Clippy is called Cortana these days.
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What an awesome yacht! That thing’s dingy is probably bigger than my boat. It might be hard to find fueling stations so I’m guessing they will have to run on diesel. If they are enviromentally concious they could run it with cooking oil like I do.
The only reason hydrogen gets any interest at all as a fuel source is because it preserves the fossil fuel business model of constant cash flow to an energy conglomerate. Wind and solar and battery propulsion is a threat because it can break that cash stream because once you pay off your panels or turbine, you stop sending checks every month forever.
Right now, hydrogen production takes a giant refinery converting natural gas to hydrogen. While making it small scale from water and electricity is possible (I did it back in High School 50 years ago) it is impracticable and that is not where the R&D is being spent.
And the day they figure out how to make hydrogen small scale in your basement, the R&D money will dry up.
So hydrogen isn’t a superior technology, it’s a superior cash flow for billionaires.
$644M ought to be enough for anyone.
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I have both solar and wind on my boat and I hate to tell you that the expense and pollution do not end. The monochrystaline panels last two to three years and then you have to dump them in a landfill and buy new ones. The wind turbines go through blades and bearings every three to four years and the blades end up in landfills.
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I would suggest that the R&D money that goes into wind and solar and battery tech pales in comparison to what has gone into fossil fuel and now hydrogen development.
So what you point out does not reflect the inadequacies of wind and solar as much is does the state of the technology.
And what you say does not change my point on hydrogen. IMHO it is not the superior technology because it works the best and has the best potential, it gets all this attention because it preserves the cash flow.
Electrolysis can be scaled up as far as you’re willing to pay for. But electrolyzed H2 isn’t a “fuel source” per se, it’s an energy storage system; like a battery, only with WAY worse round-trip energy efficiency. It needs to get its energy from some other energy source.
Cracking NatGas methane to produce H2 preserves the “fossil fuel advantage”, because some of the energy comes from sunlight trapped eons ago by ancient cycad forests, so you get back more energy than you have to invest.
So cracked NatGas H2 is way, WAY more energetically efficient, and thus cheaper. And economically, NatGas is the cheapest fossil fuel, because even today with the coming of LNG tankers, supply still far outstrips demand - it’s essentially an oil-field by-product that would otherwise be flared off.
(And it’ll be around for good long while after the oil itself peaks and begins to decline, especially if fracking is pursued with vigor.)
There is, BTW, some really interesting work being done in R&D right now that involves producing H2 catalytically from water and sunlight. So the H2 stores solar energy directly, no electricity needed.
It’s still not as efficient as batteries, but a storage tank is a heckuva lot cheaper than an a battery bank. 
It’s still in the uni-lab R&D phase, but it looks fairly promising, IMHO.
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The chances of this happening are increasing quickly.
I see on Wikipedia that the Hindenburg was powered by four 1200HP Daimler-Benz Diesel engines. So no, not hydrogen-powered.
Yacht Pirates Real World would be awesome.
Tesla is years away from doing something like that. They haven’t even issued the press releases.
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Actually, this is the issue:
according to the Sunday Telegraph
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That thing is gorgeous! I’d probably have no problem ruling the seas from the owner’s pavilion.
But I’d really like to see video of the automated World Domination Control Panels rotating into place, demonstrating how the bridge crew can use them to torpedo pirate vessels, ensnare (smaller) nuclear submarines, dispatch teams of armed divers to raid sunken wrecks, feed captives to sharks at the push of a button, or maybe just go fishing once in a while.
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Bill Gates has a 2/3 billion dollar hyperyacht? Well, if past is prologue, it is guaranteed to crash.
Also, as seen in the ship’s head:
Clippy is that you, old buddy?
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I certainly don’t know what the answer to hydrocarbons is but the reason hydrogen is interesting is energy density. No battery storage system even comes close to hydrocarbons. As far as spending money in R&D is concerned, there is no way that more money is being spent anywhere in the energy sector moreso than in battery technologies.
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Well… I don’t have anything like that on board unless you count the audruino that texts me every time the bilge pump runs… oh, and I do have some fishing rods…
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The Electric Boat Company has been around for over a century…
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Update:
Related:
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Parrot with a wooden leg would be neat.
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