3 ms·
Again, this is already covered by the article: > The sector’s trend towards containership gigantism has promoted a hub-and-spoke model of trade, whereby high-c
by shkkmo 4y ago
Again, this is already covered by the article:
> The sector’s trend towards containership gigantism has promoted a hub-and-spoke model of trade, whereby high-capacity mega-containerships transport goods over long distances from one hub to another54. From the destination hub, a host of smaller feeder ships transport the containers to their final destinations in smaller regional ports. Nearly all of these feeder ships traverse short routes that could be electrified, which would increase battery-electric containership adoption well beyond the potential suggested by intraregional trade figures. Figure 5 depicts the ten best-connected ports in the world, all of which are intraregional routes less than 5,000 km in length2. Moreover, feeder ships are older on average than their larger-capacity counterparts, and many are reaching the end of their useful service lives56. The 2020 IMO regulation limiting sulfur content will probably lead to the premature scrapping of these fuel-inefficient ships, creating an opportunity for battery-electric models to enter the fleet57.
> Although containerships, with their standardized cargo and volume dependency, are useful for understanding the technoeconomics of battery-electric shipping, they represent only 23% of total maritime shipping emissions58. Achieving larger emissions reductions will require electrifying additional ship types, including oil tankers, bulk carriers, general cargo ships and cruise liners. Of those, bulk carriers and oil tankers seem to have the largest emission footprint. Unlike containerships, some of these ship types are primarily constrained by weight rather than volume41. Energy density by weight is therefore the critical technical parameter for the batteries that would power these ships.