Large ocean vessels like cargo and cruise ships are some of the biggest greenhouse gas producers on the planet, so I really hope this is a good way forward.
this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
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At the very least they should have all long-since been converted to diesel instead of bunker fuel, which emits more carbon and a shit ton of sulfur, one of the worst greenhouse gasses. But these people give less than a fuck. Countries need to be willing to stop trade with vessels like this before even the simplest technical solutions will be adopted.
Sulfur polution actually has cooling effect, so it is kind of opposite of greenhouse gases. It sucks in different ways, though.
If in the upper atmosphere yes, but I doubt any of the sulfer from these gets anywhere near that height, and actually just falls back down to pollute down here.
It's actually been theorized that ships using cleaner fuel (read: less sulfur output) contributed to the peak temperatures of the atlantik ocean
Thankfully we already have non-sulfur cloud seeding technology so now that we know the oceanic clouds made it cooler we can make more clouds without sulfur, netting us the heat shield without the pollution.
No, the link seems to be real. Very recent studies based on satellite data have detected a reduction in cloud reflectivity caused by the reduction in sulfur emissions. This will accelerate global warming; by exactly how much is currently not known.
But bunker fuel is cheap!
According to this graph from 2016 those emissions were about 1.7% the whole pie. Reducing emissions is definitely a step in the right direction, but in this case it’s not going to be a very big step.
Just to give you some perspective, road transport is responsible for about 11.9%, so tackling that should be a significantly higher priority IMO. We could take that step by developing electric lorries, trucks and vans and other electric cars, but they would also need to be recharged using nuclear or renewables.
Energy use in buildings covers about 17.5% so that should probably be even more urgent. Burning oil to heat up your house in the winter should be replaced with more ecological options. As usual, running your air conditioning in the summer also contributes to the problem if the electricity comes from coal, oil or gas.
People tend to forget that 24.2% comes from industry, so optimizing that part should be among the top 10 of our priorities IMO. In many cases, you could switch from carbon based fuels into other sources, but that may require building more nuclear, wind, solar and grid energy storage.
Steel production is also pretty big (7.2%), and as far as I know, there’s no easy way to replace coke. However, it is possible to capture the CO2 right at the source, but currently there are no economic incentives to build an entire carbon processing factory right next to your steel mill. Carbon tax might a good way to make the steel industry look for ways to reduce emissions. If keeping the old factory running costs hundreds of millions a year in taxes, while building that carbon plant costs about the same, many companies might consider it… or they might just outsource everything to China instead.
Picking and choosing which one to fix "first" is a problem, IMO.
We are capable of tackling every area simultaneously. Let's get more EVs out there, let's try hydrogen-powered airplanes, more nuclear, and sails on ships.
Let's do everything we can.
Nobody wants Chinese steel.
It's kind of funny because this is true, but if God came down and changed all logistics to trains and aircraft tomorrow our emissions would rise enormously. Shipping is extremely efficient, we just do a fuckton of it.
Wow, they invented sailing!
Yes, but I guess the improvement is that you can save some power from the wind so you can sail when it does down.
We used to have another solution to keep the ship moving with no wind, but stupid woke culture put a stop to having hundreds of galley slaves chained to oars on the lower decks.
I swear to God that beeb reporter HAD to be taking the piss when he wrote that. It's so fucking oniony the way he wrote that. "Special wind-powered sails" as opposed to the ether I guess. He goes out of his way to ignore sailing ships or compare it to them. We are you Tom.
Tbf, they're not normal sails in the traditional sense. They're made entirely out of metal and are shaped much differently than what old school sailboats had. But yeah, I agree it does sound kinda funny.
And I guess these sails don't require a huge crew constantly adjusting ropes and canvas. If it performs well that's a huge innovation in sailing.
So you're saying that this green transport is killing jobs?
Jobs that mostly no longer exist.
Oh yeah, he just deliberately ignores the comparison. It's completely absent.
Let's go all in. I want the old style pirate ships again
Ships, powered by the wind? What a time to be alive!
It's pretty wild to think that as recently as 1939 commercially-viable sailing vessels were still hauling cargo around the world. Even weirder to think that one of these vessels ended up appearing in The Godfather Part II and is now a floating restaurant in Philadelphia.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Enabling a vessel to be blown along by the wind, rather than rely solely on its engine, could hopefully eventually reduce a cargo ship's lifetime emissions by 30%.
It was developed by UK firm BAR Technologies, which was spun out of Sir Ben Ainslie's 2017 America's Cup team, a competition sometimes called the 'Formula One of the seas'.
"This is one of the most slow-moving projects we've done, but without doubt with the biggest impact for the planet," its head John Cooper - who used to work for Formula One team McLaren - told the BBC.
Experts say wind power is a promising area to explore, as the shipping industry tries to reduce the estimated 837 million tonnes of CO2 it produces each year.
"Wind power can make a big difference," says Dr Simon Bullock, shipping researcher at the Tyndall Centre, at the University of Manchester.
He said new cleaner fuels will take time to emerge "so we have to throw everything at operational measures on existing ships - like retrofitting vessels with sails, kites and rotors".
The original article contains 860 words, the summary contains 177 words. Saved 79%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Cool, now do the same with an airplane so we can save global warming
Oh the humanity!
We've come full circle in a way, let's hope this technology succeeds.