this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 31 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

Fun fact: through the 1800s coal-powered steamships mostly replaced sailing vessels for the transportation of people and time-sensitive cargo around the world. But steamships were highly inefficient and required frequent re-coaling, and locally available coal was dirtier and contained less thermal energy than the good stuff that Britain (who was doing by far most of the shipping) got from Wales and other places on their island. Because steamships could not efficiently and cheaply haul the coal that they needed around the world to restock the coaling stations, this was done instead by an enormous fleet of sailing colliers. So the "steam revolution" of the 1800s was actually a steam/wind-power hybrid. It wasn't until the advent of triple- and quadruple-expansion steam engines, turbines, and greatly improved boilers in the early 1900s that steam-powered vessels could efficiently and economically haul their own fuel. And even with that, wind-powered cargo vessels remained economically viable and operating in significant numbers right up until the start of WWII (that's II, not I).

A great read is The Last Grain Race by Eric Newby, about his time as a sailor aboard Moshulu (a large steel sail-powered cargo ship) in 1938-1939. Moshulu went on to star in The Godfather Part II as the ship which brings young Vito Corleone to New York, and is now weirdly enough a floating restaurant in my city of Philadelphia (I've never eaten there but I want to).

[–] roguetrick@lemmy.world 8 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

These chairs they have inside it would make me not want to eat there.

[–] ntma@lemm.ee 55 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Once you realize the byproducts of oil and how essential some are and the fact that rich countries aren't going to change their way of life and the fact that developing countries will industrialize in the same way western countries have and will start to produce similar environmental emissions things look pretty bleak in terms of that average temperature rise.

[–] bstix@feddit.dk 63 points 1 day ago (1 children)

the fact that developing countries will industrialize in the same way western countries have and will start to produce similar environmental emissions

That's not a fact. It makes more sense for developing countries to skip directly to renewable energy sources.

[–] ntma@lemm.ee 24 points 1 day ago (2 children)

You're right it's not a fact. But I would say large percentage of developing nations aren't pursuing such options because it's easier to use things like coal. If you take a look at the new coal plants under construction as the moment, the top 15 are from developing countries. https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-just-15-countries-account-for-98-of-new-coal-power-development/

China and India account for 3 billion people alone and they're still building new coal plants to account for their growing energy needs despite using renewable energy.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 6 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

Water/wind/solar is cheaper now, and it's not even close. It's electrifying communities that never had any sort of electrification before since they can buy a few panels and bypass the (often corrupt) power utility in the country. The intermittency is a problem, but it's still better than not having it at all.

So yes, it looks like they'll skip carbon-based energy entirely. This is similar to what's happened with landlines in these regions; they skipped straight to cell phones.

That said, you know where 95% of new coal power plants are being built? China.

[–] dragonfucker@lemmy.nz 14 points 1 day ago

That's because those plans and policies were drafted 10 years ago when coal was cheaper. These days the plans being made are based on solar, because solar is the cheapest.

[–] buzz86us@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Sadly many developing countries are further along in EV uptake because they have access to $4k EVs without tariffs

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 89 points 1 day ago (14 children)

Some of these ships would carry green hydrogen and new lithium batteries and old lithium batteries (to be recycled) and whatnot. Also at least some oil would be still needed for fine chemicals like meds or (idk what's proper english term for that) large scale organic synthesis like plastics, or even straight distillates like hexane (for edible oil extraction) or lubricants. Some of usual non-energy uses of oil can be easily substituted with enough energy like with nitrogen fertilizers but some can't

[–] UsernameHere@lemmy.world 66 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

We aren’t consuming batteries anywhere near the rate we consume oil and coal. Hydrogen even less than batteries.

So the amount of ships needed would still be a fraction of what we use now.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 1 day ago (3 children)

not now, but if hydrogen were to be used as an energy source/storage, then it'd be used plenty. same with batteries

[–] DogWater@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago

If you have water you have hydrogen.

there's no reason to transport hydrogen if they build infrastructure to use it as a fuel they will build a process to make it on site

[–] SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 17 hours ago

While true, it's very unlikely we'll use hydrogen. It's very impractical for this use compared to alternatives

[–] InverseParallax@lemmy.world 27 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (18 children)

We can make hydrogen everywhere, we can't 'make oil'.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 1 points 21 hours ago

That implies that we can make electricity everywhere, which is technically true but not really the case because there's countries with more and with less free space, with more suitable places and less suitable places to put renewables.

Those ammonia tankers will happen. At that point btw we're not just talking about electricity, but also chemical feedstock.

[–] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago (3 children)

you really think this is going to stop the globalism aspect from happening? If you can ship something, and get better market rates on it, you're going to do it. Economics follows the cheapest route, not the most efficient.

It also just makes sense if you think about it. Places like alaska are going to struggle to generate green energy compared to another place like, texas for example. If you can ship in green hydrogen much cheaper than you can locally produce energy, why wouldn't you? It's a reasonable solution to the problem of supply and demand scaling.

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[–] IrritableOcelot@beehaw.org 8 points 1 day ago

That is true, but part of improving our environmental impact will be decreasing that transport of raw materials, localizing chemical industries near the sources of their raw materials.

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[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 35 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Won't someone think of the seamen?

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 22 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm constantly thinking of seamen

[–] WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

Capt'n Pugwash and Seaman Stains will both be out of jobs.

[–] tilefan@lemm.ee 16 points 1 day ago (10 children)

correct me if I'm wrong, but the United States doesn't even have oil refineries that are capable of making gasoline out of American oil? like we need the type of oil that the middle East has, so we're constantly trading oil back and forth even though we have plenty of it

I think I've heard this is true. something about politicians wanting to look environmentalist and therefore preventing the building of any more refineries

[–] sonori@beehaw.org 6 points 1 day ago

Offhand I believe we have a few that can do light oil, but most of ours wouldn’t want to change over even if offered to do so for free. Rather the reason is the US has a lot of chemical engineers and capital and so is good at refining the more challenging to deal with and cheaper to get heavy oils while selling the easy to refine and therefore more valuable light oil we dig up down in Texas to places that have more primitive refineries.

While we could retrofit all of our our refining capacity to use our oil, it doesn’t make financial sense because your spending a lot of money to switch to an more expensive input, so companies arn’t going to want to do it unless the government forces them to, and the government would only force them to if it wanted to spite everyone else and raise domestic gas prices.

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[–] tomatolung@sopuli.xyz 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Anyone know how much of the oil transported is actually used for plastic, percentage wise?

[–] iSeth@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 day ago
[–] seeyouatthepartyrichter@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So what you’re saying is the companies that own those boats will lobby the government so that this never happens? Sweet.

actually, it's already happening, why do you think LNG is such a massive export from the US right now?

[–] M600@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Now I’m waiting for the news report,

“Green Energy will cost jobs!”

yeah, free market economies baby, making everything more efficient!

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