Big polluters: one massive container ship equals 50 million cars
Paul Evans
April 23, 2009
http://www.gizmag.com/shipping-pollution/11526/
There are 90,000 cargo ships in the world.
There are 760 million cars in the world.
15 of the largest ships emit as much Sulphur Oxides as the 760 million cars of the world.
The largest ships have two cycle engines 5 stories tall and use 16 tons of dirty fuel per hour as they travel just 30 mph across the globe.
These ship engines produce 114,800 horse power or 90 MW.
A city of 100,000 homes uses 100 MW
Ships contribute half of the pollution in Los Angeles
There are 150 nuclear ships in the world. A Nimitz class supercarrier produces 240,000 hp, 208 MW, or enough power for 208,000 homes and can go 20 years without refueling.
A wind farm the size of Texas, California and New Mexico is required to power the U.S.
In 1967 Los Angeles we had 855,000 employees in manufacturing.
In 2014 we had 349,532 manufacturing employees.
Surprising the Chinese did not go to nuclear to power this ship.
Annual fuel costs alone would make for a very quick payback.
And if a uranium-fueled nuclear generation plant is too large and complex for cargo ship use, then build and install a thorium-fueled Molten-Salt generation plant. They can be both much smaller and more flexible than the light-water plant.
And the technology is currently available.
A fleet of such cargo ships would DOMINATE the world shipping lanes, because per-unit shipping costs would be sharply lower, and speed of transport could be conceivably somewhat quicker, as turnaround at the port is limited only by loading and unloading capabilities - no refueling time for YEARS.
All that “pollution” and the world till hasn’t cracked in half. Go figure. Seems liberals yell like Chicken Little.