Barges are very efficient. Does that make them a good climate alternative for shipping?

The Mississippi River is a transportation powerhouse — especially for agriculture.

Roughly 60% of the U.S. grain exports float down the river by barge, and plenty of soybeans are moved that way.

But barges can move a lot of other goods too.

“Rubber, scrap metal, resin for polymers like paints, varnishes glues,” said Paul Rohde, Midwest region vice president for the Waterways Council, an organization that advocates for barge transportation. “It’s all about capacity.”

It would take more than 1,000 semitrucks to carry the same load as 15 barges and a single tow boat, the standard for this part of the Mississippi River, he said.

That’s significant given that the transportation sector accounts for about 28% of the greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. But only about 2% of that sector is ships and boats, Rohde said.

“We’re a very small part of that carbon footprint the EPA is citing,” he said.

Reducing the emissions from the transportation sector is imperative to meet the country’s climate goals and one reason Rohde advocates for more things to be shipped on the country’s rivers, he said.

“Barges move products with a much lower carbon footprint than rail or certainly trucks,” Rohde said.