I don’t think this is the solution, looking more toward large scale fuel cell power for shipping. But cool to see creative efforts that seem to be competitive.
Worth noting, as Mark Jacobson points out, that 40 percent of all cargo shipping is transporting fossil fuels.
Cargo ships schlep thousands of millions of tons of cargo around the world every year, belching out 3% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions as they traverse the seas. But the real damage is done by the contents of their holds. By weight, 40% of maritime trade consists either of fossil fuels on their way to be burned or of chemicals derived directly from fossil fuels.
But this isn’t necessarily bad news, as the climate activist Bill McKibben pointed out in his newsletter. “Because it means that if and when we make the transition to solar power and windpower, we will not just stop pouring carbon into the atmosphere, and not just save money—we will also reduce the number of ships sailing back and forth by almost half,” McKibben wrote.
Of course, that drastic reduction in ships on the sea may not happen as McKibben envisions; after all, solar panels and wind turbines will need to be transported around the world as well. But perhaps the ships operating in that future will have found ways to run on green fuel, in which case they will have decarbonized both themselves and their cargo.
Like wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources complementing each other and working together to provide energy when it’s needed, sails and renewably-charged batteries can cooperate to move ships.
Of course we all know that while fuels need to be transported continually, renewable infrastructure only needs to be moved once or twice. The world can reduce shipping further by empowering—both politically and with renewables onsite—those who live by the resources—mines, forests, etc.
Neocolonialism extracts raw materials from the lands of people of color; switching the processing of materials and turning them into products to the countries of origin will make the world more fair, more equal, safer, more ecological, including by reducing the amount of material transported.
“sails and renewably-charged batteries can cooperate to move ships. ”
Agreed wholeheartedly, one important lesson we have learnt, from our industrial revolution, is that we should not rely on singular solutions. We should add AI to the mix in tackling/solving excess shipping emissions too.
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“the use of artificial intelligence, to drive the positioning of the “sails” against the direction of the wind, made it most effective.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1dqznvxylqo
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“A recently completed study to assess the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in the design of ship powertrains suggests it can accelerate the design process but not displace the role of naval architects”
https://www.rivieramm.com/news-content-hub/news-content-hub/longitude-and-innovate-uk-unlock-ai-potential-in-powertrain-design-85457
And beware of “global-stilling” in the future. . .
Climate change may be causing long-term global wind speeds to slow down, a shift that will likely lead to a dangerous rise in local temperatures, worsening air pollution and disruption to renewable energy systems.
https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/10/potential-wind-slowdown-threatens-renewable-energy-and-fuels-heat-domes/
Yes. There seems to be a tendency now to see AI as the solution to everything even a little bit difficult or complicated. A good sailor can do the same thing; an intelligent person can learn. And we won’t pay for them with everything we have and everything there is.
So many times people tell me things about exactly how climate is worsening, or may worsen, because they interpret it to mean we should—I don’t know what. Curl up and die? What those things actually say is that we need to implement all the solutions as fast as possible.
While the hype is about AI, there’s value is plain old dedicated control software (or expert systems) to make the real-time trade-offs of what the most cost-effective form of propulsion to use, weighted by scheduling, weather, expense, etc.
We really shouldn’t rely on human brains to do these things: They sorta suck at that. Software doesn’t get sleepy, drunk, bored or panicked.
My criticism was of AI.
It sucks up sucky things on the net and then sucks. In fact a recent article (which I can’t find now) suggested it preferentially sucks up sucky things because much of the best information—published peer-reviewed papers, for instance—is hidden behind a paywall and is apparently unavailable to it, though that’s insane. This or another article said garbage posting of articles full of lies may actually be, increasingly, meant to be scooped up by AI.
So AI can be twisted to say anything and thus is utterly useless for getting information if that information is to be used to make a decision. And if it’s not for that, what good is it?
“switching the processing of materials and turning them into products to the countries of origin will make the world more fair, more equal, safer, more ecological, including by reducing the amount of material transported.”
One example I recall from a few decades ago was getting more value from Brazil’s niobium mines: Rather than just shipping out raw ore they added refineries that could produce the commercially useful sheets, wire, powder and assorted alloys.
(Of course the colonialism might have just been replaced by the local Brazilian business magnates getting most of the benefit.)
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m talkin about.
We certainly need to do everything we can about local “magnates” as well as global ones. One of if not the main thing keeping local inequality going is massive overwhelming global inequality. It’s one reason I almost always include both radical economic and political equality and healing Wetiko as crucial climate solutions.
“either of fossil fuels on their way to be burned or of chemicals derived directly from fossil fuels”
We need a different categorization for hydrocarbon feedstock (petrochemicals) precisely because it isn’t used as a combusted fuel contributing to the greenhouse effect (while, say, traditional concrete processing does contribute to the greenhouse effect).
There are other problems from some petrochemical products (from polyester to ammonia to asphalt), but they are of different value in utility and in how difficult they are to practically replace.
https://profession.americangeosciences.org/reports/petroleum-environment-2018/non-fuel-products-oil-gas/