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I love wood sailing ships, and I think it’s pretty amazing that you can get people to sponsor you building and sailing them in current year. Of course, from per

by xyzzyz 6y ago

I love wood sailing ships, and I think it’s pretty amazing that you can get people to sponsor you building and sailing them in current year. Of course, from perspective of actually fighting climate change, the idea is beyond silly, but what really happens here is that you’re selling to people the idea that you’re doing it for the climate, you’re selling the feeling of doing good, and people can spend lots of money to feel and signal that. I applaud the people behind the project, and my only worry is that stunts like these are going to distract from and remove the steam from efforts that actually push the needle.

pqs 6y ago
Thanks for your comment. We all know that a shipping industry based on wood boats would be awful for the environment. We all know what would happen to the Amazon. So yes, you are right, it is silly to sell this as a solution to climate change.
- ricardobeat 6y ago
  Isn't wood one of the few renewable building resources we have? Besides building ships out of aluminum I don't see any other better choices. I don't totally agree with the conclusion; in the article itself they admit that this is more of a flagship project to show it's possible to achieve fossil-fuel-free shipping, not a solid commercial venture. Or maybe that was sarcasm? Better avoided in this forum.
  - jabl 6y ago
    Steel is fine too; the crust of the earth is about 5% iron, so it's not like we're going to run out of it. Current steel production is terribly high in emissions though, but e.g. hydrogen reduction as is being done by the HYBRIT project in Sweden show the way how to fix that.
    - corty 6y ago
      Each of concrete, steel, traffic will double our energy consumption. So if you want to do those from renewables, we will need to quadruple production, yet we struggle with providing even the current level of electricity from renewables. Green steel, concrete or traffic from hydrogen is a far-out pipedream for quite some time.
  - gmueckl 6y ago
    In the past, wood was an essential resource for building navies and it took a lot of wood to build the navies of old. The Romans deforested a huge chunk of their lands to retain their naval power in the Mediterranean.
  - pqs 6y ago
    Yes, it is renewable, but it renews very slowly. Thus, to start a massive wood based shipping industry (it should be massive to have an impact) it would cause serious deforestation. Large wood based military navies caused large deforestation in the past.
  - xyzzyz 6y ago
    We can’t build ships of large size from wood. It’s just not technically possible, wood is not a suitable material for a structure that’s subject to stresses required. You’d need to add extensive steel skeleton structure to support it, and even then you’d be fighting constant leaks, and risking sinking at high seas. Wood works great for constructing large buildings, but ships are not like buildings: unlike them, they are subject to large dynamic stresses. That’s why before widespread structural steel in 19th century, wooden ships were tiny. Mayflower was less than 30 meters long. They didn’t build it larger because they lacked lumber, they did it because previous attempts at larger ships tended to break apart at sea.
konjin 6y ago
The only effort that matters is the move to nuclear power. We are so far away from doing anything meaningful about climate change that any projects, including solar, we are pushing for today are meaningless. Enjoy the 30 good years left where industrial civilization can be stably sustained and then be prepared for the bumpy ride to a world of 500 million over the next century or two.
- bildung 6y ago
  Nuclear is essentially done (outside of niches), simply because renewables have become cheaper (in $/MWh produced) than nuclear, while having non of nuclears disadvantages.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  The only effort that matters is the move to nuclear power. I'm not even sure about that. The biggest concrete pour in Europe right now is for a nuclear power station in the UK. We won't solve climate change without dramatically changing our patterns of consumption. Trying to apply technical fixes is repeating the same patterns of thought that got us here in the first place.
  - emteycz 6y ago
    > I'm not even sure about that. The biggest concrete pour in Europe right now is for a nuclear power station in the UK. I'm having a very hard time believing that. In Czechia there are companies building entire towns (for rent), and these are still small compared to some of the new industrial areas, surely that can't be less concrete than a nuclear power plant
  - corty 6y ago
    Thats just the biggest single-piece concrete pour. Any random highway bridge has a similar total volume of concrete, just not in a single pour.
  - ip26 6y ago
    We will never reach carbon zero through austerity alone.

by xyzzyz 6y ago

pqs 6y ago

Thanks for your comment. We all know that a shipping industry based on wood boats would be awful for the environment. We all know what would happen to the Amazon. So yes, you are right, it is silly to sell this as a solution to climate change.

ricardobeat 6y ago
Isn't wood one of the few renewable building resources we have? Besides building ships out of aluminum I don't see any other better choices. I don't totally agree with the conclusion; in the article itself they admit that this is more of a flagship project to show it's possible to achieve fossil-fuel-free shipping, not a solid commercial venture. Or maybe that was sarcasm? Better avoided in this forum.
- jabl 6y ago
  Steel is fine too; the crust of the earth is about 5% iron, so it's not like we're going to run out of it. Current steel production is terribly high in emissions though, but e.g. hydrogen reduction as is being done by the HYBRIT project in Sweden show the way how to fix that.
  - corty 6y ago
    Each of concrete, steel, traffic will double our energy consumption. So if you want to do those from renewables, we will need to quadruple production, yet we struggle with providing even the current level of electricity from renewables. Green steel, concrete or traffic from hydrogen is a far-out pipedream for quite some time.
- gmueckl 6y ago
  In the past, wood was an essential resource for building navies and it took a lot of wood to build the navies of old. The Romans deforested a huge chunk of their lands to retain their naval power in the Mediterranean.
- pqs 6y ago
  Yes, it is renewable, but it renews very slowly. Thus, to start a massive wood based shipping industry (it should be massive to have an impact) it would cause serious deforestation. Large wood based military navies caused large deforestation in the past.
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  We can’t build ships of large size from wood. It’s just not technically possible, wood is not a suitable material for a structure that’s subject to stresses required. You’d need to add extensive steel skeleton structure to support it, and even then you’d be fighting constant leaks, and risking sinking at high seas. Wood works great for constructing large buildings, but ships are not like buildings: unlike them, they are subject to large dynamic stresses. That’s why before widespread structural steel in 19th century, wooden ships were tiny. Mayflower was less than 30 meters long. They didn’t build it larger because they lacked lumber, they did it because previous attempts at larger ships tended to break apart at sea.

konjin 6y ago

The only effort that matters is the move to nuclear power. We are so far away from doing anything meaningful about climate change that any projects, including solar, we are pushing for today are meaningless. Enjoy the 30 good years left where industrial civilization can be stably sustained and then be prepared for the bumpy ride to a world of 500 million over the next century or two.

bildung 6y ago
Nuclear is essentially done (outside of niches), simply because renewables have become cheaper (in $/MWh produced) than nuclear, while having non of nuclears disadvantages.
tonyedgecombe 6y ago
The only effort that matters is the move to nuclear power. I'm not even sure about that. The biggest concrete pour in Europe right now is for a nuclear power station in the UK. We won't solve climate change without dramatically changing our patterns of consumption. Trying to apply technical fixes is repeating the same patterns of thought that got us here in the first place.
- emteycz 6y ago
  > I'm not even sure about that. The biggest concrete pour in Europe right now is for a nuclear power station in the UK. I'm having a very hard time believing that. In Czechia there are companies building entire towns (for rent), and these are still small compared to some of the new industrial areas, surely that can't be less concrete than a nuclear power plant
- corty 6y ago
  Thats just the biggest single-piece concrete pour. Any random highway bridge has a similar total volume of concrete, just not in a single pour.
- ip26 6y ago
  We will never reach carbon zero through austerity alone.