The current energy ‘crisis’ is apparently going to last long enough to foster real innovation. The last one peaking in the 1980s did not. Now Hamburg’s Sky Sail uses a para sail to reduce energy consumption for ships. The website here features a video that is most interesting. Note the use of the accounting term in the video, the cost will be amortized in three to five years offset by fuel savings. Sky Sail offer several advantages over a mast type sail system. The sail is 100-200 meters in the air where the wind is more predictable and stronger. It hoists from the bow of the boat so that it does not interfere with loading cargo. And it does not heel the boat like conventional sails. And it can be used within 50 degrees of the wind so upwind energy is possible also.
Click on the image above and you will get the idea, now this is out of the box thinking.
Professor Elam 
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