Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

thezvi.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 316 posts

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#31

Post by slobiwan »

bhy wrote: post #17

From what I heard, the real issue is the ships are not bringing these containers back, because: 1. there's not so much good for US to export (volume-wise); 2. shipping price is so high that to save time, ships do not wait to load empty containers. As long as US has a net import of containers, whatever buffer created will be filled up soon.

That's the popular consensus here in LA, it's cheaper to discard the containers than to ship them back empty (and nobody at the receiving end wants enough of what we have to make it worth sending them back full). However I drive through the port area frequently and always see containers stacked well above the 2-high limit. I suppose that means they are not empty containers? There definitely has to be some alternate use for these empty containers. People have tried to build houses with them, but I think one issue preventing widescale implementation of that use is that quite a few of them were originally holding some kind of material that would be hostile to human inhabitants. And living in a metal box in the Southern California summer would not be feasible without expensive air conditioning retrofits.

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#32

Post by JKCalhoun »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #8

Some talk about 'building a new port' as part of the solution. I'm thinking that's a decade project and $100B or some such? PoLA tried to expand for a decade and the impact statements got bogged down and nothing happened if I remember right (my sister-in-law was doing the math on the statements)

Port of Oakland says hi.

Is there a reason it does not get the traffic of L.A.? Or is a 3rd large port needed?

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#34

Post by cure »

politician wrote: post #15
sleibrock wrote: post #7

In Factorio design this is simply increasing the buffer size. If the truck-loadings-per-hour don't increase then it's not going to matter how large you make the buffer. Adding a secondary site for putting containers also seems like it's going to be a new challenge for the logistics company scheduling the rides (I have a friend who deals with train cargo scheduling). Truckers who are used to showing up at the port are…

I mean, I also play Factorio and came away from reading the article thinking that yeah, increasing the headroom in the chests (aka container stacks) from 2 slots to 6 slots would definitely introduce slack into the system. The short haul loop to a staging and integration area would also help because it allows you to re-sort the inputs to maximize pickup efficiency and is also something I've done in Factorio games. It…

> It might be fun to release a Port of Los Angeles savegame that challenges folks to unhork the port.

That would be awesome!

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#35

Post by bcrosby95 »

jaywalk wrote: post #24
_jal wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can develop the political will to treat the citizens of LA like we did the Iraqis in the second Gulf adventure, sure. Just suspend the rule of law and send in Bechtel behind a bunch of guns.

I'm not saying we should do that, but it might be preferable to allowing the citizens of LA to hold the entire global economy hostage because they love their regulations.

LA county already has the two largest ports in the USA: Long Beach and LA. Maybe some other region can pick up the slack.

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#36

Post by lotsofpulp »

MauranKilom wrote: post #27
sleibrock wrote: post #7

In Factorio design this is simply increasing the buffer size. If the truck-loadings-per-hour don't increase then it's not going to matter how large you make the buffer. Adding a secondary site for putting containers also seems like it's going to be a new challenge for the logistics company scheduling the rides (I have a friend who deals with train cargo scheduling). Truckers who are used to showing up at the port are…

Truck-loadings-per-hour will increase, but that does not help shrink the buffer if every truck picking up a container also brings back an empty one. Increasing the buffer size is a temporary relief, but clearly the underlying problem is an ever-increasing number of containers (empty or full), or we wouldn't have gotten into this situation. If we could dispose of the empty containers somewhere then this bottleneck wou…

> I gather that it's become harder to ship back empty containers though, and presumably just scrapping them is not a sound solution in the long run either.

This is not obvious to me. The same ships are going back to fetch more goods, so why would they want to go empty?

Surely the cost of manufacturing a new container is (or should be) less than the cost of putting it on an empty boat.

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#37

Post by chadwittman »

politician wrote: post #15
sleibrock wrote: post #7

In Factorio design this is simply increasing the buffer size. If the truck-loadings-per-hour don't increase then it's not going to matter how large you make the buffer. Adding a secondary site for putting containers also seems like it's going to be a new challenge for the logistics company scheduling the rides (I have a friend who deals with train cargo scheduling). Truckers who are used to showing up at the port are…

I mean, I also play Factorio and came away from reading the article thinking that yeah, increasing the headroom in the chests (aka container stacks) from 2 slots to 6 slots would definitely introduce slack into the system. The short haul loop to a staging and integration area would also help because it allows you to re-sort the inputs to maximize pickup efficiency and is also something I've done in Factorio games. It…

Love that game idea

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#38

Post by JoeAltmaier »

thrower123 wrote: post #16
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #8

Some talk about 'building a new port' as part of the solution. I'm thinking that's a decade project and $100B or some such? PoLA tried to expand for a decade and the impact statements got bogged down and nothing happened if I remember right (my sister-in-law was doing the math on the statements)

I'd like to think that if we declared a state of emergency, suspended all regulations and deployed a couple battalions of Seabees we could still build a port in a matter of months, rather than years. I'd like to think we still have those kinds of capabilities if they were needed, but I'm increasingly not sure that we actually do.

The cement alone would take years to pour. The giant cranes have to have rail to unload onto, and it has to go somewhere. The computers to control it could take years to program. The harbor dredging and shore upgrades could take years. And its not all in parallel.

Maybe an off-shore port? With a floating causeway of rail? To do something quickly requires some out-of-the-box thinking.

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#39

Post by justinator »

OK so this is essentially a self-written news story that was manipulated to make it feel-good.

That's bad.

Also, now that I know I'm manipulated, I'm skeptical that the changes will have the outcome that they want. It could but it's not good that you've told me you've manipulated me.

That's also bad.

Post reply on HN