Folks, this story is not from The Onion or any version of sarcastic media. This is very real.
To meet the compliance standards of the Paris Climate Accords and the subsequent treaty that all EU nations agreed to, they must reduce carbon emissions in freight and transit systems. They have spent thousands of hours pouring over possible solutions and will begin the test phase next month.
Bloomberg News – At the start of next year, the Ville de Bordeaux, a 154-meter-long ship that moves aircraft components for Airbus SE, will unfurl a 500 square meter kite on journeys across the Atlantic Ocean. It will undergo six months of trials and tests before full deployment.
While the industry has come up with multiple decarbonization initiatives, it is struggling to keep pace with goals set out under the Paris Agreement on climate. There’s also pressure on shipping lines from large customers who are pressing to make their own supply chains less polluting. (read more)
Yes my friends, the extremely well educated scientists, physicists, climatologists, sustainability engineers and cross functional decarbonization problem solvers for the planetary saving climate justice agenda, have invented…. wait for it….
….Sailboats!
Maybe we should start using Horses and Buggies again…perhaps Blimps will replace airplanes?
I know that’s a joke but, you know, it’s been some time now that I’ve thought the Amish are really onto something.
what!!!! they’re not building the trans-Atlantic, pneumatic, solar powered railroad????
They can always use us deplorables as galley slaves when there’s a slack wind. Up the beat, boys.
You’re a couple years behind on reporting this news. The UN has been pushing international envronmental fuel standards for decades. Read through the old stories on “gcaptain” to see what they’ve been doing.
We work on big diesel engines that use urea to spray on a catalyst in the exhaust it makes the air coming from the engine cleaner of pollutants than the air that goes in it. The urea is called DEF or diesel exhaust fluid. It is produced by cows farting in the field, and packaged in cardboard boxes with plastic liners and plastic straws to fill the DEF tank. Brilliant!
I suppose windmills on the ships with solar panels will keep their power on.
is this for real?
Do not knock it down. It is a sailboat but more than a sailboat. The kite-sail is more efficient and because it is “flying” the square footage is much more larger than sails rigs used to-date. To better understand, compare windsurfers and windsurfing.
In the modern era, trawlers have used the combination of engine and wind to cross oceans.
If the kite-sail is cost effective saving on fuel for these large shipping ships, it is worth the try. Lower costs to consumers is a good thing.
We shall see.
As to the carbon-neutral stuff .. all bunk.
I see nothing wrong with the sail tech in combination with standard ship propulsion. It could save fuel, and thus, costs. It would, however, be next to useless on a nuclear-powered vessel. Cost, storage and maintenance of the sail itself must be calculated into the overall usage cost. Using a sail would, at best, be of limited value on a powered ship, but there are cases where it might help out.
I am also for the development of electric vehicles, but when you consider the drawbacks, cost effectiveness tends to diminish. Currently, hybrids that combine electric, “fossil” fuel and regenerative braking seem to be the most efficient, but these kinds of vehicles tend to be prohibitively expensive. One thing is certain; in the foreseeable future, we will never rid ourselves of “fossil” fuels; they are too efficient when moving a mass from one location to another or generating electricity, which mankind uses more and more of every day. The leftists and environmentalists need to accept these facts and forget about eliminating the energy we get from coal, gas & oil because it’s never going to happen.
By the way: Gas, oil and coal most likely doesn’t come from fossils. There is research showing that it may be generated from deep within the earth itself… making it a “renewable”. Isn’t that something?
Coal for SURE comes from plant material, it’s a sedimentary rock basically with tons of leaves, fern remains and impressions.
Regarding oil and gas, even if generated deep within the earth like colcanic lava the super high temperatures inside would likely destroy most of it.
However, 20 years ago a scientist thought some natural gas may be generated by radioactivity and were drilling trying to prove it but I haven’t heard what came out of it.
HYdrogen fuel cells are the way to go. Already developed and way more efficient than electric vehicles Use plain ole water with no exhaust besides water. still need carbon fuels for plastics etc . and to generate the electricty to charge the cars. BUT NOT ENOUGH GENERATING PLANTS FOR ALL THE HOUSES MANUFACTURING AND AUTOS. COME ON MAN !!
I was with ya all the way up to the last bit…;)
Natural gas, crude oil, and coal ARE all “fossil” fuels, as they formed from organic matter (like leaves, twigs, branches, algae, moss, peat, etc.) that has been buried & heated up within rocks for many tens of thousands to millions of years. Hence the “fossil” origin of these energy sources.
As to being “renewable” – you may have misread, or be misremembering… Oil, gas, and coal ARE still being generated at this very moment, in the subsurface (below the surface, usually at some depth)! That is because there’s still lots & lots of organic matter buried in rocks – organic matter from which they are created. As these organic-rich rocks reach the proper depth and/or temperature, these pressures and temperatures alter the organic matter such that it starts releasing oil (fluids) and/or gas molecules, and/or converting to coal (solids).
The thing is, oil/gas/coal are not “renewable” per se, as we tend to think of and define “renewable” – which is within the timeframe of a human lifespan. The term does not have a single “official” definition, but usually is from around 30 years and up to 70 years or so. How it’s used should be defined by the agency, company, publication, etc. Therefore, oil/gas/coal are NOT “renewable” w/in a human lifespan, but they are still being created deep underground.
Hope that helps!
What size chain will be required to haul a boat aross tumultuous seas? How big must the sail be to hoist that chain and keep it aloft? If the EU has put as much thought into this as the UNIPEC put into its climate science, we will lose a lot of chains and kites, and maybe ships.
Hard to imagine.
How many sails do you need to pull a 220,000 ton cargo ship across the ocean and how high do the winds have to be?
Asking for a friend.
I’m afraid, there will come a time, where we will have to put down all these crazy people, just to save humanity…. for real.
I believe that time has arrived – just that they are putting themselves down with the vax. Time will tell but I believe the doctors that are saying the vax will lead to massive numbers of hypertension, heart disease and cancer.
Not sorry but, I have to say this, WHAT A BUNCH OF FIRKING CLOWNS!!!
Kites for cargo ships have been tested long, long ago. I don’t know how practical they are to launch or retrieve, nor the precise weather required. But this is nothing new.
Wait till it gets fouled under the ship and wrapped around the screw drives!
Ships in the middle of an ocean surrounded by water, composed of hydrogen and oxygen, is its own science. The interchange between the carbon dioxide and the oxygen in water are a plus. Nature is taking care of itself. Kind of like when we breathe in oxygen and emit CO2 and exchange it with plants. There’s your science! It’s elementary school physical science, see photosynthesis.
Or, wrapped around, or in, a wind turbine in the sea!!! LOL…..
Oh goody, we’ll soon get to see the old Clipper ships sailing the seas again. And Greta will be able to sail the world, guilt free, screaming ‘How dare you’ to all and sundry.
Just use Tinkerbells Pixie Dust.
Kontiki !
I think you’re on to something there NV, float around on rafts harnessing the ocean currents
The age of sail! Why hasn’t someone thought of that before now??? :p
The said part… Cargo ships per ton are the most fuel efficient vehicles we have.
Give a government enough time and they will literally screw up everything that exists to justify their expansion.
Words fail. Total insanity.
How long before clipper ships and zeppelins return, Hindenburg II anyone?
Hmmmmm. ….This sounds familiar……
https://ibb.co/JzzpfSy
There’s nothing wrong with this idea per se. There’s actually a cylindrical sail that would be more practical but much harder to implement if not part of the original design. A sail like the one pictured would be a hazard for the crew to handle.
Sometimes I write for American Thinker when I get the urge. Here’s an article using USG facts to show the global warming caused by carbon dioxide (aka climate change) is pure bunk:
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/03/global_bodies_went_off_the_rails_when_they_scrapped_ozone_targeted_carbon_dioxide.html
Really good article!!! It summarizes a LOT really well. I would add just a few more things, though.
1) That UNFCCC & IPCC literally define “climate change” as being caused by man.
2) That IPCC declared carbon dioxide a “pollutant” and “dangerous.”
3) That there is one GHG that they completely exclude, and deliberately, despite it being the largest component of the atmosphere by far (up to 4%, or 40,000 ppm), 90% – water vapor.
4) The percent contribution in the atmosphere of each type of GHG, including water vapor (90%) – this will give readers a much better understanding for how little of the atmosphere is comprised of carbon dioxide (6%), methane (2%), and all other GHGs (2%) including nitrous oxide & HFCs. Each of these may have higher heat-containing characteristics, but each is just a sliver of the atmospheric content. You might check out Gregory Wrightstone’s 2017 book, “Inconvenient Facts.”
Where do we get off calling CO2 (carbon dioxide) “carbon”?! CO2 is colorless, odorless and without it, all life on the planet would cease. I believe it was Obama that first started referring to this gas as “carbon” pollution, most likely because it sounds “dirty” to the uneducated, like AOC.
I’ve been wondering, what will happen to beer and soft drinks when the leftists discover that it’s time to attack carbonated beverages. Because surely these drinks are contributing to massively destructive hurricanes and tornados, drought and floods, snowstorms and killing heat waves while causing the oceans to rise to dangerous levels across the globe. So you better think twice before you pop open another White Claw and stop being a denier.
Also, what about when they start pointing fingers at each and every human??? After all, we are point sources of “carbon” pollution, as we exhale carbon dioxide…
What could possibly go wrong?
I read about this in 2011. IMO, it is a great idea. When I think about it I wonder why we have not always been using sales on all ships..
A company called Norsepower had sales on a cargo ship in 2018, so the technology is available.
They were using rigid sales
If the sail is the primary propulsion, one would have to sail at optimum angle to the wind. That tacking would mean more miles on the engines, more fuel burn.
Or, if the engines are primary propulsion, you would have the sail deployed, a lot of times, at a point of sail, that, is a hindrance to steerage and progress.
That Spinnaker picture would only be good in rare instances.
They must have gotten some grant money from a “Woke New Green Deal” govt. official.
My guess would have been adding an oar deck and putting the unvaccinated on it. Two birds. One stone.
I needed a good laugh today.
Thank you Sundance
Thank you AOC
In related news… post office will begin testing carrier pigeons to deliver mail
Automatic path to citizenship for migrants: Sign on as a rower for 3 years and afterwards, Bob’s Your Uncle, youre a citizen!
Yippie ,… we are saved !
So how long to sail from China to California vs how long to power it? What is the cost of the extra time? How much do you save in fuel? How many more sailors do you need to work the sails… This can all be figured out. Maybe a hybrid power/sail cargo ship? What is it wasn’t that much more money BUT you saved much more fuel?
Won’t they need wind and storms that will all stop if humanity stops…
…existing
Of course the Chinese will be putting Nukes in theirs and the Europeans won’t have to worry about cargo ship pollution…
…because it comes from China, the pollution must be allowed