Retrofitted with 123-foot ‘WindWings,’ ‘Pyxis Ocean’ is testing two giant sails on its six-week journey from China to Brazil.
Per an official announcement on August 21, Pyxis Ocean’s WindWings can save 1.5 tonnes of fuel per wing, per day. Combined with alternative fuel sources, that number could rise. During its estimated six week travels, the cargo ship’s sails will be closely monitored in the hopes of scaling the technology across both Cargill’s fleet, as well as the larger shipping industry. Speaking with BBC, one project collaborator estimated a ship using four such wings could save as much as 20 tonnes of CO2 every day.
Big if true. Cargo ships are major polluters.
Cool. It seems odd to me that we’re just now going back to wind powered boats, surely there was a reason we didn’t before?
They said in the video, that it isn’t easy to decarbonize maritime industry. So I think it stayed like that because burning hydrocarbons is easiest.
Looking at logs on those wings, I noticed EU logo there. So it looks like they are trying this because they got government money for this project and likely if not for that this work likely wouldn’t happen.
Marginal improvement at best. Maybe 5-10% of the energy will be saved. Still burning fuel for the rest.
The article says up to 30%. What makes you think this is wrong?
