Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

hn_throwaway_99

This is not a method by which carbon emissions can be significantly reduced. It is essentially a marketing ploy to provide an option for virtue signaling consumers to show that they get their luxury chocolates and wine by sailboat.

I was going to start out this comment by saying "I don't mean to dump on well-intentioned entrepreneurs", but in all honesty I think I might. That is, at this point, anything that doesn't have at least a possible path to scaling up is just a simple sideshow, ignoring the massive changes that need to happen to get to a zero-carbon future. So this "use a little sailboat to ferry some expensive wine, coffee and chocolate across the ocean" may get good press (hence, the article) but it's not really a path to make any dent in our carbon dependency. I would contrast this with, for example, attempts to make "wind-assisted" cargo ships, e.g. https://www.offshore-energy.biz/worlds-1st-cargo-ship-equipp.... I'm not an engineer so I don't know if this approach will be scalable long term, but it's at least going in with an attempt to scale.

I just feel at this point that virtue signaling luxury products (affordable to a tiny portion of the populace anyway) is just a net negative because it allows some people to pretend they're "doing good" for the environment.

This is basically pointless, but the economics of modern sailing ships can get closer than you might think. Historic sailing ships where 10x this size and carried 8,000 tons of cargo at close to the speed of slow steaming shipping. That’s only 1/15th of a Panamax ship, but 8,000 tons isn’t some inherent limit on sails it’s what you got from the technology of the time aka wood.

Modern weather forcasts, better hulls, more automation, and the economics get surprisingly close. So sure, today it’s pointless but PV looked like a dumb investment for decades before suddenly taking over the world.

Also, currently about half of marine cargo is moving fuel around the world. As that volume decreases (energy transition), along with deglobalization also decreasing marine shipments, total volume potential for sailing is much more reasonable.

I recall seeing their company on french national TV a few years ago.

If I remember correctly, they didn't claim that sailboats would be able to replace our global cargo fleet, but rather that in an energetically shrinking world they would provide a (luxury) alternative to shipping exotic goods (in a lesser volume, of course).

Also I don't think that there are any ways to both conserve trade capacity and reduce carbon emissions significantly. At some point we'll have to choose which is most beneficial between importing cars from Japan and not reaching +4°C.

The rich are responsible for a disproportionate amount of emissions. They fly more (often ridiculously more with their private jets), buy more, live in houses that take more energy than whole suburbs. If it becomes taboo for them to spend their fortunes on things that have high emissions and they're pressured to use this sort of innovative solution because of that, it may actually make a big difference.

Also, what's your alternative? Shouldn't anyone do anything just because in the grand scheme of things, it won't make a dent?

> Also, what's your alternative? Shouldn't anyone do anything just because in the grand scheme of things, it won't make a dent?

I was very clear in my alternative - I even posted a link to one such example real alternative in my post.

We should be very clear headed about the types of technologies that can actually reduce worldwide global emissions. Anything else should be completely ignored. Reducing carbon emissions isn't like cleaning up litter. If you clean up litter in your little town, you're left with a sparkling clean town, which is great, even if other towns don't do anything and look like a dump. With carbon reduction, if you find a way to reduce .00001% of emissions, it literally does nothing to affect overall climate and temperature. In fact, I think it can do more harm than good, as it is basically a way for people to pay off their conscience without doing anything that makes a difference.

It's a question of what has the most bang for the buck. Using wind to generate electricity via big wind turbines has a vastly lower cost per ton of avoided carbon pumped into the atmosphere than using wind to move very small capacity sailboats across the ocean.

Could you elaborate on why this is not a method by which carbon emissions can be significantly reduced ?

This is only the second boat of a small company, they most likely don't have the ressources to get a bigger one. At this scale, the only way to make money is to move luxury products.

IMO it's a good start.

The problem is that carbon emissions come from more than just fuel. You also have to take into account the construction of the ship, the crew, loading/unloading, and pre/post-transport.

Best-case scenario, you're looking at a crew of 4 who can transport 6x350T in a year, or 525T / person-year. Meanwhile a container ship has a crew of 20, but it can carry 240.000T, and do in the ballpark of 50 transatlantic crossings a year - so 600.000T / person-year. That discrepancy is large enough that even things like per-crew-member CO2 contributions starts to become relevant.

I'm all for decarbonizing shipping, but this boat is nothing more than a rich person's plaything. It'll contribute absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. Maybe sail is viable, but at least put it on realistically-sized vessel like [0].

[0]: https://cinea.ec.europa.eu/news-events/news/new-wind-powered...

I don't really understand how the yearly tonnage per person is relevant here

> It is essentially a marketing ploy to provide an option for virtue signaling consumers to show that they get their luxury chocolates and wine by sailboat.

How much more does it cost to get something delivered this way via the "bad for environment traditional way"?

perfect is the enemy if the good

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