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    Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

    (newscenter.lbl.gov)
    50 points gnabgib | 11 comments | 20 Nov 24 16:52 UTC | HN request time: 1.485s | 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. elihu ◴[20 Nov 24 23:47 UTC] No.42199401[source]▶
    > 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.

    replies(1): >>42200797 #
    2. bluGill ◴[21 Nov 24 03:23 UTC] No.42200797[source]▶
    There is very little shipping between us ports. Not zero, but not much.
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    3. euroderf ◴[21 Nov 24 09:42 UTC] No.42202594[source]▶
    Speculation: this system propped up by the long-distance trucking lobby.
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    4. elihu ◴[21 Nov 24 13:13 UTC] No.42204009[source]▶
    I can believe that.
    5. Polizeiposaune ◴[21 Nov 24 15:00 UTC] No.42204909{3}[source]▶
    Longshoreman's union "touch fees" reportedly have a lot to do with it:

    https://capitalresearch.org/article/what-you-need-to-know-ab...

    https://twitter.com/johnkonrad/status/1840904466310316459

    " it’s somehow cheaper to truck containers hundreds of miles and let taxpayers foot the road repair bill than let the union touch it two more times for short sea shipping to work."

    replies(1): >>42209535 #
    6. dghlsakjg ◴[21 Nov 24 16:15 UTC] No.42205797{3}[source]▶
    The Jones act goes back to before the existence of long distance trucking, and has so many interested parties just on the maritime side that it will take a shift in world order for it to change.
    replies(1): >>42206290 #
    7. euroderf ◴[21 Nov 24 17:01 UTC] No.42206290{4}[source]▶
    "Son, custody of the Jones Act has been passed down from technology generation to technology generation..."
    8. mrguyorama ◴[21 Nov 24 22:53 UTC] No.42209535{4}[source]▶
    It's not the Longshoreman's union fault that truck drivers have zero leverage against their employers in comparison.

    If every form of transportation had strong unions, the system could find whatever healthy or natural distribution was actually economically efficient. More stuff would be sent by Train and Boat, both substantially more efficient in most cases, and both industries that suffer in the US from being ignored.

    Instead, so much of the US essentially just runs on Employee Coercion Arbitrage and we all suffer for it.

    We should be able to shop around transportation choices without exploiting underpaid workers.

    Realistically, a carbon tax would actually have the same outcome if you hate unions.

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    9. JumpCrisscross ◴[22 Nov 24 04:40 UTC] No.42211252[source]▶
    > 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.)

    10. Polizeiposaune ◴[23 Nov 24 02:09 UTC] No.42218750{5}[source]▶
    The longshoreman's union is acting as a rent-seeking monopolist, which is behavior which is usually frowned upon when the actor isn't a union (and perhaps should be when it is).
    11. Dylan16807 ◴[23 Nov 24 07:55 UTC] No.42219739{5}[source]▶
    > It's not the Longshoreman's union fault that truck drivers have zero leverage against their employers in comparison.

    If that shipping method is cheaper than a union charge, then the union charge is too high.

    Even though yes truck drivers should be getting paid more.

    Like, okay, we could pay truck drivers twice as much and now it's only cheaper to truck the containers around 150 miles or whatever? That's still way too expensive.

    And a carbon tax doesn't fix this. It makes trucking more expensive but it doesn't make the charge for using a crane less expensive.