Container ships straddle a fine line between ultra-efficient and ultra-polluters. They can carry thousands of 20-ft containers across thousands of miles of ocean in relatively short time, but they also burn sulfur-laden heavy oil fuels. Each ship can emit over 150,000 tons of CO2 every year, 5,000 tons of sulfur, and other harmful particulates attributed to death and disease along heavily populated coastlines.
A.P. Moller Maersk AS operates the world’s largest container ship fleet. For the first time in 106 years, they lost money due to the economic downturn. How much money? $1.3 billion. Ouch. But they’ve also pledged to reduce their CO2 output by 20% by 2017. How nice would that be?