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Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

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32 points gnabgib | 7 comments | 20 Nov 24 16:52 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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nominatronic ◴[20 Nov 24 21:25 UTC] No.42198277[source]▶
> 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 cargo any distance in vessels of less than 1000 gross tons, because that scale would be uneconomical to operate. Modern seagoing cargo ships have about one crew member per 8000 tons of cargo.

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1. AcerbicZero ◴[20 Nov 24 21:55 UTC] No.42198522[source]▶
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.

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2. pingou ◴[20 Nov 24 22:06 UTC] No.42198596[source]▶
For now it seems the improvements (sulphur regulations) only made the situation worse, in term of climate change.
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3. taeric ◴[21 Nov 24 00:06 UTC] No.42199552[source]▶
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.
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4. zdragnar ◴[21 Nov 24 03:05 UTC] No.42200700{3}[source]▶
You'd need to compare the harm done: acid rain versus warming due to less sulphur.

Given that it's possible to offset the rise of CO2 elsewhere, it's hard not to argue that the sulphur emissions are strictly worse, and we are better off for having less of them.

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5. stephen_g ◴[21 Nov 24 03:34 UTC] No.42200849[source]▶
That's the wrong framing. The NOx and SOx emissions were going to have to go eventually. It's true that it might have been better to phase it out over a year or two so it was less of a shock as the hard deadline that ended up hapenning, but we couldn't keep constantly polluting forever (which is the only way to keep those aerosols in the air).

Sulphur regulations just unmasked some of the global warming that had already happened, but that masking was only ever going to be temporary in the long run.

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6. taeric ◴[21 Nov 24 04:11 UTC] No.42201026{4}[source]▶
Agreed. Also hard not to see that the extra sun on the Atlantic is almost certainly rising temperatures. It isn't an either or. All if this is happening.
7. taeric ◴[21 Nov 24 04:45 UTC] No.42201208{3}[source]▶
This feels dishonest? The sulfur clouds were keeping temperatures down. Largely in ways that were not really related to green house gasses. Exposing the ocean to more sun increases temperatures of the ocean. Likely influences currents, as well. In ways independent of heat we are trapping in the atmosphere.

Should we have stopped the sulfur? Agreed that that answer is almost certainly still yes. Questions that this leads to are cleaner artificial clouds. Not to control weather, per se. Rather, to reduce ocean heating.