The transport of goods with cargo ships and especially container ships is the backbone of today’s economies, with about 90% of non-bulk cargo transported with them. This is in addition to the large number of oil tankers and LNG carriers. Unfortunately, due to their use of diesel engines they are also responsible for about 3.5% of the world’s CO2 emissions, in addition to 18 – 30% of nitrogen oxide and 9% of sulfur oxides.
Although the switch to low-sulfur diesel (ULSD) and the use of speed limits has reduced some of these pollutants, the shipping industry sees itself faced with the necessity to decarbonize in order to meet the obligations of the Paris Agreement. This essentially means finding a way to switch from diesel engines to an alternative which has comparable or better fuel costs, produces no or almost no pollutants and will not negatively affect logistics.
As a highly competitive, cut-throat industry, this does seem to leave shipping companies backed up against a wall. Yet an existing, proven technology just so happens to exist already which can be retrofitted into existing cargo ships.
Ship It Bigger, Not Faster
Windjammer Moshulu, in 2009.
Since most cargo is not of the perishable type, the main motivating factor behind the shipping industry’s investments has been to carry more cargo with a single ship. During the last decades of sailing cargo ships (iron-hulled sailing ships) that lasted into the early 20th century, they managed to compete with the steam ships of the time mostly on account of being cheaper to operate. The largest so-called wi ..
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