[yjftsjthsd-h]

I think the trick is that assuming everything holds up, it's just cheaper to run. Therefore, if it really works in the general case then the industry will move to these out of sheer naked self-interest unless there are major caveats (I dunno, maintenance issues? Seems unlikely but this is hardly my area of expertise).

[tuatoru]

If demand for shipping is elastic, cutting costs will mean more than proportionately more shipping happens. So will marine pollution be reduced?

[aetherson]

Shipping by container ship is already pretty cheap, and of course shipping isn't itself a good that people care about, it's a way to get some other good. It also seems like the supply bottleneck for shipping per se is probably more "number of ships" or "capacity of ports and big canals" than "fuel costs."

We should of course assume that ceteris paribus lower shipping costs produce more shipping on the margin, but I don't see a lot of reason to believe that this is the major supply bottleneck for most goods. I wouldn't expect to see a dramatic change in demand for shipping as a result of 20% lower fuel costs.

[kefabean]

Jevon’s paradox?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

[tuatoru]

That's what I had in mind. Thank you.

[szvsw]

I believe that generally speaking, shipping costs typically are considered a relatively small portion of overall costs for any given product - just going off discussions in Box by Levinson, in which he asserts that one of the paradigm shifts enabled by containerization which allows for globalization to emerge as a phenomenon is that container-based shipping drops the cost of shipping to a negligible fraction of the product being shipped.

Another thing to consider is that the cost to the shipping company goes down, which might just mean they get more margin to keep for themselves, if all the companies do that and don’t undercut each other.

[luplex]

Naively yes, it will be reduced, because these sails are not free.

[cess11]

They probably need to be tiltable to allow passage under bridges, as well as stable in pretty harsh conditions, such as storms, saltwater mist and ice buildup. Probably don't want to rely on it until you are very, very sure there is a stable supply of replacements for wearing parts.