This story grabbed my attention this morning because I couldn’t believe it. A cargo ship that is partially powered by a huge computer controlled kite is leaving port. The ship will be traveling from Germany to Venezuela and will make the first practical trial run of this new technology. According to the designers of the kite:

The computer-controlled kite, measuring 160sq m (1,722sq ft), could cut fuel consumption by as much as 20%.

It will be interesting to see just how much fuel savings along with CO2 emissions this technology provides. I never would of thought of a kite being used as a tug to help pull a ship along. What do you guys think of the idea? Also, there is a U.S. based company that is working on the same general idea called KiteForSail. Here is a video news report that showcases their version of the technology.

[Ed] Thanks Jeff for covering this - I saw a story about this about a week or so ago and I too was amazed. It would have to be worth their while to fit out a ship with this technology as the cost of doing so would not be cheap. Apparently the cost of the fit out for larger ships is about 500,000 Euro. Added benefit, as you say is less C02 emissions. Also check out the German site SkySails for news and video on using this technology on large ships. Nice work mate.

This post was from guest blogger Jeffro2pt0, you can check out his blog and “podcast” on WordPress at Jeffro2pt0

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 at 10:45 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.