While boats have been powered by wind for millennia, the Seawing uses cutting-edge technology to make it fit for the 21 st century. “That’s where using wind is absolutely paramount.” “In the meantime, what can we do?” he asks. Powered predominantly by fossil fuels, the shipping industry accounts for around 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the International Maritime Organization – which is why there’s an urgent need for change, says Airseas co-founder and CEO Vincent Bernatets.Īlternative fuels, such as green ammonia, are in development, but they are expensive and Bernatets argues that it will be decades before the infrastructure is in place to deploy them at scale. After years of research, they are currently testing the kite on a cargo ship traveling between France and the US. Two engineers at the French aerospace company Airbus came up with the idea in 2016, launching Airseas to further develop the technology. That’s the basic idea behind the Seawing, a technology being developed by French company Airseas, which it says could help cargo ships reduce their fuel consumption, and cut their carbon emissions by an average of 20%. Now imagine the same concept applied to a 1,000-square-meter kite, flying 300 meters above the water – only instead of towing a surfer across the waves, it’s helping to propel a colossal cargo ship across the ocean.
You may have seen kitesurfers in action, harnessing the power of the wind to pull them over the sea.
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