Sailing can be a lot of fun, but the days when it was the best way to ship large quantities of goods from place to place are long gone. And yet, in keeping with the bottomless stupidity of the present day, here we are: New ship puts wind in the sails of voyage to net zero:

For the first time in many decades, the captain of a serious cargo vessel will exploit what his or her predecessors called the trade winds, and a new age of sail may have begun. The Pyxis Ocean, a 230m bulk carrier, is heading to Brazil, partly powered by the wind, in an experiment that the shipping company Cargill hopes will be proof of principle for a new kind of vessel.

Cargill is a great company, and much more than a shipping company. This kind of fatuity is surprising.

The motivation is not romance or nostalgia, but economics and the environment. The International Maritime Organisation has set a goal to be net zero by about 2050. There is no feasible way to electrify shipping, so this means alternatives are required.

I am least glad to see the acknowledgement that shipping can’t be electrified. Now do that for automobiles.

This is revealing:

“If you can save fuel, you basically save carbon. It’s a very simple equation,” said Jan Dieleman, the president of Cargill’s ocean transportation business. Like many in shipping, he anticipates that the cost of fuel is going to increase as the industry switches to greener biofuels. “The starting assumption is that these fuels are probably going to be three or four times more expensive,” he said. “So that’s also why it’s so important to save fuel.”

Biofuels are anything but green. By rights, fuel should be getting cheaper as modern means of exploiting fossil fuels are deployed. The idea that energy is becoming more expensive is entirely an artifact of government propaganda. But there are those who benefit.

“We are not going back to the tall ship concept and only using wind,” said Dieleman, adding that he could not tell clients their supply chain had failed because the doldrums were calm.”

Good point! Although I am not sure the environmentalists will accept the need to fulfill shipping contracts as an excuse for failing to go “green.” Finally:

Using three sails could cut the fuel bill of a typical vessel by a third, though the Pyxis Ocean will use two.

Which possibly could make sense, if you assume that fuel bills are going to triple or quadruple as a result of insane government actions, instead of declining, as they should. But that is the irrational world in which we live. Yo ho ho.