The Return of Sail Power: Cargo Ships Are Turning Back to the Wind

fsckboy

Growing up as I did in an old seafaring town, quite near Ahab's ports of call, I love the romance of the sea and I listen exclusively to sea chanties. For low-value and bulk cargo, ships make sense, and modern computer-controlled sail trim and wind energy harvesting probably makes a great case. But high value cargo is largely today shipped by air. Nvidia wants money for its chips ASAP, too valuable to sit around non productively while being steamered. Maybe with surplus wind energy they could mine bitcoin while en route? A sort of related topic, about 20 years ago during peak farm-to-table "buy local" fashion, the NY Times pointed out that lamb shipped from New Zealand (where is that on a map, I can't find it?) to New York City arrives with a lower carbon footprint than lamb delivered by trucks from nearby upstate NY farms, such are the economies of scale in shipping. But now, blow me down me hearties, I look forward to dining on New Zealand lamb carried to my door by the winds of fortune!

3eb7988a1663

If anyone else was confused why those pictures were of giant tubes and not canvas sails, you are not alone. Apparently those are some version of "Suction Sails". The vendor's website has a graphic that explains it, though it was fighting my ability to scroll. https://bound4blue.com/esail/

WalterBright

This seems to happen once every 20 years.

walrus01

The most recent example, it's somewhat down the page at the gcaptain URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliner_Origin

tomkarho

Can we bring zeppelins back next for air?

calmbonsai

No, they’re really not. Turns out, sail-power scales sublinearly and, shocker, the wind isn’t a reliable source of power for the logistics demands of today’s supply chains. We’re never going back to wind, but we will be de-carbonizing shipping either with ammonia combustion, fuel cells, or both.