That's why fascist parties immediately attack renewables as soon as they're in power.
this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2026
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Those ships seem to be blocking out half the ocean, based on the image provided. I imagine greater access to sunlight, especially along the coast, will do wonders for the environment.
By "we" you mean the people who own the shit (I would go with 'them'), then sure
I don't doubt that it's a lot, but can anyone provide a source for the 40% of global ship traffic? I couldn't find any statistics sadly
The data is from UNCTAD
Small clarification. My understanding is that it's 40% by weight of goods carried, not 40% of ships. So still massive chunk, but not quite the same metric. Also some of those ships would still presumably be needed to move batteries and solar panels, At least for a while until we have enough for a closed loop recycling system (we can recycle like 99% of the lithium from lithium batteries, no idea how emerging sodium batteries will affect things)
That's what the headline says: 40% of traffic, not 40% of ships.
Sodium based battery companies are, unfortunately, crashing right now, since lithium production has jumped so significantly that lithium prices have seen a major crash. Since price was the main economic driver for sodium batteries over lithium ones, many companies making sodium batteries are in big trouble right now, since lithium is more energy dense and at price parity
CATL retooled to sodium and plans to produce both sodium/lithium hybrids and pure sodium packs.
Lithium is also very abundant. OK, not as much as sodium, but still common.
Which is still all due to investors not looking longer than 2 years since all of the crashing companies except Northvolt are startups. Lithium prices will always rise again at a much much higher rate than sodium.
Sodium was always better for grid storage due to temperature charging and discharging and still plenty cheaper than Lithium Iron Phosphate that it is a replacement for.
Also better performance in cold environments which is important to outperform ICE cars.
You need to move batteries and panels ONCE per installation, not every time you need energy.
Once per installation per x years. While battery and solar replacement seem like a long time, the massive scale needed for a global buildout will require a continuous stream of shipping. It’s not free and will never be locally produced everywhere. Obviously a couple orders of magnitude less shipping, but energy related shipping is not disappearing entirely.
Actually I’d like to see someone do that math, out of curiosity. In a world with all renewables, does energy related shipping drop from 40% to 1%? 0.1%?
Obviously a couple orders of magnitude less shipping
So, for estimation purposes, that's essentially no shipping compared to the present fossil-fuel situation.
Recycling systems will become absolutely necessary, preferably before the battery boom happens.
You have to show the math for an absolute statement like that.
Do you happen to know how battery or fuel cell ships are doing atm?
There are some, but afaik they weren't ready for global shipment yet, but more local, due to range.
China is putting the infrastructure in place internally along their big ass rivers.
If you want green cargo shipping, it might be better to look to the past. Way back in the day, all shipping was very green, powered by wind. Maybe we could have a return of sailing ships?
Though, of course, sails do have some big disadvantages, which is why they were replaced in the first place. You'd definitely want an electric (or even fossil fuel) powertrain available to use as a backup or in emergencies. But when winds are favorable, why not set sail and let very green wind energy propel you across the ocean? As an extra bonus, sails are cheap and a very mature, well-understood technology. All you need to do is scale them up.
The biggest difference at the end of the day is that sailing ships are generally slower and require much more crew. So overseas shipping would be slower and possibly more expensive. (Though the massive fuel savings might offset the expense somewhat?) But I don't necessarily think that slower and more expensive overseas shipping would be such a bad thing in the long run. It would encourage more local production and consumption.
Lol, I didn't even consider sails.
Perhaps crew could be reduced with some form of automated sails? I dunno most of the terms, but can't a motor set and unset the sail? Perhaps make the mast retractable and such things.
I forget the article I read about 3 years ago about a modern cargo ship using sails to reduce the amount of fuel they use. Can't find it now but if I can find it I'll try and post it in an edit here
I saw some science-entertainment videos. There's also these rotating "sail" cylinders. Most of it sounded not viable for mass transport and more like PoC or tryout state.
Going back to sails is a cool idea, but I don’t see how it’s viable, nor will batteries be. We’re going to need to settle on some sort of sustainable liquid fuel for a few uses like shipping and aviation.
Maybe this is even some good that can be driven by militaries
but I don’t see how it’s viable
It was viable enough in the 1800s.
for a few uses like shipping and aviation
Yeah ... aviation in particular will probably be mainly fossil fuels for a long time to come, because it really needs energy density.
The solution there is just for people to fly less. (Which could be partially accomplished by having fast electric train routes.)
It was viable in the 1800s because it was the best method available. We don't use it today because it ultimately costs more. A wind-powered company would have to compete against others using extremely energy-dense fuels that enable hundreds of times more cargo (between increased speed and increased capacity) for the same time and money.
So, in other words, it's perfectly viable ... just not economically viable.
That's a failure of our economy, not of the technology. Perhaps if all the externalities of fossil fuel emissions were included in the cost of fossil fuel shipping (say, with massive taxes on fossil fuels to fund environmental efforts and carbon capture), that would change the balance.
That's like saying, "So it's perfectly possible ... just not physically possible." If you cannot afford to do something, then you can't do it. It's freaking tautological.
"Can't afford it" is very, very different than "not physically possible".
If our economic system changed, then it could be perfectly viable again.
If the only reason oil is being extracted is to power aviation, the cost of fuel, and hence of flying, will be higher and the volume of flights will go down accordingly. Win/win for everyone but the oil and tourist industries.
I didn't sorry.
Sure wonder what a cargo ship is doing in the Libyan desert
it was desert-ed
I think that's only half the truth. Even if we have to convert our entire energy supply, we will still have to import hydrogen, at least in Europe. We have as much sun here as they do in Mordor. So there will be massive shipments of ammonia from the south to us. Forty per cent is therefore probably a little too high
Insolation in Europe is hugely variable, depending on where you are. And that only matters for solar. It's largely irrelevant for other renewables.
And there's no compelling use case for hydrogen. It's a not particularly efficient energy storage medium, with a number of negative attributes (high reactivity, high flammability, extreme proneness to leakage due to the extremely small molecule size). The only motivation for hydrogen is to keep carmakers and car-related supply chain going with minimal reconfiguration. Even then, the energy needed to produce hydrogen exceeds the energy released when it's used, even without taking into account the energy and environmental costs of transporting it.
What are yall doing with that hydrogen?
I think UK is blending it into their methane supply to reduce carbon emissions.
What does hydrogen have to do with the Sun? You can produce the energy necessary for electrolisis from many other sources. Also there was a plan to make a hydroduct from France to Spain to transport green/pink hydrogen.
And the energy used for that electrolysis is enerrgy that can't be used for something more immediately useful.
There is no such thing as green hydrogen. It's an energy sink. It'll always be greener not to generate and use that energy at all.
It can be useful for transport or in some industries like steel industry where the alternative is burning coal or LNG.
And not all the solar fields and power plants are in use during the day. Some power plants like nuclear fission reactors can't stop and relaunch that easily so they are used as the base, while renewables and gas are used according to demand because demand and power production have to be the same. So there are literally moments when solar and wind farms have to shut down during the day bc there is not enough demand for electricity. Using those timezones to produce hydrogen would be a good business
Did you perhaps mean hydrocarbons (organic compounds used for fertilizer and fuel) instead of hydrogen (most common element in the universe, 2/3s the atoms and 1/9th the mass of water)
We need sustainable energy storage, and hydrogen has few alternatives in this regard. However, the demand for green hydrogen can never be met by renewable energies in Europe. This means that it mainly comes from ships from sunny countries.
Hydrogen is terrible for energy storage, and even worse for energy transport. Especially if you're doing electrolysis to split water that you then re-generate with atmospheric oxygen in order to produce electricity. A battery, flywheel, or just pumping water upstream gets you far better efficiency, and shipping literally any product of a hydrogen reaction is likely to be more efficient than shipping a heavy H2 tank back and forth.
Solar power in the EU seem to be increasing by 20% year-over-year. It's hard to see a situation where shipping hydrogen to supply thermal energy to an existing factory would be cheaper than just building a local electrolysis plant and the necessary solar panels. (Unless, of course, you're already invested or employed in selling hydrogen as a direct fossil fuel replacement.)
Theoretically, these are fantastic ideas for storing energy. Realistically, however, it is much more universal to run electrolysis. Many countries do not have mountains to build pumped storage facilities, and large-scale flywheels are difficult to implement. Battery farms are not sufficent. However, the transport of electrons or hydrogen is already working today. Natural gas networks are in place and can be used. At the moment, expansion is faltering at the European Union and national borders.
In the long term, everything will come down to hydrogen and electricity, and this hydrogen will have to be imported