Dykstra Designing a Sail-Powered Ship With Automatic Sails

Image courtesy: © Dykstra

Dutch company Dykstra is designing a new iteration of sail-powered ship, using old sailing knowledge and new sailing technology. The Ecoliner Fair Winds has four massive 'automatic' sails that are moved by, in addition to the wind, software and satellite-based weather data that together calculate the optimal route for the ship when it is underway.

These means Ecoliner needs very little crew to sail, and also much less fossil fuels than a regular container ship. Ecoliner can still carry dozens of regular-sized containers.

Dykstra is planning an entire armada of these wind-assisted vessels. Fair Transport, the for-profit company that partnered with Dykstra to help design the Ecoliner, is out to reduce the use of regular container ships, which contribute a billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere annually.

Fair Transport's founders Andreas Lackner, Arjen van der Veen, and Jorne Langelaan have for three years been sailing an old brig, the Tres Hombres, to demonstrate that sustainable wind-powered shipping is possible. But the trio would also like to offer the shipping world a fleet of high-tech sailing ships that can carry dozens of industrial containers while being navigated by a slim crew, and reducing container ship pollution - in other words, be economically and environmentally sustainable.

Fair Transport hopes the higher cost of building this ship can be amortized over its 30-year lifetime via lower fuel costs.

The Ecoliner is estimated to have a top speed of 18 knots, and when speeds drop below 12 knots it needs the assistance of an electric motor. The Ecoliner is scheduled to be ready next year, in 2013.

The Benefits of Replacing Old Biomass Cook Stoves

Woman sitting beside newer, cleaner cook stove. Photo courtesy: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center / UC San Diego/CC BY 2.0

If you need a very concrete example of how ending energy poverty has very tangible immediate effects on people's lives, check out this story from UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) about how switching to more efficient cook stoves (like the one shown above, in India).

TreeHugger has covered how switching to these newer cooking stoves means better health and less emissions for all concerned. With the updated cook stoves, less pollution also means less fuel being used.

Here are some links to help promote understanding of the new cook stove program; and, the wonderful effects it produces.

Efficient Cook Stove Movement Faces Diverging Approaches; Bringing 5 Million Rocket Stoves To Women Worldwide: The Paradigm Project; US Leads Program to Cut Black Carbon Soot; and, finally, Reducing Black Carbon Soot Would Slash Arctic Warming Two-Thirds by 2030, Cut Temp Rise by 0.5C.

Here's the gist of the effect of UNDP and Peru's Ministry of Energy & Mining distributing 25,000 cleaner cook stoves—with another 125,000 planned:

In Ayacucho, Pilar and other people who have received the new cook stoves are already benefiting from cleaner indoor air. They no longer suffer from smoke bothering their eyes while they cook. Since they now need to collect much less firewood every day, they have more time to help their children with homework and they are free to dedicate part of their time to other income-generating activities.

“With the implementation of the improved cook stove programme, La Libertad region will avoid the emission of 41,000 tonnes of CO² a year,” said José Murgia Zannier, the region’s president.

UNDP's Stephen Gitonga notes, "The project is an excellent contribution to all strands of sustainable development [social, economic, environmental]. It empowers and liberates women and girls because they need to collect less firewood. The cook stoves improve public health because they eliminate "kitchen smoke” which kills two million people in the world every year. Improved public health is equal to a higher quality of life, more productivity and fewer expenses on health care. In addition to that, to manufacture, install, transport, repair and service the new stoves create jobs.”

I'll add another benefit, the reduction of black carbon soot. Though it's technically not a gas, black carbon soot is a powerful component of global warming. It traps heat in the atmosphere—and when it falls onto highly reflective surfaces like glaciers, it accelerates how fast they melt. Switching to cleaner burning cook stoves, and phasing out older, dirtier diesel engines, can quickly reducing black carbon soot emissions and quickly reduce the additional warming the create due to the fact that the soot falls out of the atmosphere quickly once the source is removed.