Cool ideas to clean up pollution from cars, trucks, ships and planes

(Eco Business, 29 Jul 2019) Rotor sails, bubble pumps, battery-powered jets, and next-generation fuel cells. As pressure mounts for the entire transport sector to wean itself off fossil fuels, these technologies are gaining traction.

Nearly a century ago, German engineer Anton Flettner launched a ship into the ocean. “Without sails or steam, like a ghost ship, it moved mysteriously through the water with no apparent means of propulsion,” according to a 1925 article that appeared in Popular Science Monthly. The ship cruised in silence, without spewing anything into the air. Curiously, two odd-looking, giant spinning cylinders rose from her deck as “the ship plowed its way through the rough waters of the Baltic, at nearly twice its former speed,” the article said.

Flettner used those cylinders — called rotor sails — to power his ship, harnessing the same source that first drove vessels through the sea hundreds of years earlier when they began sailing: the wind. At the time, his invention couldn’t compete with steam, coal and, ultimately, the modern diesel engine. But today, as the world copes with climate change, the shipping industry — indeed, the entire world transportation sector — must find ways to wean itself from fossil fuels and transition to cleaner energy. Among these efforts, Flettner’s old idea has gained new traction.

“Who would have thought that centuries later we would be taking a hard look at how to harness the power of the wind to power ships?” said Bryan Comer, a senior researcher in the marine program of the International Council on Clean Transportation. “In the beginning, all ships were zero emission, using human power — oars — or wind. Now, in an effort to reduce costs and environmental impacts, we’re starting to see innovative uses of wind power, including rotor sails. It seems we have come full circle.”

The global transportation sector accounts for nearly a quarter of the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases discharged into the atmosphere. Still, energy moves our cars, trucks, buses, trains, ships, and airplanes, everything we depend upon to deliver food and consumer goods, to commute to work, to go shopping, to get the kids to school and soccer practice, and to fly the job-weary to a long-awaited vacation. People aren’t going to abandon their vehicles anytime soon, and if people can’t change, then the vehicles must.

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Eco Business, 29 Jul 2019: Cool ideas to clean up pollution from cars, trucks, ships and planes