I was a little sad to see that this is more eco-friendly performative than a serious attempt to disrupt the shipping industry. With advances in material science, meteorology, and automation, I’m hopeful cargo sailboats can make a comeback.
[deleted]
350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat
31–40 of 146 posts
Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat
#32This is not a method by which carbon emissions can be significantly reduced. It is essentially a marketing ploy to provide an option for virtue signaling consumers to show that they get their luxury chocolates and wine by sailboat.
I was going to start out this comment by saying "I don't mean to dump on well-intentioned entrepreneurs", but in all honesty I think I might. That is, at this point, anything that doesn't have at least a possible path to scaling up is just a simple sideshow, ignoring the massive changes that need to happen to get to a zero-carbon future. So this "use a little sailboat to ferry some expensive wine, coffee and chocolate across the ocean" may get good press (hence, the article) but it's not really a path to make any dent in our carbon dependency. I would contrast this with, for example, attempts to make "wind-assisted" cargo ships, e.g. https://www.offshore-energy.biz/worlds-1st-cargo-ship-equipp.... I'm not an engineer so I don't know if this approach will be scalable long term, but it's at least going in with an attempt to scale.
I just feel at this point that virtue signaling luxury products (affordable to a tiny portion of the populace anyway) is just a net negative because it allows some people to pretend they're "doing good" for the environment.
Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't carry even a 10th of the cargo of the big windjammers of the 19th century (5000-8000 tons!). Of course, setting aside the value of zero emissions which is their obvious selling point, it would otherwise be competing against big container ships (up to 200,000 tons!). I assume that until they scale it for a few more generations that it'll be more a gimmick for low tonnage luxury items that just want the zero…
Use wind power to produce methane, then use methane to power huge container ships. Sailing by proxy.
You'll be emitting nitrous oxides when burning that methane. Use wind to produce hydrogen, use that in fuel cells. Electric propulsion units are already in use, what remains to be solved is the megawatt-sized fuel cells needed for this application at a price which makes the whole scheme feasible.
Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat
#34This is not a method by which carbon emissions can be significantly reduced. It is essentially a marketing ploy to provide an option for virtue signaling consumers to show that they get their luxury chocolates and wine by sailboat. I was going to start out this comment by saying "I don't mean to dump on well-intentioned entrepreneurs", but in all honesty I think I might. That is, at this point, anything that doesn't…
[deleted]
Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat
#35It would make more sense to roast the cacao and make the fine chocolates in the countries where cacao is harvested if you ask me.
Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
There could be a convoy of drone ships, each with automated defensive system. The convoy would be patrolled by smaller/faster manned ships with security personnel looking out for pirates
Oh, okay. So, instead of crewing the ship, you're crewing multiple ships to go along with the unmanned ship? The logic with some just eludes me
Ok but what if we dig deeper. What does an autonomous ship afford? The space and weight savings of having no human habitation (just mechanic/engineer access for equipment maintenance at dock) would be rather large. No need to maintain human-comfortable conditions, bring water and food for the voyage, no recreational areas, quarters, corridors, etc.
In fact, the entire ship can be sealed and resealed at port so that if pirates board, they'd need plasma cutters. With no bridge, they'd need to hack the sheep instead of take over the crew.
Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat
#37This is not a method by which carbon emissions can be significantly reduced. It is essentially a marketing ploy to provide an option for virtue signaling consumers to show that they get their luxury chocolates and wine by sailboat. I was going to start out this comment by saying "I don't mean to dump on well-intentioned entrepreneurs", but in all honesty I think I might. That is, at this point, anything that doesn't…
> It is essentially a marketing ploy to provide an option for virtue signaling consumers to show that they get their luxury chocolates and wine by sailboat.
How much more does it cost to get something delivered this way via the "bad for environment traditional way"?
Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Use wind power to produce methane, then use methane to power huge container ships. Sailing by proxy.
You'll be emitting nitrous oxides when burning that methane. Use wind to produce hydrogen, use that in fuel cells. Electric propulsion units are already in use, what remains to be solved is the megawatt-sized fuel cells needed for this application at a price which makes the whole scheme feasible.
How are you emitting nitrous oxides from a synthetically produced (ie very pure) fuel that contains no nitrogen?
Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat
#39With starlink we could see completely autonomous drone sailboats for shipping coming soon?
How would you secure them? Pirates have already begun to be a huge problem in particular political/economic hot spots around the world. Autonomous drone sailboats would be ripe plums just waiting to be plucked. I think one of the biggest issues is that these drones could ostensibly be jammed from beyond visual range and then disabled and captured during jamming. This would make it very difficult to detect the perpetr…
I suppose there is no reason to make an autonomous cargo ship accessible to humans.
Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat
#40I was a little sad to see that this is more eco-friendly performative than a serious attempt to disrupt the shipping industry. With advances in material science, meteorology, and automation, I’m hopeful cargo sailboats can make a comeback.
Its not actually more eco friendly than placing the cargo on a container ship.
The fuel cost for moving one container over the Atlantic on a big container ship is about 30$. A container takes 30 tons. So 12 containers could move that cargo for a fuel cost of 360$, the scale is unbeatable; both economically and environmentally.
Things like this can only ever be a type of artistic thing rather than used for real shipping.