A high-tech, high-flying kite is helping a 10,000-ton cargo ship breeze across the Atlantic on its maiden voyage from Germany to Venezuela. The SS Beluga SkySails is the first ship of its size to employ this computerized kite system, which is saving the ship 10 to 15 percent on its fuel costs per day and cutting its greenhouse gas emissions, too, according to Reuters.

Talk about a blast from the past; commercial shippers abandoned wind power for steam more than a century ago because steam power was more reliable. Now, cargo ships carry 90 per cent of the world’s goods”everything from grains to gas to consumer gadgets”and emit 800 million tons of carbon dioxide each year in the process, or “about 5 per cent of the world’s total,” Reuters reports.

Verena Frank, Beluga Shipping’s SkySails project manager, told Reuters that the system is still being tested and perfected. Once they’ve ironed out the kinks and the crew gets the hang of the SkySails kite system, fuel savings are projected to go up to 20 percent.

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