PowerSwitch

Efficient energy at sea: The new age of sail

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article322841.ece

last three paragraphs...

"Tom Burke, visiting professor at Imperial and University Colleges, London, argues: "You are going to see, around the world, people thinking, 'there is going to be trouble with energy, let's get smart'. People thinking they are getting ahead of the curve have an unblocking and dynamic effect. Ideas which have been around for some time are going to be picked up.

"You will not see the impact for three or four years but there is a lot of investment and energy efficiency is going higher up the project list. Psychologically, people are thinking a lot more about energy independence."

Mr Wrage puts it another way: "Wind power has been the driving force for shipping for a few thousand years. It is only in the past couple of hundred years that we have used oil-driven engines. When oil gets more expensive it is logical to say, 'wind is cheaper', let's use it again'". "

I think wind powered ships will make a come back. The 19 centaury sailing ships (tea clippers and the like) were very good, I think large neo-sailing ships using modern materials and designs (think Ellen Macarthur?s B&Q trimaran) could operate very effectively. Especially with kites.

The problem is that although global container shipping uses lots of oil the fuel cost per item is actually very low. Diesel powered container shipping can survive much higher prices, probably higher than manufacturing or consuming economies at either end.

clv101 wrote:Especially with kites.

Definitely Check out http://www.dcss.org/speedsl/

I have some big kites and a buggy - you can travel pretty quick! Of course, on the open sea you don't have to worry about trees, power lines and fences that might get in the way!