>those ships would require enormous chemical batteries, which is not practical or sustainable Since 2018 when the article was written the cost of batteries has

>those ships would require enormous chemical batteries, which is not practical or sustainable Since 2018 when the article was written the cost of batteries has dropped about 50% https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline. And will probably do another 50%+ with sodium ion batteries that use common and abundant materials. A human working at a normal kind of rate probably does about 2 kWh worth of work in a day or similar to a $200 battery which can be recharged for <$1. Batteries would be way cheaper than human labour already and similar to the cost of diesel.