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Aren't the biggest greenhouse gas polluters concrete manufacturing and container ships though?

rsj_hn 5y ago
Wouldn't that be the people who buy products shipped from overseas and those who buy buildings made with concrete instead of wood and brick? That's the problem with an economy in which there is a circular flow of commodities.
- dehrmann 5y ago
  > people who buy products shipped from overseas Container shipping is pretty efficient. I found this quote: > A big ship will emit about 0.4 ounces of carbon dioxide to transport 2 tons of cargo 1 mile. That’s roughly half as much as a train, one-fifth as much as a truck and nearly a fiftieth of what an airplane would emit to accomplish the same task. For CO2 emissions, container shipping from Shenzhen to Long Beach by ship is about the same as Bloomington, IL to Long Beach by truck.
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    Good point! Just because there is a concentration of some activity in one part of the flow of commodities doesn't mean that the activity is inefficient.
dehrmann 5y ago
Container shipping accounts for ~2.2% of CO2 emissions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_effects_of_shipping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_effects_of_shipp... You're probably thinking of other emissions. They burn heavy fuel oil, so they emit a lot of sulfur.
- NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
  >greenhouse gas
dcolkitt 5y ago
Couldn’t you just build nuclear powered container ships? The biggest reason nuclear powered shipping isn’t mainstream is because many countries have local policies to prohibit nuclear vessels from docking. If the major powers coordinated they could force the minor powers into cooperation. If a country like New Zealand refuses to let nuclear ships dock at their local ports, then simply throw them out of the WTO. They’d have no other option but to change their irrational anti-nuclear policies.
- beeboop 5y ago
  To be fair, there are a lot of countries that I would not trust to build safe nuclear ships. There'd need to be a shitload of regulation around the building of these ships.
  - Aachen 5y ago
    The vast majority of the time they'd not be on shore though. If, on first rollout, we notice a number of them melting down at sea... Until then I'd not want to kill the idea without giving it a chance.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Ships sink at the rate of about 10 per year, and there are on the order of 80,000 large commercial cargo vessels in the world's trade fleets. About 1/3 of that is dedicated to the movement of hydrocarbons themselves (mostly bulk crude oil, but also natural gas, coal, and refined products). The total military nuclear fleet is on the order of 500 vessels, and actually accounts for the overwhelming majority of nuclear reactors in operation. Sea lanes are not distributed evenly over the oceans, but are concentrated along a limited number of high-traffic routes, notably between China, the Straits of Malaca, Gulf of Aden, Suez, and Mediterranian, between western Europe and the Americas, and from the west coast of the US to Japan and China, by way of the Aleutian Islands (great circle route). Odds of hull losses in coastal waters near fishing grounds and shore habitation are high. Piracy and other activities are another risk. I'm wondering how the headlines following a decrepit nuclear-powered bulk carrier discovered to be carrying a cargo of poorly-loaded ammonium nitrate, blowing up somewhere in the Medierannian, South China Sea, or Singapore, and dirty-bombing the hell out of a few thousand square kilometres will read.

Wouldn't that be the people who buy products shipped from overseas and those who buy buildings made with concrete instead of wood and brick? That's the problem with an economy in which there is a circular flow of commodities.

dehrmann 5y ago
> people who buy products shipped from overseas Container shipping is pretty efficient. I found this quote: > A big ship will emit about 0.4 ounces of carbon dioxide to transport 2 tons of cargo 1 mile. That’s roughly half as much as a train, one-fifth as much as a truck and nearly a fiftieth of what an airplane would emit to accomplish the same task. For CO2 emissions, container shipping from Shenzhen to Long Beach by ship is about the same as Bloomington, IL to Long Beach by truck.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  Good point! Just because there is a concentration of some activity in one part of the flow of commodities doesn't mean that the activity is inefficient.

dehrmann 5y ago

Container shipping accounts for ~2.2% of CO2 emissions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_effects_of_shipping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_effects_of_shipp... You're probably thinking of other emissions. They burn heavy fuel oil, so they emit a lot of sulfur.

NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
>greenhouse gas

dcolkitt 5y ago

Couldn’t you just build nuclear powered container ships? The biggest reason nuclear powered shipping isn’t mainstream is because many countries have local policies to prohibit nuclear vessels from docking. If the major powers coordinated they could force the minor powers into cooperation. If a country like New Zealand refuses to let nuclear ships dock at their local ports, then simply throw them out of the WTO. They’d have no other option but to change their irrational anti-nuclear policies.

beeboop 5y ago
To be fair, there are a lot of countries that I would not trust to build safe nuclear ships. There'd need to be a shitload of regulation around the building of these ships.
- Aachen 5y ago
  The vast majority of the time they'd not be on shore though. If, on first rollout, we notice a number of them melting down at sea... Until then I'd not want to kill the idea without giving it a chance.
dredmorbius 5y ago
Ships sink at the rate of about 10 per year, and there are on the order of 80,000 large commercial cargo vessels in the world's trade fleets. About 1/3 of that is dedicated to the movement of hydrocarbons themselves (mostly bulk crude oil, but also natural gas, coal, and refined products). The total military nuclear fleet is on the order of 500 vessels, and actually accounts for the overwhelming majority of nuclear reactors in operation. Sea lanes are not distributed evenly over the oceans, but are concentrated along a limited number of high-traffic routes, notably between China, the Straits of Malaca, Gulf of Aden, Suez, and Mediterranian, between western Europe and the Americas, and from the west coast of the US to Japan and China, by way of the Aleutian Islands (great circle route). Odds of hull losses in coastal waters near fishing grounds and shore habitation are high. Piracy and other activities are another risk. I'm wondering how the headlines following a decrepit nuclear-powered bulk carrier discovered to be carrying a cargo of poorly-loaded ammonium nitrate, blowing up somewhere in the Medierannian, South China Sea, or Singapore, and dirty-bombing the hell out of a few thousand square kilometres will read.