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What the hell is this headline and the article trying to say..? "40% of horse-drawn carriage cargo is hay, but 50% of what we feed horses is hay". So what?
That is not what I understood from the article. What I understand is: Fossil fuels are 40% of freight tonnage, but transporting them fuels is responsible for 50% of the total freight fuel consumption. I assume 99% of freight uses fossil sources as fuel.
What the hell is this headline and the article trying to say..? "40% of horse-drawn carriage cargo is hay, but 50% of what we feed horses is hay". So what?
What the hell is this headline and the article trying to say..? "40% of horse-drawn carriage cargo is hay, but 50% of what we feed horses is hay". So what?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is not what I understood from the article. What I understand is: Fossil fuels are 40% of freight tonnage, but transporting them fuels is responsible for 50% of the total freight fuel consumption. I assume 99% of freight uses fossil sources as fuel.
So basically a very friendly version of the rocket equation.
What the hell is this headline and the article trying to say..? "40% of horse-drawn carriage cargo is hay, but 50% of what we feed horses is hay". So what?
It's saying that 40% of the tons of cargo loaded onto ships is fossil fuels, but this makes up about 50% of ton-miles, because fossil fuels travel further on average than other cargo. Not the easiest headline to correctly parse.
Example contributors as I presently understand it:
- we transport fossil fuels further around world (i.e. Middle East to the US)
- we transport most other goods some shorter distances
- iron ore transport is "up there" with fossil fuels; high ton-miles of transport.
And of course the cost of transport for a good is a function of distance, a la the rocket equation mentioned in other comments.
And the article is focused on making this point in the context of the effect of reduced demand for fossil fuels and steel (iron ore) on maritime demand. (which is interesting, and totally not what the article title was leading my brain to think about)
Edit: And then I went and actually looked at the figure at the top of the article; guess the real topic is yet a different framing than what I comment on above!
What the hell is this headline and the article trying to say..? "40% of horse-drawn carriage cargo is hay, but 50% of what we feed horses is hay". So what?
I think the problem is that, for any given sentence, it is unclear whether the author is talking about the fuel a ship is burning to move its cargo, or fuel that the ship is transporting to a destination.
I do understand that the article is making some kind of distinction between the two, but it is so terribly written that it's just impossible to figure out which one it's talking about at which point. Or at least I certainly don't care to waste my time "solving" the article like it's some kind of linguistic puzzle.
I'm not sure I've ever come across an article that needed an editor to improve its clarity more than this one.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the fucking article: Fossil fuel cargoes travel long distances in very large flows, so their decline removes more than a proportional share of cargo mass. It removes a larger share of the ocean work and the fuel burned to do that work. And if I can get on my soapbox. This same problem (carrying fuel to feed the transportation unit) is well studied in medieval England because it was one of the main determinants o…
https://acoup.blog/2022/07/15/collections-logistics-how-did-... The Tyranny of the Wagon
Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://acoup.blog/2022/07/15/collections-logistics-how-did-... The Tyranny of the Wagon
Are you making a reference to the Tyranny of the Rocket Equation? The Earth's gravity is so large that it's almost at the limit of chemical rockets. A typical rocket is 90% propellant by mass, 8% structure and 2% payload.