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This is absolutely ridiculous, everyone is already trying to optimise shipping routes and the idea that the captains are not told to slow down/speed up when por
by andy_ppp 2y ago
This is absolutely ridiculous, everyone is already trying to optimise shipping routes and the idea that the captains are not told to slow down/speed up when ports are expected to be full and/or there isn’t stuff to pick up is simply not true. I worked on a system optimising this for Rio Tinto (experience human operators were trying to figure out manually when to speed up and slow down ships). You know what would be much more efficient; banning the shipping of ore from places with resources to places without it like China. The idea that Australia should be allowed to export both the coal and the iron ore when shipping finished steel is obviously about half the weight seemed crazy to me. I’ve already saved you 50% of the fuel on most of those routes, if you could make the politics work.
I also worked for Zodiac maritime and they were working on route optimisation there too. The article makes out that everyone is sail fast then wait all the time and then straw-mans savings based on that. Fuel also isn’t the only factor especially if the ships are rented for specific journeys, ports also charge fees if you cause a traffic jam, so it’s a classic and fairly simple optimisation problem.
- algo_trader 2y ago> export both the coal and the iron ore when shipping finished steel is obviously about half the weight Wait until you hear about 2% lithium ore shipped 5000km for refining ..
- hackeraccount 2y agoI'm gonna blow your mind here. Read about comparative advantage. As crazy as it sounds there might be reasons for Australia to ship coal and iron while China makes steel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
- andy_ppp 2y agoSure, but if we are talking about environmental damage clearly this sort of thing isn't a great idea.
- hackeraccount 2y agoIsn't it? I think it's at possible that there's less environmental damage when a product or service is created by the person who knows best how to do that. How much damage would I do if I tried to make a car from scratch? I'd argue quite a bit because you'd have to use 10 times the parts and energy from just about anyone else because I would create a piece of useless junk 10 times before I'd get anything useful. If you watch someone skilled in an art there's a tendency to think you could never do it. That might not be true but even if it is the real question is what it would cost you to be as good as the artisan. What is it that you create that wouldn't get done because you've taken them to learn how and do something else?