You're listening to TED Talks Daily. I'm Elise Hume. The vast majority of the goods we use come by boat.

If shipping were a country, it would be the sixth largest emitter of CO2 on the planet. That's wild, right?

In her talk from Ted Monterey in 2021,

journalist Maria Galucci introduces us to a game-changing solution for the shipping industry and for the Earth.

A few years ago, I sailed on a ship that comes from an earlier era

when moving goods by sea didn't mean polluting the planet.

Our voyage through the Caribbean was eye-opening, and not just because I learned that,

apparently I'm incurably seasick. I also saw what it's like when you take away the diesel fumes

and the black smoke that spew from today's freighters and ports. Instead, our vessel smelled like

fresh sea breeze and the bags of cardamom we carried

and all that chamomile tea I was chugging.

Nearly every modern cargo ship relies on highly polluting fossil fuels.

Fortunately, there's a way to clean up the industry beyond just reviving old-fashioned sailing ships.

And it's green ammonia.

If you know anything about ammonia, it's probably that it's stinky, it's toxic, it's potentially explosive.

So that's a great place to start, right?

Ammonia is mainly used today to make chemicals and fertilizers.

But for many reasons, industry experts are convinced that ammonia could be a game-changing way to drive giant cargo ships,

and that it could be used safely and be cost competitive. Tens of thousands of freighters

criss-crossed the oceans every day, bringing the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the cars we drive.

Containerships alone carry some $4 trillion with the goods by sea every year. That's roughly the GDP of

Germany. At the same time, the shipping industry contributes a significant share of the world's

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