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Exploring the Cost and Feasibility of Battery-Electric Ships

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32 points gnabgib | 3 comments | 20 Nov 24 16:52 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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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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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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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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1. 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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2. zdragnar ◴[21 Nov 24 03:05 UTC] No.42200700[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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3. taeric ◴[21 Nov 24 04:11 UTC] No.42201026[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.