by Tanada » Fri 26 Oct 2007, 21:51:33
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', 'D')oly wrote
"Peak oil will reduce climate change, for example it has been proved that the worst-case scenario for emissions in the IPCC is incompatible with current calculations about peak oil."
The interaction between PO and GW is a very interesting one, but it must be pointed out that many of the worst case scenarios in the IPCC report have already been overtaken by facts on the ground. The rate of Artic melting, for one, is way ahead of what the IPCC predicted even in its worst case scenario. The scary thing is that the emissions don't have to add up to the quantities posed by IPCC to bring on catastrophic climate change. We seem to be already sliding down the slippery slope of runaway GW.
Also, it is my understanding that most transportation of goods, whether by ship, train, or tuck, is fueled by diesel, which is more plentiful than regular gasoline from light sweet crude. But I could be wrong here. Do/Can cargo ships run on coal? Perhaps some more informed than I in this area could chime in here?
If a civilian ship has an MV in front of its name it is a Motor Vessel and burns diesel/kerosene in a large diesel engine. If it has SS in front of its name it is a Steam Ship and probably burns bunker fuel (Bunker C or D probably). Bunker fuel is residual heavy oil left over in older style oil refineries, more modern refineries upgrade it as much as possible into lighter fuel and therefore produce much less of it. If a civilian ship has NS in front of its name it is nuclear powered, the USA, Germany and Russia have all built at least one of these but most of them have been converted to fossil fuel, scrapped, or made into museums.
Titanic and the ships of its era were coal powered SS, we could go back to that easily enough. Modern handling techniques would make it much less labor intensive to burn coal and feed it to the boilers than it was n the old days when coal was hand shoveled into the fire boxes.