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"Carrying more than 90% of the world’s trade, ocean-going vessels produce just 3% of its greenhouse-gas emissions." The article says itself, shipping is super e
by Radle 10y ago
"Carrying more than 90% of the world’s trade, ocean-going vessels produce just 3% of its greenhouse-gas emissions."
The article says itself, shipping is super efficient.
- caseysoftware 10y agoSo combine that with the next sentence: By burning heavy fuel oil, just 15 of the biggest ships emit more oxides of nitrogen and sulphur—gases much worse for global warming than carbon dioxide—than all the world’s cars put together. So all of the world's cars produce less than 3% of greenhouse gas emissions? Sounds like we should work at optimizing other parts of the system. (Eg. When you're trying to improve speed/throughput of a system, you focus on the bigger chunks first, not where < 3% of the work is done.)
- vickychijwani 10y agoYou're ignoring the possibility that cars may emit only tiny amounts of sulphur and nitrogen oxides, compared to ships whose emissions are largely made up of those gases. That would be consistent with both sentences, although I don't know if it's true. EDIT: Looks like that is indeed true, see this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10716251 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10716251