It’s always interested me to think about the different contexts experienced by the great thinkers and inventors of the past. I think it’s ignorant to say that that people in the past were less intelligent than we are today - they may have known less, but they tackled the problems of their day with just as much cunning as we do today…the problems are just a bit more complex now.

Keeping that in mind, it’s so satisfying to see great ideas from the past being revived with the integration of new technology, materials, design, and engineering. One awesome example is that of sailing ships - harnessing the power of wind to get you where you need to go? Fucking brilliant! (And don’t even get me started on airships).

A German company called Beluga is using an enormous 160 sq. meter kite on a computer-controlled mast to pull a 132 m ship. (Reuters link) It’s expected to reduce fuel consumption by 20%, and even larger sails could reduce that even further to 30-50%. That represents truly immense reductions in emissions on commercial freighters, and - more importantly for owners of shipping fleets - immense cost savings.

I expect we’re going to see a lot more of this cyclical development that reinvents the past as we try to wean ourselves on fossil fuels. Humanity survived just fine without them in the past, and I expect we can learn to live much better without them in the future.