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by calmbonsai 2 hours ago
Let's see it last. It won't. This is just a short-term private endeavor/vanity-press project. Just because a business uses a "sustainable technology" does not make it a sustainable business. Comparing cargo ships to airplanes is apples vs. oranges and reveals the author's deliberate "headline" motivation and lack of technology understanding compared to the actual ground truth of shipping.

Until fuel prices change for the long-term and/or emissions regulations have an order of magnitude uptick as well as covering far more than sulfur (see IMO 2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARPOL_73/78#IMO_2020 ), there will be zero economic incentive to use wind-power over diesel/bunker-fuel power.

And no, any advantages of docking at smaller ports are defeated by those ports having less land-transit access and we already have fleets of (smaller) cargo vessels serving these ports at insanely low $/ton/mile rates.

Just like farms, all of the economics point to larger vessels, larger ports, and operating entity consolidation. See "The Box" by Marc Levinson https://a.co/d/0gtBkWwt or watch a few "What's Going On With Shipping" https://www.youtube.com/@wgowshipping videos.

It will take some sort of global political or environmental catastrophic externality to even budge, let alone change, the status quo.