New fuels are not enough. Nature's forces must also be used if the goal of fossil-free shipping is to be achieved. Lighthouse's seminar on wind powered vessels in Almedalen attracted an audience of more than more than 50 people.

"IMO's decision to reduce emissions by 50 per cent by 2050 is good, but not enough", Per Tunell of Wallenius Marine said shortly after he was welcomed on stage as the very first speaker of the week at the Maritime Meeting Place.

"Our ambition is to take it a step further and be completely emission-free," continued Tunell.

For that, of course, new fuels are required, but also that one use the natural forces around the vessels - at least if you, like Wallenius, designs ocean-going car carriers.
So the vessels will run on sun, wind and water? Nah ...

"Even if we dress the whole vessel with solar panels, it is not possible to get very much energy from it. And of course there is a lot of energy in waves, but it is also difficult to use. Therefore, wind is the alternative that looks most interesting to us."

Only with the help of the wind caught by wings Wallenius hope to get a car carrier to sail at ten knots speed - which would reduce emissions by 90 percent. To develop the concept, Wallenius has been awarded 27 million by the Swedish Transport Administration. The goal is to have a ship ready for order 2021.

"We will now look at how the hull and the sails should be designed," said today's other speaker Vendela Santén, researcher at SSPA who is also a part of the project.

But everything wasn't about big ships. Karl Garme, a researcher at KTH, presented Maribot Vane – a small sailing drone that has been moving around on it’s own gathering data in the Stockholm archipelago since last year.

- There is a great need today to gather information, but to go out with large manned vessels is both costly and bad for the environment. These small vehicles do well themselves and are not more expensive than you can afford to lose one or two.