Carbon-Neutral Sail-Powered Cargo Ships Scheduled to Return to European Waters in 2012

[Fledermaus]

It's Not A Question of If Sail Returns, But When
Planned to go into production by 2012, the cargo ships will be sail powered, with the sails automatically adjusting to wind conditions and employing kite sails where appropriate. A biofuel-powered engine (which can also run on liquid natural gas) will provide 40% of the propulsion......

Initially intended to operate within European waters, particularly in the North Sea and Baltic, the ship will carry 9,000 tons of cargo--about one-tenth of typical modern container ships but roughly five times the capacity of typical sail-powered cargo vessels at the height of the age of sail in the nineteenth century. B9 notes that on the routes targeted right now, there are currently 1,500 similarly-sized ships in operation, so the size discrepancy with the transoceanic container ships doesn't concern them right now.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/12/carbon-neutral-sail-powered-cargo-ship-european-waters-2012.php

[WheelWalker]

1. +1 for appropriate technology nt

[Gregorian]

2. Except that it isn't carbon-neutral.

If I'm wrong about that, please show me how it is. If it were a simple sailing ship, it would be carbon neutral. But it isn't. It has engines. And steel, regardless if it's recycled or not.

It's an improvement on what exists, for sure.

[Fledermaus]

4. Bio-fuel

Bio-diesel or Bio-methane

[Gregorian]

5. I was looking at it from a purist perspective.

Read this-

http://www.ymparistojakehitys.fi/susopapers/Lasse_Nordlund_Foundations_of_Our_Life.pdf

This is someone who communicates what I haven't been able to. 40 years I've been trying to say what he says in his paper. I think you'll see what I meant if you read it.

[Kolesar]

3. Keelboats sailed up the Mississippi and Missouri River before the age of steam

I am reading a history of Missouri River steamboats right now.