Fact: There are about 97,000 merchant vessels circling the globe, consuming approximately 280 million tons of oil a year and producing the same amount of nitric oxides as the entire U.S.
Smells like an opportunity to me!
Enter the SkySail
Established in Hamburg in 2001, a company called SkySails is turning wind into profits by taking a lesson from a simpler, more romantic time of masted sailing ships. Though the company has actually eliminated the mast, it has developed a new wind propulsion system based on large towing kites.
The result is a system that cuts fuel costs by as much as 35% on annual average. Depending upon wind conditions, of course.
The current model of SkySail covers an area of 160 meters and is attached by line to a winch on the bow. And without a mast to contend with, not only is deck space spared for cargo, the sail is not restricted to low level winds close to the ocean's surface.
According to SkySails, wind speed at 100 meters up can be up to 20% higher than wind at 10 meters. In short, the kite can sail to where the wind is a blowin'.
The sail is also controlled by special computers that sense the wind speed and adjusts foils in the kite, directing it in large swooping figure eights. With whip like momentum it generates approximately 6,800 extra horse power.
The First MS Beluga SkySails Voyage
On January 22, for the first time since the masts of major shipping vessels fell to steam and diesel power, the line laid out and the kite unfurled in the gusty winds of the North Sea on the 10,000 ton, 133 meter MS Beluga SkySails.
Two weeks later, on February 5, the MS Beluga SkySails safely arrived in Venezuela with its cargo of an entire particle board factory completely intact with reported fuel savings of approximately 10 to 15 percent-- about $1,500 per day.
Those saving came from their 160 sq. meter kite. And according to SkySails, later on this year they will have a 320 sq. meter kite that will offer 50% savings in proper conditions.
From there they plan on building a 600 sq meter kite that should provide enough energy to cut 10 tons of diesel per day and cut $6,000 out of voyage costs.
Multiply that by the 97,000 merchant vessels in operation, and you’re looking at an overall cost savings of about $582 million, or 970,000 tons of diesel every day.
If you’d like to see SkySails in action, click here .
Keep your hopes in the future but your sense in the present . . .
Field Palmer
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