The global warming alarmists have found their next target: international shipping. They have discovered a new way to cut carbon emissions from cargo ships by nearly 20 percent. They haven’t developed a new fuel. Our alternatives are beyond inefficient, making keeping up with world demand unsatisfactory. No, they want us to go back to the days of Columbus and Magellan. Call it the Cook Protocol; they want to attach massive kites to pull these ships across the oceans (via CNN):
You may have seen kitesurfers in action, harnessing the power of the wind to pull them over the sea. Now imagine the same concept applied to a 1,000-square-meter kite, flying 300 meters above the water – only instead of towing a surfer across the waves, it’s helping to propel a colossal cargo ship across the ocean.
That’s the basic idea behind the Seawing, a technology being developed by French company Airseas, which it says could help cargo ships reduce their fuel consumption, and cut their carbon emissions by an average of 20%.
Two engineers at the French aerospace company Airbus came up with the idea in 2016, launching Airseas to further develop the technology. After years of research, they are currently testing the kite on a cargo ship traveling between France and the US.
Powered predominantly by fossil fuels, the shipping industry accounts for around 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the International Maritime Organization – which is why there’s an urgent need for change, says Airseas co-founder and CEO Vincent Bernatets.
Alternative fuels, such as green ammonia, are in development, but they are expensive and Bernatets argues that it will be decades before the infrastructure is in place to deploy them at scale. “In the meantime, what can we do?” he asks. “That’s where using wind is absolutely paramount.”
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Bernatets agrees that rising fuel prices provide an incentive for ship owners to install the Seawing. Although he wouldn’t reveal the cost of installing the technology, he says it will generally take two to five years for a customer to make back the cost in fuel savings. He adds that savings will become more pronounced as ships transition to green fuels, which are more expensive than fossil fuels and take up more space, because they are less energy dense.
So, it’s not saving any money, time, or the Earth, especially if the caveat is the green fuel development that has been a boondoggle since its inception. There’s a reason why we don’t use sails anymore; safe for recreational enjoyment or personal travel: it’s inefficient. Yes, we used wind power in the days of Nelson, but then a motor and propeller allowed human civilization to ferry across seas and transport goods quickly. I’m sorry some scientists don’t see the irony here, going backward and claiming it to be some new technological breakthrough. New inventions take up resources. The internal combustion engine and our plentiful supply of cheap energy have allowed America to prosper to untold heights.
Is this reaction to wind the best thing since sliced bread more insane than the Biden White House opening the door to a ludicrous study that seeks to alter the chemical composition of our atmosphere to—get this—block solar rays to prevent further warming of the Earth? There’s a reason why the Biden administration is trying to keep this quiet: it’s ridiculous. No, screwing around in the atmosphere and entrusting scientists who have been wrong about global warming for a generation not to screw it up and kill us all is a rational decision.
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