Reduce the costs of transport of the pieces of airplane in ocean crossings. The bet comes from Airbus, who developed the sail Seawing, an idea to get a net savings on the costs of fuel on long journeys to the city of Mobile, in Alabama, where narrow-body aircraft are assembled. How? Simply by relying on the wind and making this huge sail which, once installed on the ships, will allow to tow the vehicle by sea, allowing in fact a certain reduction of fuel waste and above all a cut of theCO2 emissions. On the latter point, it seems that this drastic reduction in emissions could be equal to eight thousand tons per year. A necessary adjustment, in light of the fact that the International Maritime Organization has imposed the improvement of the energy efficiency of the naval fleet by 30 percent.
The savings are one million euros per year.
Seawing it will therefore have a size of 500 square meters and will be tested on the ship Ville de Bordeaux. In this way, the cost of transport - borne by Airbus - will be less than one million euros each year. Meanwhile the startup by Airbus, Airseas, he said that the investment related to the purchase can be written off within 5 years. In addition, another sail has already been designed, larger, equal to one thousand square meters, designed to tow even more massive cargo.
If mounted on a boat, as stated on the Airbus website, "Seawing it can be started by simply activating a switch. The kite deploys, unfolds and operates autonomously; is equipped with a system that collects and analyzes meteorological and oceanic data in real time to optimize performance, ensuring maximum safety. When the driving effect is no longer needed, Seawing it folds up automatically and is recovered, ready to be used at a later time ”.
Seawing will go into operation in 2021.
As innovative as it may be, Airbus's is not the only idea designed to reduce costs and environmental impact. For example, the British Rolls-Royce Holding, which has relied on storage batteries to reduce costs, has already thought of it, while the Danish Maersk has foreseen the installation, on some oil tankers, of structures 30 meters high that exploit the 'wind energy. In short, these are similar systems that have a common purpose. With regard to Seawing, the sail is expected to enter service on ships in 2021.
