In shipping, a push to slash emissions by harnessing the wind
Both harness a natural propellant that oceangoing vessels have depended on for centuries: the wind. And they’re part of a growing effort to move the shipping industry away from fossil fuels.
“We want to decarbonize — why not use what’s available?” said Jan Dieleman, president of Cargill Ocean Transportation, which charters about 700 ships. “Wind is free fuel.”
The worldwide shipping industry is responsible for about 3% of the greenhouse gases that are dangerously heating the planet.
That translates into about 1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide and other gases annually, a figure that is rising as global trade increases.
Some 11 billion tons of cargo are shipped by sea each year, accounting for as much as 90% of the world’s traded goods. Nearly all of it is enabled by burning heavy fuel oil, but that is beginning to change.
Cargill chartered the Pyxis Ocean, a vessel that began its first wind-assisted voyage in August. It sailed from China to Brazil with two wings that turned to capture the wind and folded down when not in use.
While each weighs 125 tons, Dieleman said it is a small proportion of the vessel’s carrying potential of 82,000 tons. Each sail can cut fuel usage by 1.5 tons per day, or 4.65 fewer tons of carbon dioxide emissions, and decrease fuel usage by 30%. The ship docked in Brazil last week.
The French company Airseas developed a different design, the outsize kite.
It is housed in a storage tank on a ship’s bow and deployed by cable and crane to slice nearly 1,000 feet into the sky, where winds blow strong. A prototype has been at sea for a year and a half, said Vincent Bernatets, the CEO and co-founder of Airseas. The design could slash fuel consumption by up to 40% on some routes, he said,
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