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Good idea for those goods that are in no hurry to get to port and for reducing operating costs for the cargo fleet. As a "green" proposition, I'm not sold. Longer shipping times will encourage the move of some goods from maritime shipping to air shipping, which is much less fuel-efficient and much more polluting per unit of cargo. Even if they reduce fuel consumption and pollution by 50%, it would only take a small fraction of the cargo moved from ships to planes to completely offset those gains.
Well, at least that explains why my stuff has been taking even longer than usual to get here!
Running slow may consume less fuel per hour, but if it adds significant hours to the voyage... does it really save you anything in the end? I'm still not sold on that equation.
The longer a ship is at sea, the more they pollute the sea. In the Navy, we had to collect all plastic and chemical waste and hold it separate from the usual trash. At night we threw out into the ocean large brown trash bags filled with paper, food, and metal. We held the plastic and chemicals on board until we reached shore. We also didn't pump oil over the side of the ship. However, we regularly saw passenger cruise ships and cargo ships ignore such rules. The longer these cargo ships are at sea, the more plastic/chemicals/oil is thrown over the side. A steady cruising speed would be a better option.
Here's a really stupid question. If you're traveling in your diesel/coal cargo liner slower than a wind-powered clipper travels in order to save fuel... why not just build some wind-powered cargo ships like the days of yore?
Here's a really stupid question. If you're traveling in your diesel/coal cargo liner slower than a wind-powered clipper travels in order to save fuel... why not just build some wind-powered cargo ships like the days of yore?
Because then you're not at the mercy of the wind for speed and direction. Also, today's cargo ships are elephants compared to the gnats that sailed the seas in the wind-powered era. The apparatuses needed to use wind power exclusively or primarily would be huge and these ships need to fit under bridges and the like. Nonetheless some cargo ships do have parasail-type thingies to use wind as a supplemental power source.
well, you could still have an engine to help you along if the wind is not cooperating and to lower your masts for bridges, much like modern sailboats do. You still wouldn't be using as much fuel using it intermittently. Unless the wind is totally going in the wrong direction, adjusting your sails normally lets you catch enough wind to keep going... maybe not as fast right then, but still going.
In today's tech, I'm sure that we could make telescoping and tilt-up masts, larger sails, more sails, etc to increase the size of the ships, and use the fuel as supplemental instead. Didn't Germany just make a wind-driven cargo ship a couple years back?
But I'm saying flip that around... wind primary, fuel supplemental.
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