How is it engineered?

Does anyone know what kind of battery power is required in order to sustain a cruise ship. Also modern day cruise ships have telephones and internet. How is this accomplished? And, in isolated locations in the world such as some parts of Alaska for example, what kind of electrical setup do they need in order to support a villiage? BTW how exactly is electricity generated? If chemical, what chemicals, what acids, etc? And in addition, what are solar panels made of, how does it work?

Also modern day cruise ships have telephones and internet. How is this accomplished?

Ever heard of satellite communications?

>BTW how exactly is electricity generated? If chemical, what chemicals, what acids, etc? And in addition, what are solar panels made of, how does it work?

You may want to just hunt around for a text book Witch_King. It would take a bit of explaining to answer these questions here. The truth is out there!

Some of it is solar with batteries. I cant give you a good explanation on inverters because I am rusty. Here is a quick link... http://www.esico.com/Inverters/about.htm

We use inverters for battery ups units for our building. One 25KV UPS can keep this building going for 8-14 hours depending on load.

Some of the power is delivered from the gas turbine engines that crank a generator. An electro-magnet is spun at about 60 Hz (cycles per second)(probably) and the magnetic lines of flux cut across copper coils (inductance) causing electron movment (current). The power generated (440VAC, 220VAC) is is tranfered or stepped down via transformers for use by the ship.

I doubt you would find many batteries being used for normal power on a surface vessel. As your power plant is normally going constantly- you would generate your power.

Submarines used batteries when underwater, but used to run deisel engines on the surface to charge the batteries.

Of course nowadays any military vessel of a decent size is nuclear. Very nice.

Thanks. I'll take some of these leads and look up further information.

Why the interest?

Why the interest?

It has nothing to do with terrorism, but rather I need this information because I am writing a horror novel. Since my protagonist is a systems analyst, and the setting is an isolated northern community, I want to know how a place like that sustains itself and whether or not it is able to communicate with the rest of the world. If you have read a Michael Crichton book you may notice that he goes into some technical detail with descriptions, yet not too much. I like that writing style. I would also just like to gain the knowledge for it's own interest value.

>>I doubt you would find many batteries being used for normal power on a surface vessel. As your power plant is normally going constantly- you would generate your power.


Many cruise ships have solar panels... the panels charge the battery cells... the cells push DC across an inverter.... the inverter makes AC... the AC gets used to run your electric razor... the electric razor trims your face hair...

Think about it... run a gas/diesel generator all the time costs money money money... a little solar support = less money.

Hey! You're from Phoenix... very cool. I am moving back their soon.