Ships haven’t had sails for generations, but the idea is gaining new supporters as shipping companies work to lower their carbon emissions.
Globalization has spawned a tremendous increase in the number of ships crossing the world’s oceans. Ships the size of small cities haul thousands of containers and tankers as large as aircraft carriers transport millions of gallons of oil from one continent to another. Many of them run on bunker oil — a gelatinous mass of whatever is left over after the refining process is over. The stuff is so thick, it needs to be heated in order to flow and when it is burned, it leaves behind sulfurous clouds of carbon dioxide so thick they can be tracked by satellites.
The shipping industry agreed in July to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to net zero “by or around, i.e., close to, 2050.”
Source: CleanTechnica: Read The Article
PSR Analysis: With global shipping contributing around 3% of all carbon emissions, ideas like these can deliver between 10% and 40% reduction in shipping’s carbon emissions, saving the shippers money and reducing emissions at the same time – a “win-win” situation. However, they must be proven, and this takes time and investment. PSR
Guy Youngs is Forecast & Adoption Lead at Power Systems Research
