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I recently saw Fresco's Future By Design and noticed something miniature to investigate.

My notice regards about one of his illustration he describes in the documentary. Here is the link on youtube, timecode added where it starts with stuff that cought my eye. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=5zn8MRKOskw#t=2812s He introduces front system of generating air bubbles in one of his underwater vessel. It's usage would be for reducing resistance while the vessel is moving thru water.

I recon he invested some time to devise this illustration and this system of air bubbles fits his high tech vision perfectly and my intention with this question is to kinda have his work evaluated xD

Now my question: can this system be constructed to be energy efficient? i'am no engineer but i have an opinion that in reality, its invested/returned energy ratio has to be high and therefore ridiculous to be used.

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penguins and torpedoes use it : photoblog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/19/… . – anna v Nov 10 '12 at 13:30
Air lubrication for cargo ships is a serious proposal to reduce fuel consumption, and you can find some articles about it on the internet. You're limited to ships with very flat bottoms. I think the mechanism is reducing surface friction, but I don't know quite how so I'm not writing an answer. – AlanSE Nov 10 '12 at 14:10

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The reasons for these proposals is not principally lowered-fuel-consumption from low-drag, it is to achieve supersonic speeds in submarine platform..

The mechanism is called Supercavitation. it's not especially stealthy, as the bubble formation process makes lots of noise.

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