Cargill chartered ship sets sail to test wind power at sea - Reuters
Cargill chartered ship sets sail to test wind power at sea | Reuters
Cargill chartered ship sets sail to test wind power at sea
[1/5]Pyxis Ocean retrofitted with WindWings sets sail during its maiden voyage, in this undated handout picture, Mid-Sea, August 2023. Cargill/Handout via REUTERS Acquire Licensing Rights
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LONDON, Aug 21 (Reuters) - A Cargill chartered dry bulk ship has launched on its first voyage since being fitted with special sails, aiming to study how harnessing wind power can cut emissions and energy usage in the shipping sector, the U.S. commodities group said on Monday.
The maritime industry - which accounts for nearly 3% of global CO2 emissions and is under pressure from investors and environmental groups to accelerate decarbonisation - is exploring a number of different technologies including ammonia and methanol in an effort to move away from dirtier bunker fuel.
Cargill, one of the world’s biggest ship charterers, has been exploring wind assisted propulsion as one cleaner energy option. Wind was a common way of propelling ships before the switch to steam and diesel engines but is now mostly used only for smaller vessels.
"It is risk taking. There is no guarantee ... that the economics are going to work," Jan Dieleman, president of Cargill's ocean transportation division, told Reuters.
"But it is up to us to show the industry what is possible and hopefully get some more people confident around this technology."
The five-year old Pyxis Ocean has been retrofitted with WindWings, large wing sails measuring up to 37.5 meters in height fitted to the deck of the cargo ship.
Dieleman said Cargill hoped to recoup the costs through fuel savings.
"If we are not going to get any real surprises, we are definitely going to scale this. The question is a little bit how and when," he said referring to other ships they could use which were likely to be newbuilds.
Pyxis Ocean will sail from Singapore and head to Brazil and is likely to transport a cargo of grain to Denmark, Dieleman said.
The vessel is then likely to remain in the north Atlantic area to maximise wind usage, he added.
BAR Technologies, which has designed boats for the America's Cup, developed the sails, which were built by Norway's Yara Marine Technologies.
Reporting by Jonathan Saul; Editing by Kirsten Donovan
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.