The first boats that harnessed the wind to skip over the waves may have been built 8,000 years ago. Several hundred years later, the earliest seaborne trading networks began to form in the Aegean and the Persian Gulf.

Modern cargo shipping relies on ‘bunker fuel’ a thick, black sludge made from the dregs of the refining process. It is also loaded with sulphur, which produces gases and particles hazardous to human and animal health.

But the difficulty of settling on a single renewable fuel, combined with conservative decarbonisation targets, means shipping is making limited progress in the quest to go green.

Enter Smart Green Shipping, a start-up that wants to retrofit cargo ships with sails to reduce fuel consumption, and lower carbon emissions sooner rather than later.

Guest

Diane Gilpin, CEO, Smart Green Shipping

Resources

For more information on Smart Green Shipping, click here

For an animation showing FastRigs deploying, click here

For the results of the computer simulation, click here

For the UK Government’s Maritime 2050 strategy, click here

For the Fourth International Maritime Organisation Greenhouse Gas Study, click here

The post #117 How Sails Could Save Shipping first appeared on Engineering Matters.