[HN Gopher] An Alternative to the Suez Canal?
___________________________________________________________________
An Alternative to the Suez Canal?
Author : Thevet
Score : 40 points
Date : 2021-03-31 04:10 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (blogs.bl.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (blogs.bl.uk)
| fiftyfifty wrote:
| At this point the most economically viable solution is probably
| to widen the Suez Canal.
| rado wrote:
| Belt and Road. Containers already take a week on rail via
| Kazakhstan to Germany, instead of a month at sea.
| yellowapple wrote:
| Not to mention that rail seems like it'd be a lot easier and
| more feasible to electrify.
|
| I wonder how far away we are from being able to build rail
| bridges (or underwater tunnels?) to enable circumnavigation by
| rail? I'm picturing two loops - one arctic, one antarctic - and
| tunnels connecting those loops to the Americas (Alaska/Canada
| and Chile/Argentina), Scandinavia, Siberia, maybe even South
| Africa and Australia. Seems like something that should be
| achievable within the next century given the current rate of
| technological progress.
| eyko wrote:
| I saw this really interesting idea a looong time ago:
| https://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-04/trans-
| atlanti... and, personally, $175 billion felt like a lot back
| then but if it's still in the ballpark doesn't seem that
| unfathomable today.
| leoedin wrote:
| Are you looking at a different world than me? The current
| rate of technological process in the relevant areas -
| railways, tunnelling, bridges etc - is incredibly slow.
| Building a 10 mile tunnel under a city is still a multi-
| decade affair. The fundamental components of trains haven't
| changed since the 60s. Sure, there's more automation - but
| it's hardly revolutionary. A lot of US commuter railways are
| still using electronics installed in the 1930s!!
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/23/nyregion/nyc-mta-
| subway-s...
|
| The enduring theme over the last few decades has been
| infrastructure costs going up. The complete reversal of that
| required to build a completely new tunnel around the entire
| planet seems unlikely. That's before you get to the political
| aspect.
| yellowapple wrote:
| > Are you looking at a different world than me?
|
| I mean, yes? You seem to be focusing on what's happening
| today, whereas I was pretty deliberate in my framing of my
| idea as something "within the next century".
|
| And no, just because people are slow to adopt new
| technologies doesn't mean those new technologies never were
| developed. We have the technology _today_ to connect every
| major city - and probably most minor cities - throughout
| the Americas or throughout Europe /Asia/Africa with high
| speed rail, and we probably have the resources, too. Hell,
| both were arguably true 50 years ago. Our reasons for not
| doing so are political, not technological.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > Building a 10 mile tunnel under a city is still a multi-
| decade affair.
|
| That is almost purely a function of political ill-will for
| infrastructure, and not any issues regarding construction
| itself. Actual construction times tend to be pretty short:
| it takes decades to get the politicians to agree to fund
| construction, but only a few years to actually build it.
|
| > A lot of US commuter railways are still using electronics
| installed in the 1930s!!
|
| US commuter railways, you may be shocked to discover, are
| not at the cutting edge of railway technology. Or railway
| operations. Of course, the US has a reluctance to admit
| that it's not the best at something and to actually look at
| foreign countries for innovations that occurred in the past
| 100 years that it might have missed out on.
| bkor wrote:
| > Not to mention that rail seems like it'd be a lot easier
| and more feasible to electrify.
|
| That's actually quite difficult for this suggestion. The
| amount of Volts on these lines differ greatly across
| countries. In this case the intention is to connect multiple
| countries. In enough countries the tracks aren't electrified.
| A train which can handle the differences across countries is
| pretty unique. Tracks can differ in size and lots of trains
| only handle one electrical system.
|
| See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Euro
| pe#/medi...
|
| I've seen a few "solutions" to dump all containers from Asia
| in e.g. Spain. This so to "reduce" the backlog. Then have
| "trains" move the containers to the right place. Aside from
| loads of other reasons why this wouldn't work, just see how
| many electrical systems are in use. Aside from just: where
| are these magical ready to use trains? ;)
| maxerickson wrote:
| Wouldn't it work to swap the locomotives?
|
| Obviously something you'd want to minimize, but seems it
| would solve the problem of 2 or 3 incompatible systems well
| enough.
| yellowapple wrote:
| > That's actually quite difficult for this suggestion. The
| amount of Volts on these lines differ greatly across
| countries. [...] Tracks can differ in size and lots of
| trains only handle one electrical system.
|
| Implementing an international standard for rail gauges and
| electrification voltages/frequencies is still currently
| much more feasible than electrifying cargo ships (unless
| nuclear-powered cargo ships become more widespread, which
| would be great, but that doesn't seem to be happening).
| Worst case scenario, you start from scratch (which is what
| we'd have to do here in the US, since electrified freight
| rail is basically nonexistent here).
| jadavies wrote:
| There are apparently a couple of rail gauges changes
| necessary at the moment -
| https://www.railfreight.com/beltandroad/2020/01/30/four-
| ways...
| jcranmer wrote:
| There are four factors that potentially impede railroad
| through-running. The most well-known is track gauge: the
| physical distance between the rails. The standard standard
| track gauge is 4'81/2" (1435mm), which holds for most Western
| countries and China. Former Russian Empire countries use 5'
| (1520/1524mm) gauge. Ireland, India, Portugal, and Spain use
| even broader gauges (5'3"-5'6"). Narrower gauges (meter gauge
| and 3'6" gauge) are common in Africa and Japan. Although I
| should note that I think _every_ HSR system (even in those
| countries with different standard gauges) has settled on
| 1435mm gauge.
|
| Less well-known but equally important is loading gauge: the
| physical envelope through which a freight railroad car must
| fit. The US (& Canada & Mexico) rely on a wider loading gauge
| than most of Europe, but have also increasingly standardized
| on a much taller loading gauge to fit double-stacked
| container traffic [1]. Europe varies widely, from the tiniest
| loading gauges in the UK to the roomiest in Sweden (roomier,
| at least in width, even than the US).
|
| More minor features are the electrification standards (which
| only matter if you're running electric trains), which side of
| two track systems you drive on (not necessarily the same as
| the road network in the country!), the signalling system
| (especially if the trains have positive train control).
|
| But enough about railroads, how about connecting the world by
| rail? There are presently 7 major railroad "islands"
| (ignoring gauge issues) as well as a buttload of ones too
| small to be worth considering. These are the US/Canada/Mexico
| system, Eurasia, southern South America, India,
| Thailand/Malaysia, Australia, and Japan. What does it take to
| connect these?
|
| Going north from South America, you have to either cross the
| Amazon rainforest or trace your way up the Andes mountain or
| coast route. Both of these are technologically possible, but
| are likely economically prohibitive. The Darien Gap between
| Colombia and Panama remains a gap largely because there is a
| conscious political decision not to close it. Heading north
| through Central America, you again have to build a lot of
| greenfield track in mountainous jungle terrain, which is
| technologically feasible but again economically prohibitive.
| It's not until Mexico that you pick up existing track.
|
| Continuing our proposed circumnavigation, we run out of track
| in northern British Columbia (or Alberta). So there's more
| greenfield track needed to reach the railhead of the Alaska
| Railroad. There's apparently a project started up (again) to
| make a connection between Alaska and Alberta, but I'm not
| holding my breath on it actually happening. The Alaska
| Railroad only barely helps you move towards Russia--it turns
| south at Fairbanks, and now you need 2500mi (as the crow
| flies!) of greenfield track to get to the Bering Strait,
| cross it, and then get to the Russian railhead at Yakutsk.
| It's not clear how technologically feasible a Bering Strait
| crossing is; while the water isn't particularly deep, it's a
| long crossing (>50 mi), and the icing over of the seas
| presents some structural issues for bridge supports.
|
| India is islanded from Eurasian rail network principally
| because of political disputes with some of its neighbors and
| the same mountainous and/or jungle terrain issues with the
| others. Connecting Japan to Eurasia is pretty easy via
| Sakhalin (the underwater tunnel would be no more difficult
| than the Channel Tunnel), although Sakhalin is sufficiently
| roundabout that it's of questionable utility. More
| interesting is a Korea/Japanese link that is again of
| questionable technological feasibility.
|
| Africa's islands are a combination of neighbors hating each
| others' guts, overall poor infrastructure generally,
| political instability in several regions, terrain issues
| (particularly in central Africa), and severe track gauge
| mismatch issues. There's no technological issues towards
| connecting everything together, although Madagascar I believe
| is firmly in the realm of not feasible to construct any sort
| of crossing to.
|
| Connecting Australia produces an interesting result. The
| Torres Strait (between Australia and Papua New Guinea) is
| actually pretty easy to cross--think something like the
| Florida Overseas Railroad. But actually hooking the
| Indonesian islands all together is challenging. Sumatra and
| Java would be pretty easy to link up to Malaysia. But as you
| head further east along the island chain, you discover nasty
| deep oceanic trenches that prohibit tunnels and are too far
| to bridge. Borneo and Sulawesi will forever remain islands,
| although maybe reach the Philippines from Borneo is possible.
|
| [1] The standard well car can carry 2 containers for a total
| of 4 TEU--the standard "long" container you see is actually 2
| TEU containers, not one.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| I thought roughly 100K containers pass through Suez a day.
|
| That's about 1 a second. End to end they would stretch out
| 600KM - about 1/4 of the distance between German and
| Kazakhstan.
| LockAndLol wrote:
| Also allows for a lot of automation since everything is guided.
| The whole system could work seamlessly with little human
| intervention.
|
| Not to mention that rail has a much lower CO2 output since
| trains have to push air out of the way, not liquid.
| bkor wrote:
| > Not to mention that rail has a much lower CO2 output since
| trains have to push air out of the way, not liquid.
|
| That's not accurate.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport.
| .. mentions:
|
| "The specific energy consumption of the trains worldwide
| amounts to about 150 kJ/pkm (kilojoule per passenger
| kilometre) and 150 kJ/tkm (kilojoule per tonne kilometre)"
|
| And for a container vessel:
|
| "Assuming a standard 14 tonnes per container (per teu) this
| yields 74 kJ per tonne-km at a speed of 45 km/h (24 knots)."
|
| This was calculated for a 14.000 TEU container vessel.
| Nowadays these container vessels are 20.000 TEU easily.
| Meaning, the energy per TEU is nowadays lower than above
| quoted figure.
|
| See also e.g. https://www.quora.com/Why-are-large-cargo-
| ships-much-more-fu...
| mavhc wrote:
| But making renewable energy boats is very hard, whereas
| renewable energy trains is much easier
| bkor wrote:
| > But making renewable energy boats is very hard, whereas
| renewable energy trains is much easier
|
| Nitpicking: the word "boat" is not used for anything big.
| For small vessels I've seen loads of areas where they
| need to be electric. So the statement "making renewable
| energy boats" is inaccurate if you use "boat" instead of
| "vessel".
|
| The amount of different electrical train systems in
| Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_E
| urope#/medi...
|
| Not everything is as nicely electrified as above map
| would suggest. There are tracks that aren't electrified
| while above map would suggest it is.
|
| Still, this could be assumed to be solvable. You need a
| significant amount of (additional!) trains vs the amount
| of container vessels. Which means additional track. After
| all of that is done the cost of transport will be
| significantly higher. If there was a renewable solution
| for container vessels then you'd need to replace way
| less. I'm not too sure about the "much easier" assumption
| if you take everything into account.
|
| A lot of container shipping companies are state owned (by
| e.g. China). Some aren't state-owned, though they've
| received a significant amount of state help in the past.
| See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freight_ship_co
| mpanies. France helped CMA CGM various times in the last
| ~10 years.
|
| So although rail might be the best solution for the
| environment, I don't see it happening. The cost/price
| needs to be right, and if the cost is influenced
| artificially then a business/company might change things
| in ways that aren't expected, nor good for the
| environment.
|
| In an ideal world any decision would be taken with the
| environment in mind. In practice it's quite difficult.
| Even if you follow this as a country, if you're not big
| enough other countries might undercut your economy,
| thereby minimizing the effort of just one country.
|
| Various container shipping companies are ok with stricter
| regulations. But then they need to be checked and
| enforced. There's too much potential money to be made to
| ignore regulations. Note that captains of a vessel can be
| thrown in jail for various reasons, it's much stricter
| than financial industry (pay a fine and continue).
| mavhc wrote:
| The cost is currently influenced artificially, people get
| to pollute without paying to clean it up. Tax everything
| the amount it costs to clean up the pollution it causes,
| only way.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| You are underestimating something: the sea isn't controlled by
| a single nation, while a train from Kazakhstan to Germany
| requires crossing Poland, Belarus and Russia, a different
| (worse?) type of geopolitical risk.
| [deleted]
| tomaskafka wrote:
| My friend from a logistics company has made a what-if-suez-got-
| blocked infographics eight years ago. Railway transport of a
| container was about 2x more expensive than a ship through Suez,
| and surprisingly not much faster.
|
| (Sorry, czech only) https://logio.cz/infografiky/co-se-stane-
| den-pote-co-zkolabo...
| hef19898 wrote:
| They are faster bow, still more expensive so. Lead time was,
| if I remember correctly, around 2-4 weeks. Before the Suez
| blockage, I wouldn't be surprised if there were capacity
| issues on the new rail roads. By see, China to Germany is
| more around 6 weeks.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| I don't think belt and road is a viable replacement for a
| container ship.
|
| The largest cargo ships can carry 24k containers at a cheaper
| rate... With 6 meter for a 20 feet container, that would be a
| train with 144 km. cargo. I wouldn't want to wait with my car
| at that intersection...
|
| Emergency cargo is transported with planes.
| fulafel wrote:
| Most container ships are much smaller though.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Most trains are much smaller than the longest trains too.
|
| And they were used/build for a very specific purpose (
| mining). These cargo ships were build for the same purpose.
| AstralStorm wrote:
| But do big enough trains exist? As in, is the container ship
| only 4x bigger than the train?
| NullPrefix wrote:
| Is there a hard limit on how long a train can be?
| [deleted]
| kabouseng wrote:
| Longest freight trains currently run upwards of 2km. You
| could make trains longer but various issues crop up such as
| ability to radio reliably the whole length of the train for
| telemetry and distributed locomotive control. Also the
| brake line systems typically used (air actuated) becomes a
| factor as well as safety (can't see the whole train)
| bipson wrote:
| And what happens if trains become significantly larger
| than segments.
|
| Trains cannot occupy a whole track from China to Vienna
| for themselves, right? You need bypasses, stops,
| segments, etc.
|
| Edit: typo
| navaati wrote:
| Oh wow, had't thought of that, I'm shivering from
| Factorio PTSD at the idea of handling kilometers long
| trains !
| avar wrote:
| There's going to be good reasons for why a ridiculously
| long train isn't worth it when it comes to cost-benefit,
| but these reasons just seem contrived:
|
| > radio reliably
|
| The cars are physically connected, why couldn't you run
| repeaters down its length?
|
| Presumably any issue you'd have with sightline radio on a
| >2km long train now you'd also have with a ~200 meter
| train halfway through a ~50 meter tunnel.
|
| > the brake line systems typically used (air actuated)
|
| And have N independent break systems with central
| control. It should be more not less safe, a complete
| failure of one system could be backed-up by another.
|
| > can't see the whole train
|
| So run CCTV on the same system you're using for the radio
| repeaters?
| wahern wrote:
| Which country? I'm not a train nut, but 2km seemed
| middling in the U.S., so I Googled it:
|
| > SMART Union transportation division spokesman John
| Risch told top rail regulator the Surface Transportation
| Board (STB) at an October hearing on CSX service problems
| the average U.S. train is up to 1.5 miles long (2.41 km),
| but CSX has routinely operated trains two or even three
| miles long since Harrison took over.
|
| -- https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2017/12
| /07/47...
| hef19898 wrote:
| Safety and the steepness of the track, among other things.
|
| Regular freight trains from China to Europe are a real
| thing by the way, no need to speculate. Service is running
| flawless as well.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Yeah they use them for expensive goods that need to move
| faster than a ship and not as fast as a plane. Things
| like laptops and computer parts. A lot of industry is
| moving from the Chinese coast to remote provinces that
| don't have coastal access.
| tda wrote:
| longest train according to wikipedia is 18.000 feet (3.4
| miles). If a 40ft containers needs a 60ft car, and they are
| double stacked, then you can fit 300 _2_ 2 = 1200 TEU of
| containers on that train. A single large container vessel has
| 20.000+ TEU of containers onboard. So nope, trains are a lot
| smaller than container vessels
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| Why would we want to reproduce the exact same model? Maybe
| more, smaller trains would do just fine instead of a single
| gigantic one.
|
| Also, I'd say trains could be easier to automate, so having
| several smaller trains instead of a single huge one wouldn't
| be an issue, as you wouldn't add the cost of personnel.
|
| Trains can also go to different places easier, so you
| wouldn't have to move container several times.
| prox wrote:
| Trains are cool, but a containership can move a lot more. A
| better option might be a second canal.
| yellowapple wrote:
| It's a classic throughput v. latency problem. Ships are high
| throughput, high latency. Trains are low throughput, low
| latency.
|
| That said, train throughput seems straightforward to address:
| build more rails.
| usrusr wrote:
| It's cost/latency problem, throughout eventually scales
| with market demand.
| mavhc wrote:
| Assume a train is going 100km/h, that's 28 metres per
| second
|
| 6m shipping container, let's say 7m, so 4 every second.
|
| Largest container ports do 40 million containers per year,
| that's about 1 per second.
| yellowapple wrote:
| > Assume a train is going 100km/h
|
| That's quite an assumption. Yeah, that might be a
| reasonable (if brisk) cruising speed, but the average is
| probably gonna be a fair bit slower than that, especially
| when passing through cities or mountains.
|
| > 6m shipping container, let's say 7m, so 4 every second.
|
| Technically 8 (under the above assumption), since
| containers can double-stack (though not all tunnels offer
| enough clearance for it).
|
| Still, real-life throughput's usually gonna be a lot
| lower than this theoretical maximum (by at least an order
| of magnitude, if not more), namely because trains can't
| really be packed end-to-end on a track when moving at any
| useful speed; they ain't exactly able to stop on a dime,
| so for safety reasons there's gonna be a fair bit of
| distance between trains.
|
| Further, if you're going to count the time it takes for
| ports to load/unload containers, then it's only fair to
| do the same for train depots.
| dmurray wrote:
| That's supposing the railway is filled bumper-to-bumper
| with 100 km/h freight trains. More like a conveyor belt
| than a railway.
| mavhc wrote:
| Given automation it's not far off what's possible.
| Obviously you'd have multiple tracks for slower parts and
| loading/unloading.
|
| Main problems would be politics and mountains.
| bkor wrote:
| > Trains are low throughput, low latency.
|
| I think there are a lack of people working in logistics in
| these comments. The modality depends on the circumstances.
| And this is _not_ about throughput vs latency, it's about
| cost. A container vessel is cheaper because of the reduced
| friction and the ability to scale. Those cost savings are
| very beneficial to loads of shipped goods. It's not always
| beneficial though, in which case another modality is used.
|
| If a plane/train would be the cheapest option it would've
| been used.
|
| > Trains are low throughput, low latency.
|
| This is too simplistic. You can ship by
| air/truck/train/barge/vessel. A train is _not_ low latency.
| It takes a while before the entire train is full (stacked).
| It's way quicker to drive off with a container on a truck.
| For a long distance, a train is sometimes a solution. For
| short distances there is too much of a delay. Train/Barge
| are quite similar in this.
|
| > That said, train throughput seems straightforward to
| address: build more rails.
|
| Ugh. How does this address that a track and trains are
| often quite different across countries? It's a pretty
| simplistic view. Depending on the need the right solution
| is chosen. But you cannot just ignore that a big vessel
| uses way less energy per container than anything else.
| Thereby it'll be significantly cheaper.
|
| A company can and does use different modalities depending
| on the need. Meaning, if urgent, by air. But a combination
| of modalities is easily possible. Meaning, the majority on
| a big container vessel. Then any unexpected things by train
| (China->Europe).
| yellowapple wrote:
| > I think there are a lack of people working in logistics
| in these comments.
|
| I do work in logistics, thanks for asking :)
|
| > And this is _not_ about throughput vs latency, it's
| about cost.
|
| "Cost" is a tricky subject. Yes, price-wise a container
| ship is usually cheaper (past a certain distance), but
| that's only one aspect of cost-to-business. Transit time
| is another aspect, since it imposes its own costs - both
| tangible (e.g. spoilage) and intangible (inventory "in
| limbo" for longer).
|
| EDIT: not to mention externalized costs, like pollution.
| Right now trains and ships are both pretty bad (and
| trucks even worse), but - per another comment of mine in
| this thread - trains (and trucks) can at least be
| electrified, meaning they could ultimately derive their
| power from solar/wind/nuclear/geothermal/etc. Ships have
| fewer options there; the only feasible option of which
| I'm aware is nuclear, and that doesn't seem to be very
| common at all.
|
| That said:
|
| > If a plane/train would be the cheapest option it
| would've been used.
|
| And there are a lot of situations where a train is indeed
| the cheapest option, or at least cheaper than a ship. And
| that could be improved further with better economies of
| scale - i.e. more rails, and more trains on those rails.
|
| > A train is _not_ low latency.
|
| I meant compared to ships. Obviously there are yet-lower-
| latency modes of freight transportation, including trucks
| (depending on distance; at longer distances, trains and
| even ships eventually overtake trucks, but for short
| distances they're about as good as it gets), but compared
| to ships, trains are definitely the "low latency" option,
| both due to better speed _and_ due to loading /unloading
| times.
|
| > How does this address that a track and trains are often
| quite different across countries?
|
| We're talking about a situation where a rail connection
| already exists, which would mean that the issue of
| different rail standards across countries would already
| be addressed.
|
| > A company can and does use different modalities
| depending on the need.
|
| Obviously. Nobody's arguing otherwise.
| eyko wrote:
| This ignores the fact that train lines crossing multiple
| sovereign countries and their respective borders is more
| complicated to negotiate. If you're a country with access
| to the sea, you need to build a port, and ships, and you
| have access to global trade.
|
| In other words, most countries can cut out dozens of
| middlemen.
| hef19898 wrote:
| China to Europe is working flawless, thanks to Chinas new
| Silk Road. Same for for trucking.
| bkor wrote:
| https://theloadstar.com/look-to-trucks-as-china-europe-
| rail-...
|
| "There can be delays of up to seven days on the route -
| and no one expected this to happen. We are now running up
| to 50 trucks a week from China to Europe,"
|
| The truck bit is because they're switching to trucks to
| avoid the congestion on the train. It's partly due to
| success, partly due to problems on other modalities
| (air+container vessel).
|
| Also "China-Europe rail services had been suffering from
| recent delays caused by military movements at the Kazakh-
| China border, and there had also been congestion issues
| at the Poland-Belarus border hub of Malaszewicze."
|
| Though you could also summarize this as growing pains.
| It's pretty normal and expected to run into issues as
| usage greatly increases. The article does mention that
| the cost was subsidized by the Chinese government. Not
| sure how much economies of scale would apply here (more
| usage, lower cost, less need to subsidize). 2020 had a
| crazy jump on the amount of cargo on Chine-Europe by
| rail.
|
| Strategically, it's an issue that all countries between
| origin and destination can influence the movement of
| goods with this method. It's less of a factor with
| shipping.
| billfruit wrote:
| I'm not sure of the route, but does the rail line needs
| to traverse lake Van through a ferry, since there is no
| rail connectivity around the lake? Or may be they are
| taking the norther routes through Russia.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Low throughout and very low latency = planes.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| And trains derail. It's not like there are never train
| accidents.
| FearNotDaniel wrote:
| Like this one perhaps? (April fool...)
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/01/suez-2-ever-
| gi...
| kqr wrote:
| This just takes for granted that throughput is more important
| than latency. I also think that is true generally today (as
| wasteful as it is -- imagine how much needs to be shipped
| back and forth because of changing global supply/demand) but
| I can absolutely imagine a future where we can economically
| ship only what's needed when it is needed. At that point,
| should it come, latency will be much more important.
| bkor wrote:
| > This just takes for granted that throughput is more
| important than latency.
|
| It's not about throughput or latency. It's about cost.
| Shipping is _way_ cheaper than anything else. Trains are
| quicker, but also more expensive. Barge/Train is again
| cheaper than a truck, but in various cases only a truck is
| a good option.
|
| > I also think that is true generally today
|
| It's not true in the slightest. If something needs to
| arrive quicker another modality can be used. What's
| important is than it is predictable. Meaning, something
| arrives every week around the same day. Latency can cover
| up scheduling issues. It's much cheaper and better to
| control the scheduling issue.
| kqr wrote:
| I'm not sure if we're saying the same thing or not.
|
| Yes, currently shipping by sea is cheaper, even if it
| means sending several containers' full of stuff to a
| place that doesn't need them by the time they arrive. Or
| worse, sending several containerfulls of stuff somewhere
| in anticipation of them maybe needing it soon -- because
| by the time they need it, it's too late to start sending
| it.
|
| This is of course very wasteful, and the high latency is
| the source of the waste. But it still comes out ahead in
| the books.
|
| What I'm saying is that hopefully maybe in the future the
| parameters of the equation look different, and it's no
| longer sensible to send huge batches of things just to
| patch over delivery problems relating to latency.
|
| So effectively what has happened in lean manufacturing
| and product development flow-based approaches, except on
| a global scale.
| bkor wrote:
| > Or worse, sending several containerfulls of stuff
| somewhere in anticipation of them maybe needing it soon
|
| You're again making a lot of assumptions here. What do
| you mean with "sending several containerfulls of stuff
| somewhere"? Similarly with "This is of course very
| wasteful". First you assume that companies often send too
| much stuff, then use that as a basis that there's waste.
| You haven't substantiated the first assumption!
|
| > and the high latency is the source of the waste.
|
| Again, this entirely depends on the business (commodity)
| and circumstances! Further, you take this as a given,
| while you did _not_ substantiate this at all.
|
| For loads of commodities the time spent on the vessel
| does _not_ matter. For others it might be a mix.
| Sometimes it's important that things arrive on a regular
| basis. Sometimes it's not important.
|
| > So effectively what has happened in lean manufacturing
| and product development flow-based approaches
|
| Lean manufacturing car companies are happily using
| container vessel to transport their car parts. I've
| already mentioned the latency argument is missing the
| point quite a bit: the scheduling is important. A factory
| that runs out of parts is way more important than the 2
| weeks vs 4-6 weeks. If the 2 weeks cannot be trusted upon
| it won't work.
|
| Further, substantiate your assumptions. I don't see
| anything referencing a particular business, the costs
| associated, etc. Just guesswork.
| moftz wrote:
| Lead time is usually not a huge issue as long as the lead
| time is consistent. 3 days or 3 months is usually not a
| problem since you can build you manufacturing process
| around a given lead time. The cost of transport is going
| to be much more of a concern. If it takes one month to
| get a driveshaft in and three months to get windshields,
| you just order the windshields a couple months earlier
| than the driveshafts since you won't need the windshields
| until the last bit of the assembly line. Lead times are
| an issue for perishable goods though. If your
| pomegranates are going to be rotten by the time they
| arrive in port, whats the point.
| Closi wrote:
| > Imagine how much needs to be shipped back and forth
| because of changing global supply/demand
|
| A tiny fraction is the answer. Shipping back and forth has
| huge cost implications, including customs tariffs at every
| country the goods are held at and container/lcl costs
| (currently up to $20k per FCL!). Businesses aren't
| generally shipping loads of stuff that they don't need to
| be moved.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| For some reason, my Aliexpress gadgets take 3 weeks despite
| allegedly being shipped by air.
|
| If they manage to shave a week off the overhead elsewhere
| (e.g. by throwing money at it), they can switch from
| flights to rail, and likely achieve the same quality of
| service at a lower cost.
| rapnie wrote:
| Some patience, not tackling climate change, global warming and
| we'll have new routes become automatically available.. don't know
| how much of a time-save it is, and new ports will probably have
| to be built, but anyway..
|
| > The Dutch Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis projected in 2015
| that the Northern Sea Route may be ice-free by 2030
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Sea_Route
| jvanderbot wrote:
| How many 9's does the suez canal have now? It was down for 6 days
| out of 151 years? That's 3 9's.
|
| If we include the _voluntary shutdown_ around 6-day war and the
| yom kippur war[1], we 'rd down to 52,000 days, of which 6 were
| blocked by technical problems, resulting in 3 9's roughly.
|
| Seems like something we'll go back to ignoring soon.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Fleet
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| Wouldn't that be like 95% uptime? (151 - 8) / 151 = 94.7-ish.
| kiseleon wrote:
| 151 years - 0.021 years / 151 years = ~99.98%
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| It was closed for 8 years!
|
| "After Egypt closed the Suez canal at the beginning of the
| Six-Day War on 5 June 1967, the canal remained closed for
| precisely eight years, reopening on 5 June 1975." from http
| s://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal#Arab%E2%80%93Israel...
|
| I first heard about it in RealLifeLore's "The 8-Year Long
| Worst Traffic Jam in History" =>
| https://youtu.be/4DiXRCo7eBs
| dryndoragis wrote:
| Northern Sea Route
| empiko wrote:
| Can you imagine the political implications of the world trade
| being dependent on a river running through Iraq, Syria and
| Turkey. This is a nice scenario for alternative history folks.
| Those countries would be occupied since WW1 till now.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| I doubt their situation would be that different from Egypt's,
| which is fairly similar to the treatment they already receive.
| Oil and the Bosporus already give them enough resources to
| attract attention.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| The situation in Egypt is different because the USSR
| supported Egyptian independence against Western powers that
| wanted to take control of the Suez Canal. See: Suez Canal
| crisis.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| The USSR/Russia had plenty of interest in the named
| countries as well, that's why Turkey is in NATO and helped
| enable Iraq to fight Iran. Not overly different.
| eyko wrote:
| By that logic, Egypt would still be occupied today.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| The UK, France and Israel did try. But the Soviet Union was
| on Egypt's side and the US didn't want anything to do with
| it.
| hulitu wrote:
| They are doing their best.
| decebalus1 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis
|
| That was almost the case...
| baybal2 wrote:
| And given the current situation, a more realistic alternative
| is just getting rid of Sisi.
| solatic wrote:
| The real alternative that gets discussed is an Eilat -> Be'er
| Sheva -> Ashdod canal, in Israel. See recent discussion for
| example: https://thearabweekly.com/ship-crisis-revives-russian-
| israel...
|
| Basically the Israelis don't have the short-term capital (neither
| financial nor human) to build it, so the real question is whether
| the Chinese are interested in initiating the endeavor.
| fiftyfifty wrote:
| There were talks about building a train from Eilat to Ashdod,
| this article claims it's not economically feasable:
|
| https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/suez-canal-ship-eilat-ca...
|
| Looking at the terrain in Israel building a canal from Eliat to
| anywhere does not look possible, it would be several orders of
| magnitude more difficult than building the Suez canal was.
| solatic wrote:
| The economic feasibility arguments presume an inability to
| expand the Port of Eilat any further than the current,
| extremely narrow border that Israel holds with the Red Sea.
| Presumably any serious contender with Suez would be a joint
| effort with the Jordanians at Aqaba, possibly with the Saudis
| as well at Haql (i.e. focus on building a canal along the
| Israeli/Jordanian border, and build an oil pipeline terminal
| starting at Haql, for sheer lack of room otherwise).
|
| While the Negev terrain is uneven, it's also sparsely
| populated. The land is mostly either nature preserve or
| reserved for military training. Most of the debate would
| involve who would be on the hook for the cost of
| construction, as well as how best to balance the canal route
| vs. pre-existing nature reserves.
| [deleted]
| k__ wrote:
| Should be a good idea to give Israel more leverage in the
| middle east.
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