Super Swedes Build Wind Powered Cargo Ship
Swedes to build wind-powered transatlantic cargo ship (yes, it’s a sailboat) “It’s a transatlantic ship capable of carrying up to 7,000 vehicles and reducing emissions for the crossing by 90%. And it’s powered directly by wind.”
Wind is proving to be one of the most useful forms of renewable energy for our generation and is helping nations reduce reliance on fossil fuels to generate power.
When it comes to wind, in most cases we need to use massive turbines to convert moving air into kinetic energy that can then be converted into electrical energy using inverters and generators. That power then finds its way directly to the grid to charge our electric cars and boats, or we can store it in batteries to use later.
A Swedish consortium including the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, maritime consultancy SSPA, and lead by ship designers Wallenius Marine has developed the wind Powered Car Carrier, or wPCC for short.
It’s a transatlantic ship capable of carrying up to 7,000 vehicles and reducing emissions for the crossing by 90%. And it’s powered directly by wind. Look at those big fins on top of it, I’m going to call them sails.
The consortium reckons that the wPCC should be ready for its maiden sailing voyage by 2024. Hopefully, it’ll still be windy by then.
The only downside of using wind power is that it will take about twice as long to cross the Atlantic. Typically, cargo ship journeys take seven days, the wPCC would take about 12.
For safety reasons, and for getting in and out of harbor, the boat does have additional engines.
Designers say its 200 meters long, 40 meters wide, and 100 meters tall, including the sails. That’s a little shorter than the average container ship, but far taller. The sails themselves are about 80 meters tall.
