Over the last couple years / decades, ships went slower and slower on average as to save fuel (fuel became more expensive as well as environmental regulation on how much a ship may emit, which correlates to fuel intake).
So some people in the naval industry propose going back to using wind power, either via traditional sailing or more elaborate schemes (via electricity generation as an intermediary).
I've seen proposals to use wind power as an auxiliary source. I have yet to see serious proposals to convert to solely wind power.
Unless batteries get a lot lighter, ships are more likely to be powered by liquid hydrogen or ammonia, which are relatively straightforward to produce from renewable energy.
The hard thing is the sustained loads over weeks. It's not like a car where it gets rolling and then keeps rolling with some air resistance, you need to constantly force yourself through the water, even though it is efficient on a per ton basis.
Consumption on larger vessels can be 150-300 tons per day, say 40 MJ/kg of energy content. Say you only need 50% due to earlier thermal efficiency losses. For a 3 week range from China to the US west coast you still need 30 GWh, or 300 000 Tesla 100 kWh batteries. Which is actually quite similar to the battery capacity of all Teslas delivered in a year. Using 246 Wh/kg we get that the ship needs about 120 000 tons of batteries. A 400m container ship has 140 000 tons of usable capacity, i.e. just the steel excluding all cargo and provision, so it really doesn't add up yet. Need a magnitude improvement before it can start making sense, and this is a calculation without even margins or considering for example China to US East Coast.
It's just incredible how energy dense fossil fuels are. Shipping and aviation will probably end up as the last industries to go green, because they actually use the energy density.
Here's a larger ferry connecting Sweden and Denmark that was converted to hybrid with the goal to not use any diesels in regular service. Has 4 160 kWh battery capacity, one trip takes 20 minutes and uses 1 175 kWh.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyWcY4bTdl8
A company specializing in it is https://corvusenergy.com/
Any of the pacific islands could be built out with infrastructure to recharge them - afterall, sea-based wind turbines are one of the cheapest sources of power, while ontermittent, they are perfect for charging. You coupd even place something akin to an oil platform, but for charging ships.
However maybe something like hydrogen makes more sense.
This _more_ than makes up for the coal industry
Where and how it shown that?
I don't think so. But it currently uses petroleum/natural gas as feedstock.
> What do you suppose happens when, for example, Saudi Arabia can no longer feed itself? It just peacefully and gently starves to death?
First, I think you have to segregate between different kinds of fossil fuels.
Coal is the worst. From what I understand, it's mostly used in industry, power generation and heating. The main problem is: it's really dirty.
Natural gas probably has a much longer period of future usability. Tesla has shown quite readily that batteries are probably better than peaker plants for most cases. But for home heating and cooking, natural gas will probably have utility for quite some time. Yes - it does release greenhouse glasses, but the immediate health concerns in terms of the pm2.5 released by burning it are relatively minor.
Petroleum is in a similar boat. The main use for petroleum - automotive transport will probably be gradually phased out over the next 20 years (a reasonable approximation of how long used cars last), but it's used for more than just that. Plastic production and aviation fuel are probably two of the uses that will probably have some real longevity to them. In theory, naval propulsion is more amenable to electrification than aviation, but that'll be tricky to do economically; that is another area that petroleum could have a long useful life in.
In short, while there will be a dramatic drop in the consumption of fossil fuels, I have serious doubts that it will get anywhere close to zero in less than 40 years. I do think it is likely that coal burning will probably go away completely and both natural gas and petroleum use will decrease by over 90%. What that will do to the price is hard to say.