350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat • Hacker News Board

Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat

#91

Post by crote » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 5:35 PM UTC

evomassiny wrote: post #52

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #32

This 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…

Could you elaborate on why this is not a method by which carbon emissions can be significantly reduced ? This is only the second boat of a small company, they most likely don't have the ressources to get a bigger one. At this scale, the only way to make money is to move luxury products. IMO it's a good start.

The problem is that carbon emissions come from more than just fuel. You also have to take into account the construction of the ship, the crew, loading/unloading, and pre/post-transport.

Best-case scenario, you're looking at a crew of 4 who can transport 6x350T in a year, or 525T / person-year. Meanwhile a container ship has a crew of 20, but it can carry 240.000T, and do in the ballpark of 50 transatlantic crossings a year - so 600.000T / person-year. That discrepancy is large enough that even things like per-crew-member CO2 contributions starts to become relevant.

I'm all for decarbonizing shipping, but this boat is nothing more than a rich person's plaything. It'll contribute absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. Maybe sail is viable, but at least put it on realistically-sized vessel like [0].

[0]: https://cinea.ec.europa.eu/news-events/news/new-wind-powered...

Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat

#92

Post by crote » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 5:43 PM UTC

hagbard_c wrote: post #33

Gare wrote: post #26

Earlier 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 going to store all that hydrogen? You need extremely large and heavy high-pressure tanks, capable of holding 350–700 bar. Methane can be liquefied and stored at only 10 bar.

Hydrogen just doesn't have the density required here. Even if you want to use hydrogen-powered fuel cells, it might make more sense to convert it to ammonia for transport and storage.

Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat

#93

Post by kryptiskt » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 5:44 PM UTC

rmah wrote: post #78

agentultra wrote: post #45

Everyone is always concerned about scale. But I sometimes wonder if we need to scale down. Are cargo ships full of essential goods or disposable items that will more likely than not enter a landfill without seeing any use at all? We’re really good at over producing items and goods that we don’t need or use. It’s interesting to see businesses try things like this. It might not be efficient or affordable now. But someo…

At end of life, cargo ships are cut up into scrap steel. That scrap is then melted down and re-used to make new steel. I strongly suspect that, if you take into account the energy used to manufacture the ship, sailboats will turn out to have a far higher carbon footprint per ton-mile of shipping than normal cargo ships. Cargo ships, as dirty as they seem on a per-ship basis, are crazy efficient on a per ton-mile basi…

Up until WWII, Finnish shippers were competitive using sailing ships for long range bulk transport of grain, Eric Newby details one such voyage as a sailor in The Last Grain Race (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Grain_Race). I see no particular reason why sailing ships with a little optimization couldn't be competitive these days if they were back then, especially since the fuel prices comparatively is higher now.

Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat

#94

Post by tokai » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 5:48 PM UTC

rmah wrote: post #78

agentultra wrote: post #45

Everyone is always concerned about scale. But I sometimes wonder if we need to scale down. Are cargo ships full of essential goods or disposable items that will more likely than not enter a landfill without seeing any use at all? We’re really good at over producing items and goods that we don’t need or use. It’s interesting to see businesses try things like this. It might not be efficient or affordable now. But someo…

At end of life, cargo ships are cut up into scrap steel. That scrap is then melted down and re-used to make new steel. I strongly suspect that, if you take into account the energy used to manufacture the ship, sailboats will turn out to have a far higher carbon footprint per ton-mile of shipping than normal cargo ships. Cargo ships, as dirty as they seem on a per-ship basis, are crazy efficient on a per ton-mile basi…

Don't know about CO², but scrapping of cargo ships is a huge polluter. Places like Alang ship breaking yard are nightmarish on both the human and environmental level.

Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat

#95

Post by OJFord » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 5:50 PM UTC

I can't believe the answer to environmentally friendly wine and chocolate in New York, at least for the size of the market, is really to innovate on how to ship it from France..?!

The coffee and cacao is presumably making its second Atlantic crossing too.

And wait, coffee? What are they doing, just roasting it in France? And then it's at minimum 18 days stale by the time you buy it? That's not a premium good at all, and much less environmentally friendly than if it came directly from South America, roasted in New York or wherever. But then I guess you can't label it 'French Roast' or something stupid.

Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat

#96

Post by krisoft » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 5:55 PM UTC

thejohnconway wrote: post #16

playingalong wrote: post #3

Just by reading the article the impression is that it's both faster and should be cheaper (?). I get that only some type of cargo would fit or would make sense to load like this. What are the downsides?

Scale and throughput. Ships used to have cranes on deck and unload this way (look at pretty much any ocean liner, they had cranes on the forded for cargo). Containerisation improved throughput considerably, but added to latency. There is no way this is cheaper. Way more crew per tonne, the ship itself is almost certainly way more expensive for it capacity, and so on. Not that I don’t think sailing is a bad way to mov…

> Containerisation improved throughput considerably, but added to latency.

I doubt the “added latency” part. How long do you think it takes to unload 11,000 twenty-foot container from a ship? Do you think anyone would move the contained stuff faster if it were just in a loose pile?

Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat

#97

Post by Thorrez » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 5:55 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #81

agentultra wrote: post #45

Everyone is always concerned about scale. But I sometimes wonder if we need to scale down. Are cargo ships full of essential goods or disposable items that will more likely than not enter a landfill without seeing any use at all? We’re really good at over producing items and goods that we don’t need or use. It’s interesting to see businesses try things like this. It might not be efficient or affordable now. But someo…

> Are cargo ships full of essential goods This article is about a company transporting luxury coffee, chocolate and wine from France - hardly what I would call "essential goods". And given that coffee and chocolate doesn't grow in France, dollars to doughnuts the commodities for those products was originally brought to France on traditional cargo ships. Totally agree with another commenter, this is simply greenwashin…

> then down through the Caribbean, where the sailboat will dispatch humanitarian aid, working alongside local NGOs. The sailboat will also restock its coffee and cacao supply on its journey through the Caribbean. That supply is then brought back across the sea to France

Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat

#98

Post by slothtrop » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 5:56 PM UTC

jylam wrote: post #42

"Everything from Grain de Sail brand fine chocolates and organic coffee to cosmetic products, wine, and French fashion house luxury goods were on board." So luxury stuff that no one really needs to get from the other side of the world. There is nothing environmentally friendly about useless stuff shipped from a country 10.000km away. Cocoa and coffee obviously doesn't grow in France, so it already came for somewhere…

Almost nothing is entirely local. Even with foodstuffs, fertilizer feed and other supplies has to be transported from great distances. Whether something gets to its destination in a less energy-intensive way locally depends on the product. Plus it's more land-efficient (and therefore less hard on environment) for farmers to sell to a wider area.

You can of course give up luxuries if you want, but it's a pointless race to the bottom. Emissions go up because demand goes up in the developing world, not because you ordered coffee and chocolate. And of course that surge in demand is a reflection of an improved quality of life, i.e. living more like the West.

Since climate change is a short-run imminent problem, I agree that interventions of some sort alongside the innovation race are warranted. Here though, some are more impactful and politically viable than others. There is some low hanging fruit that governments can take advantage of, such as green grants for improving home insulation, dissuading purchase of SUVs (the gas-powered ones), greatly improving public transportation and zoning reform, etc.

Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat

#99

Post by reliablereason » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 5:56 PM UTC

evomassiny wrote: post #79

reliablereason wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 shippi…

How is 360$ of fuel more eco-friendly than 0$ ? I don't get your argument

Just cause it is a sailing vessel does not mean it does not have an engine. It probably uses a couple of 100 liters of disel to get in and out of port, driving generators and heating the boat.

On top of that the sails will degrade with time and the ship will need to be repaired and there is allot more crew and manpower needed per unit of cargo.

Everything has environmental cost in CO2 emissions, and the amount of useful work you get from a large container ship per amount CO2 emissions is insane. The only thing that can get you those kinds of numbers is scale.

Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat

#100

Post by bobthepanda » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 6:00 PM UTC

kryptiskt wrote: post #93

rmah wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At end of life, cargo ships are cut up into scrap steel. That scrap is then melted down and re-used to make new steel. I strongly suspect that, if you take into account the energy used to manufacture the ship, sailboats will turn out to have a far higher carbon footprint per ton-mile of shipping than normal cargo ships. Cargo ships, as dirty as they seem on a per-ship basis, are crazy efficient on a per ton-mile basi…

Up until WWII, Finnish shippers were competitive using sailing ships for long range bulk transport of grain, Eric Newby details one such voyage as a sailor in The Last Grain Race ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Grain_Race ). I see no particular reason why sailing ships with a little optimization couldn't be competitive these days if they were back then, especially since the fuel prices comparatively is highe…

The real kicker is labor cost per ton. Bigger ships don’t have a proportionately bigger crew. And sailboats were quite labor intensive.