31–40 of 66 posts
And if that is not a testament how stupidly efficient container megaships are, I don't know what it is.
Two of the last paragraphs: > All of this is technically possible, and as we have seen, it would produce less in emissions than the present alternatives. However, it’s more likely that a switch to sailing ships is accompanied by a decrease in cargo and passenger traffic, and this has everything to do with scale and speed. A lot of freight and passengers would not be travelling if it were not for the high speeds and l…
Because the latter isn’t a sustainable solution to the problems we are facing. The environment can’t support all of the current population at any kind of modern lifestyle. Unless “changing lifestyles” is “give up all daily transportation, heating, cooling, meat, and 99 percent of electricity”, it’s not gonna cut it.
And, come on, then want to haul sails by hand on a ship of that size? And use rowing machines to generate electric power? They'd need a huge crew.
Liquid natural gas carriers often run on their own natural gas. There a few natural gas powered freighters now, but they're built in the US for the run to Puerto Rico, which, under the Jones Act, is limited to American ships.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US tried this concept at one point with the nuclear powered NS Savannah, which was a cargo/passenger ship. Unfortunately it was already outdated by the time it was built, unable to accommodate the modular containers taking over the shipping industry. It was mostly a novelty at the time and was expensive to run. Still though it seems nuclear would be a good fit for shipping. Most large ships use electric motors fo…
Large merchant ships don't use electric motors. The propeller is directly driven by a large diesel engine through a mechanical transmission because that is the cheapest and most efficient design.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article essentially dismisses lithium batteries as non-sustainable.
Which is dumb, because the "saltwater" batteries have manganese cathode and titanium phosphate anode... doesn't sound radically different than lithium iron phosphate.
A natural gas powered container ship would probably have lower emissions per unit of cargo moved than the proposed "eco" sailing ship, which has low cargo capacity by modern standards. The big problem with cargo ships from a pollution standpoint is that they run on really crappy "bunker oil C", which is about halfway between jet fuel and asphalt. Heavier than seawater. One of the biggest sources of preventable pollut…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Saad%C3%A9-class_con...
Two of the last paragraphs: > All of this is technically possible, and as we have seen, it would produce less in emissions than the present alternatives. However, it’s more likely that a switch to sailing ships is accompanied by a decrease in cargo and passenger traffic, and this has everything to do with scale and speed. A lot of freight and passengers would not be travelling if it were not for the high speeds and l…
Because the latter isn’t a sustainable solution to the problems we are facing. The environment can’t support all of the current population at any kind of modern lifestyle. Unless “changing lifestyles” is “give up all daily transportation, heating, cooling, meat, and 99 percent of electricity”, it’s not gonna cut it.
Then the market will sort it out to find another optimum.
A natural gas powered container ship would probably have lower emissions per unit of cargo moved than the proposed "eco" sailing ship, which has low cargo capacity by modern standards. The big problem with cargo ships from a pollution standpoint is that they run on really crappy "bunker oil C", which is about halfway between jet fuel and asphalt. Heavier than seawater. One of the biggest sources of preventable pollut…
Make it big , get it up out of the water. The larger your ship is the more efficient it can be, and the less of it in the water the less energy is needed to push it. So make big big ships with really really big sails. You want the ships to fly with just the keel in the water to steer against the wind. You might think I'm joking or talking nonsense, but look up Alexander Bell's cellular geodesic kites, and Bucky Fulle…