Oil opportunities

With fears of a sustained recession widespread, oil prices have continued a recent decline. As I write this, the price per barrel is at $89.37, down $1.20. Prices had briefly cracked $100 per barrel a couple weeks ago.

Still, anything over $80 per barrel is supposed to be sufficient to spur private investment in alternative power research. Traditionally, this has included items like the new solar powersheets which Nanosolar began shipping last month, alternative bio-fuels like ethanol, or wind-power such as the wind turbine farms one sees from I-10 when making the drive out to LA.

In the wind-power arena, however, I can't help but be fascinated by the German company SkySails, which attempts to make what was old new again by harnessing the win to help modern vessels traverse the oceans, much as our ancestors did in the not-so-distant past.

These aren't sails in the traditional sense. Instead, the company attaches massive parachutes to the ships, said parachutes to be used in addition to, rather than in lieu of, standard motive power. We aren't talking about small ships here - the web site claims the devices can be added to cargo ships 320 meters in length (roughly 1000 feet) and weighing many, many tons (more when loaded) . The company claims savings of between 10% and 35% on an annual basis, provides an example video of the device in use and says it will begin major production this year.

I'm suspicious about the claims ... those savings seem high to me when compared to a ship making a lengthy trans-oceanic crossing in the same time as a ship not equipped with the device. I'd want to see some serious numbers crunched before I bought in. Still, the (fanciful) image of a massive, laden container ship para-sailing across the whitecaps seems quite evocative to me.