10,000 tonnes at end of a kite
First cargo ship to partially rely on wind sets sail
Erik Kirschbaum, Reuters, With Files From Agence France-Presse Published: Wednesday, January 23, 2008
SkySails/Handout/Reuters
BERLIN -The world's first commercial ship powered partly by a 160-square-metre kite set off on a maiden voyage from the north German port of Bremen to Venezuela yesterday, in an experiment inventor Stephan Wrage hopes can wipe 20%, or US$1,600, from the ship's daily fuel bill.
"We aim to prove it pays to protect the environment," he said. "Showing that ecology and economics are not contradictions motivates us all."
The 10,000-tonne MS Beluga SkySails combines modern technology with know-how that has been in use for millennia.
It uses a computer-guided kite to harness powerful ocean winds far above the surface of the water and support the engine.
The advantage of the kite over a sail is that it can pull the ship along, regardless of the direction of the wind, and unlike a mast does not hinder the loading and unloading of cargo vessels.
But if SkySails is a relatively elaborate solution, another development shows the march of progress is not always linear: Shipping companies seeking immediate answers to soaring fuel prices and the need to cut emissions are simply slowing down.
The world's 50,000 merchant ships, which carry 90% of traded goods from oil, gas, coal, and grains to electronic goods, emit 800 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. That's about 5% of the world's total.
Also, their fuel costs rose by as much as 70% last year.
That dramatic increase has ship owners reducing speed as a way to save fuel and cut the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, said Hermann Klein, an executive at Agence Germanischer Lloyd classification society.
"The number of shipping lines reducing speed to cut fuel costs has been growing steadily," said Mr. Klein, whose organization runs safety surveys on more than 6,000 ships worldwide.
"Slowing down by 10% can lead to a 25% reduction in fuel use. Just last week a big Japanese container liner gave notice of its intention to slow down."
We've saved so much fuel that we added a ship to the route and still saved costs.
Shipping was excluded from the UN's Kyoto Protocol to slow climate change, and many nations want the industry to be made accountable for its impact on the climate in the successor to Kyoto, which runs to 2012.
In Hamburg, the Hapag-Lloyd shipping company is not waiting for 2012. It has already ordered its 140 container ships to reduce speed.
Last year, it cut the standard speed of its ships to 20 knots from 23½ knots, saving a "substantial amount" of fuel.
The calculation used in shipping is complex. Longer voyages mean extra operating costs, charter costs, interest costs and other monetary losses. But Hapag-Lloyd said slowing down still paid off handsomely.
"We've saved so much fuel that we added a ship to the route and still saved costs," said Klaus Heims, press spokesman at the world's fifth-largest container shipping line. "Why didn't we do this before?"
The trend is also catching on among ferry services.
Norway's Color Line ferry between Oslo and Baltic destinations said this month it would add 30 minutes to the 20-hour trip from Oslo to Kiel.
"It's good for the environment and it's good for us economically," a spokesman said.
The company expects to save 1.4 million litres of fuel a year as a result.
But if fuel prices keep rising, such innovations as the kite-powered Beluga SkySails could also pay off. German-based Beluga Shipping has already ordered two more vessels and Mr. Wrage's company has five orders in hand.
If the maiden voyage is a success, the inventor plans to double the size of the kites fitted to ships to 320 square metres, and expand it again to 600 square metres in 2009. The company hopes to fit 1,500 ships by 2015.
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