I've long imagined some fun possibilities for this.
I picture a small-ish shipping ship, say something moving 20 or 30 containers only, fully autonomous (100% crewless) with sails and solar only powering it. Solar electric motors handling the near-land operations and "not enough wind" conditions, sails otherwise. If you had autonomous loading and unloading, you would have zero variable/operational cost.
I am certain there are very good reasons this would never work, but I still love the idea.
I picture a small-ish shipping ship, say something moving 20 or 30 containers only, fully autonomous (100% crewless) with sails and solar only powering it. Solar electric motors handling the near-land operations and "not enough wind" conditions, sails otherwise. If you had autonomous loading and unloading, you would have zero variable/operational cost.
I am certain there are very good reasons this would never work, but I still love the idea.