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Practically speaking, the single biggest area of low hanging fruit is clean shipping. Right now the largest 15 cargo ships emit more greenhouse gasses than all

by revel 8y ago

Practically speaking, the single biggest area of low hanging fruit is clean shipping. Right now the largest 15 cargo ships emit more greenhouse gasses than all the cars on the road combined. The US could take the lead on this issue by modifying the Jones Act, a peculiar piece of legislation that forces maritime commerce between US territories to use US ships with an American crew. If the Jones Act were modified to include incentives for zero emission ships it would heavily incentive investment in this critical area. This single change in legislation would reduce the cost of goods and services in Hawaii and Puerto Rico, increase trade, and provide a powerful economic carrot to reduce carbon emissions.

mikeash 8y ago
The largest 15 cargo ships emit more sulphuric dioxide than all the cars on the road combined. That is not a greenhouse gas, and actually has a cooling effect, although it’s not healthy locally.
- revel 8y ago
  So I looked into this more and you're right that it's sulphuric dioxide that I was thinking of. CO2 emissions from shipping are 800m tons per year and, if taken alone, would constitute the 6th heaviest source of carbon emissions in the world.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    How are you dividing up other sources such that shipping would be the 6th heaviest source? At roughly 2% of total global emissions, it seems like you'd have to lump other sources together in a strange way to come up with that ranking. For example, looking at: https://www.c2es.org/content/international-emissions/ https://www.c2es.org/content/international-emissions/ Taking shipping as a separate thing, it would rank 7th in the chart of total emissions and 6th in the chart of energy-related emissions, but only because those charts only contain 6 and 5 entries respectively.
lost_my_pwd 8y ago
There's a good Planet Money podcast all about the Jones Act: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/08/05/488869138/episode-524-mr-jones-act https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/08/05/488869138/epis...
larkeith 8y ago
Relevant technology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkySails https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkySails

by revel 8y ago

mikeash 8y ago

The largest 15 cargo ships emit more sulphuric dioxide than all the cars on the road combined. That is not a greenhouse gas, and actually has a cooling effect, although it’s not healthy locally.

revel 8y ago
So I looked into this more and you're right that it's sulphuric dioxide that I was thinking of. CO2 emissions from shipping are 800m tons per year and, if taken alone, would constitute the 6th heaviest source of carbon emissions in the world.
- mikeash 8y ago
  How are you dividing up other sources such that shipping would be the 6th heaviest source? At roughly 2% of total global emissions, it seems like you'd have to lump other sources together in a strange way to come up with that ranking. For example, looking at: https://www.c2es.org/content/international-emissions/ https://www.c2es.org/content/international-emissions/ Taking shipping as a separate thing, it would rank 7th in the chart of total emissions and 6th in the chart of energy-related emissions, but only because those charts only contain 6 and 5 entries respectively.

lost_my_pwd 8y ago

There's a good Planet Money podcast all about the Jones Act: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/08/05/488869138/episode-524-mr-jones-act https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/08/05/488869138/epis...

larkeith 8y ago

Relevant technology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkySails https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkySails