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Two oil tankers hit in Gulf of Oman
- Thread starter nittany03
- Start date
We can shift away from oil? Sure. We can cripple our economy in the process.
What does battery technology have to do with oil? How do you plan on generating electricity for those batteries?
We've already shifted away, but it's going to take a while, and I don't see a good alternative for aircraft.
I agree, we've already shifted away from oil for a lot of our power generation but for transportation it's still a major component. Aircraft are a long ways off from being electric but cars aren't. That's where battery technology is important. And to charge those batteries, you can use other power generation sources, such as nuclear or renewable sources.
Renewables will never come close to replacing coal and natural gas.
I agree, we've already shifted away from oil for a lot of our power generation but for transportation it's still a major component. Aircraft are a long ways off from being electric but cars aren't. That's where battery technology is important. And to charge those batteries, you can use other power generation sources, such as nuclear or renewable sources.
Fair point.
Still, it remains to be seen if batteries can even be produced on the scale it would take to replace internal combustion vehicles
Are you asking how does domestic trucking and rail compare to world-wide shipping? That would be an interesting question. With how much we use trucking and rail, it could be a contender against shipping, percentage-consumption-wise.
Kind of. I’m wondering what percentage of that total figure is comprised of US shipping, as that could get somewhat fuzzy. Would that include all goods coming to or from the US, regardless of the flag or import company’s national origin, etc? BL, just curious about how that percentage was derived.
I dug this out of some notes for a class I once taught...
"Ocean shipping is the most energy efficient forms of freight transportation. Recent estimates show that moving goods by ocean container can be 17 times more fuel-efficient than transporting the same goods by air, and 10 times more efficient than transporting goods by road."
BUT...
"a large modern container vessel used in Trans-Pacific trade, with a maximum container capacity of 7,750 TEUs (twenty foot equivalents) or 3,875 FEUs (forty foot equivalents) using a cost of bunker fuel at $552 per ton, and with fuel consumption of 217 tons per day, a single 28-day round trip voyage for this one vessel would produce a fuel bill of $3,353,952.
THERE'S MORE...
"Just one of the world’s larger container ships can emit about as much pollution as 50 million cars. Further, the 15 largest ships in the world emit as much nitrogen oxide and sulphur oxide as the world’s 760 million cars."
All of this was a draw to a discussion on the history of non-military nuclear powered ships.
Interesting analysis about this number here: https://www.cadmatic.com/resource/articles/does-one-ship-pollute-as-much-as-50-million-cars-
Maybe its not too bonkers to hope for nuclear energy solutions for the larger transport problems? I get the impression the negative stigmas associated with nuclear power prevent a lot of R&D options or even discussion as an option. I'm not up to speed with nuclear engineering to any extent of the imagination, but are there viable developments for nuclear power out there that aren't too sci fi (fusion)?
@Randy Daytona has probably already posted this over in "Ship de Jour" but we (the U.S.) once had a civilian nuke...the Savannah.
