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I'm not kidding when I say for the FIRST time I actually can grasp the size
(startrek.website)
A little short for a starship, isn't he?
Per kilogram-meter of cargo transported, container ships actually have some of the lowest emissions of any form of transportation!*
Other than electric vehicles that were charged by zero-emission sources of electricity
I'd wager that just accounting for emissions in the production of said electric vehicle will make it entirely unable to compete with container ships. Boats are crazy efficient.
What kind of emissions are we producing to build the ships?
Most of its steel and other metals, so assuming that theyre using electrically pwered smelters most of the emmissions would be in transport and mining equiptment. So probably somewhat comparable, depends on how much rail was used or if it was transportes exclusively via semi.
Most steel is (unfortunately) made in Chinese blast furnaces using coal coke and powered with electricity from coal power plants.
Im aware, I was giving a best possible circumstances type situation. Still the steel for both is probably sourced from the same factory.
And all steel is made using coal regardless of where it's produced, except in experimental processes like HYBRIT.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/aug/19/green-steel-swedish-company-ships-first-batch-made-without-using-coal
Some producers use electric arc furnaces, a few of which use only scrap metal as input, which means they need far less coal and emit far less CO2 than a conventional BOF/BFF setup.
How long are the cargo ships gonna be in service compared to that smartphone of an electric car?
Good point, I wasn't considering production.
But don't worry. The cargo ship sprang into being from nothingness and there were utterly no environmental impacts related to drilling, refining, and transportation of the fuel used to power the ship. So clearly EVs are so much worse for the environment /s