently in the design stages. Read the rest of this entry »
At the same time, filming for a documentary, tracking the progress of the TRYBRID project, commenced, with 5 hours of footage shot , collating the most up to date expression of expert opinion, from the world’s leaders in hydrogen, selected from 600 delegates from over 40 countries, All were gathered to discuss the hydrogen agenda in the context of the sudden 2008 world oil price spike, and against the backdrop of the international shift in acceptance around the climate change agenda of 2007.
TRYBRID’s new found energy appetite, with the shift away from limited battery storage, to the more energy intense hydrogen storage, has created a re-think of the project’s capacity to make electricity from photovoltaic solar arrays. We have now added in awnings and trampolines covered in added photovoltaic cells. With say lithium batteries alone, we could both quickly fill, and more disappointingly, very quickly empty the batteries. The production of hydrogen through photovoltaic, electrically powered electrolysis, means we can store days of seagoing power, instead of just hours worth, in batteries. But it also means TRYBRID has an insatiable desire for its own, onboard source energy, in TRYBRID’s case, from photovoltaic power from the sun.
The TRYBRIB project shares many of the aims of the educational programs embodied in the Solar Boat Challenge and its sister program, the Hydrogen Car Challenge. Both these Australian schools programs aim to bring awareness, in a DYI experiential way, that is introducing the solar and hydrogen agendas to thousands of school kids. 
The programs give basic build components to the many and growing interested schools, with annual competitions organised to excite some competitive fun, as the new energies are deployed in small cars, and boats… both model and pilot-able. 
The process of designing a boat that is not much like anything that proceeds it, takes degree of imagination that the new software in 3D development makes much more accessible an engaging.
It had to happen sooner or later. Batteries just won’t cut it. When you have a perpetual incoming stream of photovoltaic power, with nowhere to go after you have filled the batteries, some serious naval gazing was inevitable. We already have an electric powered boat, ready for a hydrogen fuel cell to feed . We already have a huge photovoltaic supply of free electricity. The batteries, even several tonnes of the very best Lithium batteries, can be filled and emptied at an alarmingly impractical rate. You can’t just keep adding tonnes more lithium batteries; it will eventually weigh the boat down, this is a boat, not a submarine. But unlike just about any other means of transport, including trains and planes, buses and cars….. boats are unique. Boats are not restricted in width by rail gauges or road rules. Boats can easily support huge photovoltaic arrays…especially if you design the boat from the water up, to be a giant solar array. This is TRYBRID. 
itself is at the cutting edge, in this case, of international naval architectural design.
The Trybrid design team faces a nasty problem that faces many of us in the drive to deploy the new energy, namely, conventional batteries just cannot hold enough power to store the continuous power stream flowing from the large photovoltaic solar cells. For example, if we were to use say 146 batteries as pictured, which is a lithium, 24 volt 40 amp, best of breed batteries from LifeBatt, weighing in at 16.8kgs each, a total of 2452kg, we could drain all 146 batteries at ‘full stick’ in just 20 minutes. At a retail price of US$1820, or a total of US $265,720, that’s a lot of money and weight to be all spent in 20 minutes!