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What's the energy / pollution released by a supertanker or container ship during one shipping? Might be close to one Hiroshima bomb

• madaxe_again 7y ago
  Given an engine running at 50,000kW (roughly cruising power for a post-Panamax vessel) for a week (a very rough “average” shipping), you’d be looking at ~3x10^13 J. The Hiroshima bomb was 6.3x10^13 J. So, an average shipping is about half a Bomb in direct heat - add in the emissions from burning the diesel/bunker oil, and their warming effect, and you’re probably at a full Bomb per shipping.
  • Angostura 7y ago
    I did a very quick and dirty back of the envelope guesstimate independently and came up with a vessel producing about 1/6th of a bomb a day. So around about the same as yours.
  • jononor 7y ago
    With 1.83 billion metric tons shipped annually (2017), and assuming all ships are loaded full with 120'000 metric tons (post-Panamax limit), there are around 15'000 such shipments yearly. Which begs the question, why isn't the impact higher?
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]