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Another way to look at it: the shipping industry will take a beating while everyone transitions.
If anyone is left wondering why there's so much institutional resistance to changing our energy diet, its institutions like this that are lobbying and generating the propaganda behind it. Energy companies are just one faction.
Why don't we just have one or two very big ships, powered by nuclear reactors. Like, 40-50 kilometers long each, with hydrofoils, top speed just under mach one. Zip around and deliver everyone's shit with big deck-mounted gauss guns that fire packages right to your doorstep as the ship screams past the nearest coastline.
I see no setting where this could go horribly wrong.
I don't know about all of you, but I know I wouldn't want to cross oceans without a good engine.
Storms are not cool. Not being in the age of sail anymore seems good.
You say that, but modern sail concepts are a thing and are already in place as hybrid shipping solutions. Boats require a LOT of energy to do their thing, so any savings translates to big numbers.
https://cinea.ec.europa.eu/news-events/news/new-wind-powered-cargo-ship-sets-sail-2023-08-22_en
I don't think this is about what's powering the ships but rather their cargo.
Fun vaguely related fact: the 1800s are often hailed as the century of steamships, but in reality steamships had pretty short range and required frequent re-coaling in order to get anywhere and back. The coaling stations around the world were mostly stocked by sailing ships since there was no way to economically transport coal by using vessels that burned coal for their propulsion. So it's more accurate to say that the worldwide transportation revolution of the 1800s was a steam/wind power hybrid.
Oil is used for more than just energy.
70% of crude oil ends up gasoline and diesel.
Idk why you're being downvoted. Petrochemicals are used for a bunch of stuff, including plastics manufacturing.
We should switch to renewables as quickly and completely as we can, but it wouldn't eliminate 100% of oil use
I argue that if oil wasn't as cheap, ecological alternatives to plastic would have a chance or would be considered at all.
High schooler post
No, they wouldn't. Capitalism is driven by supply, not demand.
If by some magic we switched to renewables over night, the owner class would open or expand another market to keep those ships moving.
Yeah, that worked totally well for the Guano and sodium nitrate businesses.
No, we would have an over capacity of shipping space, forcing the price down sharply. In the short term goods would be much cheaper to ship, reducing in a host of global economic changes- some good but alot not.
The ownership class is not physically capable of doubling our good production overnight to keep them running - long term though its quite probable. Ships will be refitted, a lot scrapped, new orders canceled- but it takes time.
And capitalism is absolutely driven by demand. Any organization that tries to tell people to buy something they aren't interested in will fail. They can alter demand, and yes they control that, but it us demand driven.
Let’s fucking go!!!
Joke's on you when we get even more ships sending the sun and wind around the world, idiot.
As nice as it would be, a not insignificant amount of coal being transported is destined to steel production. Steel is iron + carbon, and the easiest source of carbon is coal. Steel is pretty important, so that's not going away anytime soon. I wonder if carbon capture could make a product that could be used to replace coal here though, and fairly effectively sequester the carbon in an actually useful form?
What biomass grows the fastest without being waterlogged - I imagine bamboo or sugarcane or something
Grow that, and burn it to make carbon neutral steel; bonus points if you do it in a highrise/underground farm but frankly some medium term reversible environmental damage is preferable to killing off way more with climate change
Eh, purity is a thing. Biomass is the opposite of what you want there, but it could be doable. I do wager, however, that the largest "climate cost" of steel comes from the repeated melting of the steel.
Coal has a bunch of impurities compared to charcoal I thought?
And if the repeated melting is done by burning biomass/charcoal or with clean(er) energy then it's not a huge issue
Electric Arc Furnaces are probably our best bet for that - they're an established, proven technology and can be swapped over to a green power source without any other changes (assuming the society has the energy capacity). I think I remember reading that a factory somewhere in Europe had already done that but a quick search has failed me.