Wind could help blow away food miles arguments
June 29th, 2009
In the battle to fight the growing scourge of food miles campaigns, Kiwifruit exporter, Zespri International, may be pointing the way to the future for other primary sector exporters looking to prove they are doing their best to cut emissions. The company is looking at cutting emissions from the ships it uses to transport kiwifruit to offshore markets by using giant kites to help propel ships.
The system developed in Germany and tested on the vessel MV Beluga, comprises a giant sail measuring up to 320m2 flown 100-300 metres above the vessel. In the right conditions they can reduce a ship’s fuel consumption by 10 – 35% on an annual basis and up to 50% in specific wind conditions. The trial kites have an effective pulling power of 32 tonnes but larger kites planned could see this jump to 130 tonnes.
In addition to the sails, Zespri is also looking at other innovations to cut costs and its carbon footprint which may also have relevance to the meat and dairy sectors. These include loading more fruit onto each ship and using “slow steaming” which can reduce ship fuel consumption by up to 17% even through a reduction in speed of just 2 knots.
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