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Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

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Re: Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

#91

Post by two_handfuls »

taeric wrote: post #46
pingou wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For now it seems the improvements (sulphur regulations) only made the situation worse, in term of climate change.

I'm surprised I don't see that discussed more. Too easy to slide into denialism? I thought there was a strong case a lot of the immediate ocean temperature changes these past few years was this. Which is not to deny climate change, but we should pay attention to all changes. Instead, I've seen more denial that cloud seeding could do anything.

It's included in the models all right.

Re: Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

#92

Post by specialist »

DanielHB wrote: post #70

I wonder how viable an autonomous single-container electric cargo ship would be, instead of massive ships you could have thousands of tiny ones. With automated loading/unloading it could massively simplify logistics A solar panel covering the ship and one of those flaps to generate power from wind with a EV-scale battery could be enough for containers moving light non-time-sensitive stuff. Probably wouldn't be able t…

My dream variant of this notion is a waveglider. Super efficient, if a little slower.

Bonus points for adding a big scoop, to slurp up trash and filter out microplastics.

Re: Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

#93

Post by strawhatguy »

For their comparisons, they used the "social cost" of CO2 emissions, I presume a detriment to combustion engined ships, a benefit to battery powered ones? Also they used the "2nd life" of the battery too, batteries that have not been repurposed at any meaningful scale yet?

I'm becoming more skeptical of reports, especially government reports, like this; there's a thumb on the scale toward solutions that are politically favored. Clearly this report was trying to find any way to boost the appearance of EVs.

Re: Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

#94

Post by JumpCrisscross »

bluGill wrote: post #55
elihu wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very little of the shipping industry is US-flagged. That's true for international shipping, but for shipping between U.S. ports, the ships have to be U.S. flagged due to the Jones act. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920 I agree though that focusing on small U.S. flagged ships is not very representative of shipping in general.

There is very little shipping between us ports. Not zero, but not much.

> There is very little shipping between us ports. Not zero, but not much

A one-shot solution to reducing inflation and emissions would be in repealing the Jones Act. (Also, increasing the prevalence of ferry transport.)

Re: Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

#95

Post by entropicgravity »

lstodd wrote: post #87
entropicgravity wrote: post #63

The future of shipping is ammonia. It has, pretty much, all the attributes of fossil fuels but being NH4 it doesn't produce an earth warming byproduct.

now imagine a leak of it. fuel oil.. you just fence it off and scoop up. ammonia.. evacuate the port and city

Studies have been done comparing gasoline vs. ammonia and while there are differences overall the dangers and mitigations are about the same.

Re: Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

#96

Post by elzbardico »

mcswell wrote: post #50
elzbardico wrote: post #45

A Lithium fire battery in a cruise ship in the middle of the Pacific would be a truly unique experience.

Almost as bad as a fuel oil fire on a cruise ship.

There's no need to lie. Lithium battery fires are a fucking nightmare.

Re: Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

#97

Post by taeric »

two_handfuls wrote: post #91
taeric wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised I don't see that discussed more. Too easy to slide into denialism? I thought there was a strong case a lot of the immediate ocean temperature changes these past few years was this. Which is not to deny climate change, but we should pay attention to all changes. Instead, I've seen more denial that cloud seeding could do anything.

It's included in the models all right.

But rarely discussed or acked by the press? Or have there been more stories that show how much of an impact it had? I remember one round of articles.

Re: Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

#98

Post by DanielHB »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #85
DanielHB wrote: post #70

I wonder how viable an autonomous single-container electric cargo ship would be, instead of massive ships you could have thousands of tiny ones. With automated loading/unloading it could massively simplify logistics A solar panel covering the ship and one of those flaps to generate power from wind with a EV-scale battery could be enough for containers moving light non-time-sensitive stuff. Probably wouldn't be able t…

That sounds like a nightmare in port. Instead of one ship, now you have thousands arriving one after another.

If they are that small and autonomous the concept of a port would likely be very different than what it is today. More like thousands of small drop-off points around the coast.

Re: Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

#99

Post by Night_Thastus »

AcerbicZero wrote: post #37
nominatronic wrote: post #31

> The researchers analyzed US-flagged ships less than 1,000 gross tonnage, which includes primarily passenger ships and three types of tugboats. This is the buried lede. They are excluding basically all cargo shipping. - Very little of the shipping industry is US-flagged. Most commercial ships sail under flags of convenience such as Panama and Libera, because of their reduced regulations and costs. - Nobody carries c…

Hah, if we're only going to talk only about tiny US ships, run them on whale oil for all I care. Seems to me the 80/20 here would be to attack the problem near the top of the stack, not the bottom. Those massive heavy fuel oil burning container ships that basically just smog the ocean 24/7 might be a good target for improvements; as well as just general code enforcement.

To be honest, the massive heavy fuel oil container ships are remarkably efficient. The amount of energy they use to move a given weight of cargo a given distance is minuscule compared to that of trucks, and still much better than even trains.

Scale has an advantage all its own when it comes to combustion engines.

Re: Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

#100

Post by tonymet »

tonymet wrote: post #2

Ferry service in the Puget Sound (Seattle Area) has suffered due to delays with electric ferries. The state refuses to maintain their existing fleet. Every line has frequent delays, and the international route which was suspended for “a couple years” in 2021 is now delayed until 2030. The frustration people have with electric isn’t the technology – it’s the dogmatic commitment to technology that isn’t quite ready, ba…

Hackernews needs a better way to highlight stimulating comments. This one generated a healthy discussion, still 0 points.

I advocated for a controversial ranking before and it’s still relevant.

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