[HN Gopher] The unsustainable growth of the container ship industry
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The unsustainable growth of the container ship industry
Author : savebykilling
Score : 77 points
Date : 2022-02-02 20:41 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (prospect.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (prospect.org)
| smm11 wrote:
| We just need to run railroad tracks over the oceans.
| lupire wrote:
| Civilzation 1 player spotted!
| gruez wrote:
| How does that change anything? Most of the rail cars I see are
| also carrying containers.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submerged_floating_tunnel
| paganel wrote:
| One can still dream about the Bering Straight bridge (or
| tunnel) [1] coming to life someday, plus the connecting (and
| now missing) railway parts over the two continents.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bering_Strait_crossing
| nikanj wrote:
| If only it wasn't Russia on the other end of that bridge.
| Nobody is going to risk the investment of building the
| bridge, when it would be subject to the general instability
| of Russian internal/external politics.
| BirAdam wrote:
| Russia has had one ruler for a very long time, and that
| ruler has had somewhat stable (even if bad) policies. This
| makes Russia a more predictable place than say... the USA
| where every 4 years you risk having one extreme political
| view vs another in control of the country. One year you
| have peace with Iran and Cuba, and the very next year
| that's off the table and it's sanctions time. That's a
| massive swing in political fortune.
|
| Then there's that thing of: should we? Absolutely, yes.
| Russia and the USA would destroy the Earth if tensions move
| to war. The US corporate press loves to say that Russians
| are massing troops on their border, but that's within their
| own territory. Meanwhile, the USA has massed troops all
| over the globe with bases in nearly every country. The
| antagonisms need to stop. Peace needs to reign. The
| alternative is the death of the Earth.
|
| A train connecting Asia and North America might be exactly
| the kind of thing to bring this peace to the table.
| Politicians respond to lobbying. Cargo freight is big
| business. If enough money lined their pockets...
| yurishimo wrote:
| Yeah, building the connection is one thing, but it's arguably
| more work to construct the railway to get to that remote
| region of Russia.
|
| There's a documentary (Long Way Round) about Ewen McGregor
| riding a motorcycle from London to NYC by going around the
| world across Eurasia. They were essentially ferried by a
| giant off-road truck through rural Russia and even then they
| had to practically dig a new path for truck to pass in some
| spots.
|
| That was in 2004, but I doubt the road of bones has gotten
| any better since then...
| naetd wrote:
| Copy writer was genius for using Containerization in the title;
| gonna get a lot of views from people like me who assume it's
| about computer software container and not a physical shipping
| container.
| travisd wrote:
| This is definitely not the case. This publication has multiple
| posts about the supply chain and port affairs. Software/tech
| people sometimes forget that we live in a very specific world
| with very limited scope, and sometimes forget to take our
| blinders off when interacting with the "real" world.
| lom wrote:
| The article claims that 15 ships pollute as much as all of the
| worlds cars in terms of co2, but a minute of googling reveals
| that it's not the case.. All cars pollute around 3 times more
| than all ships. That's still a lot of pollution from ships, no
| doubt - but I don't understand how two different sources can come
| to such different conclusions.
| mech987 wrote:
| If I remember right the pollutants they're talking about are
| not CO2. The fuel oil that these big ships use is pretty
| sulfury and dirty and makes a lot of NOx, and that's the sort
| of stuff that the statistics refer to. They also don't use
| catalytic converters or some such similar tech.
|
| Some environmental coverage likes to omit this level of detail
| and it makes them sound extra extra horrendous.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| I was in the engine room of a Maersk line ship, many times
| while crossing the Pacific. It was like a simple car engine,
| except the cylinders are each almost 2 meters in diameter.
| The fuel was raw crude oil with every dirty component, and
| the force so large, this engine, the size of a two story
| house, would crush this crude oil to make the combustion. It
| was pure force, and cheap to run.
| nsainaney wrote:
| We can solve the challenges with modern development of
| containerized applications in Kubernetes at https://codezero.io,
| greatly eliminating the hidden cost. Alas, physical containers -
| that's a hardware problem....
| deycallmeajay wrote:
| I wonder if this will create some opportunities for solutions to
| shipping to inland ports along the Columbia and Mississippi.
| There is a company developing boats to handle more containers on
| rivers.
|
| https://www.americanpatriotholdings.com/affiliates1.html
| umvi wrote:
| Containerization has a specific meaning in the context of
| computers so maybe the title should be changed to "The Hidden
| Costs of [Shipping Containers]" to reduce confusion for people
| clicking the link thinking it is going to be an article about the
| drawbacks of docker
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Unfortunately, "shipping containers" (where "shipping" is a
| verb, not an adjective) also has a computing meaning, so your
| proposed title would be just as misleading.
| Frost1x wrote:
| I went down this entire train of thought after opening the
| article and decided on "The Hidden Costs of [Shipment]
| Containerization." This I think clarified overload on
| "shipping", "ship", "containers" and "containization." At
| least until next week when Docker decides to offer a new
| deployment option/format/interface it calls a "Shipment" or
| some nonsense.
|
| I'm sure the people knowledgable of physical shipping
| containers and infrastructure really weren't that concerned
| or perhaps even aware how overloaded the term is in tech, nor
| did they know they'd land on the front page of a highly
| trafficked tech site. I don't know the policy on
| editorialized headlines here but I know people seem to get up
| in arms about it, which I understand, but here's a case where
| a nice insert makes sense.
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| "The Hidden Costs of California" would be the most accurate
| title in this case.
| aledalgrande wrote:
| Not me openinig the article already thinking if they're talking
| about CPU overhead when using docker compared to bare metal.
| theginger wrote:
| Even the real life container ship imagery doesn't give it away
| because often containerization articles are full of that too
| Gormo wrote:
| Hell, Docker's logo evokes that imagery.
| m3nu wrote:
| Fell for it too. Was hoping for something else :-(
| vincentlp wrote:
| indeed, it's probably not the author's intent but it's really
| clickbait for coders
| The_rationalist wrote:
| metacritic12 wrote:
| When I first opened the site, I wondered if it was a more
| technical/wonkish dive, or whether it was a political take.
| Looking at the root site prospect.org made it clear it's the
| latter. Don't get me wrong, their thesis can still be right, but
| this is like reading about "is free trade good" in the Economist.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| > No upstart carrier could possibly compete with the alliances;
| they couldn't afford the massive startup costs to build or lease
| their own mega-ship.
|
| This is such a common pattern with optimization. Something starts
| small-ish, but gets optimized and optimized to the point that
| newcomers aren't viable and everything gets locked in. It happens
| all over the economy, and the unprecedented scale of _everything_
| only makes the effect stronger. What's the way out?
| nikanj wrote:
| Money is practically free these days, so a bunch of college
| dropouts can secure a few billion in pre-launch funding to
| build their own mega-whatever.
| lolsal wrote:
| People can't get mortgages; I am skeptical that college
| dropouts could literally take out billions to create a
| shipping startup which is already a crowded space, without
| offering a significant value add, with no collateral or
| experience.
| stcont wrote:
| Mortgages and equity funding aren't really comparable since
| the terms of the instruments and risk tolerance of the
| investors is very different.
|
| Just because someone can't qualify for a mortgage doesn't
| mean they can't raise funds for a business.
| lolsal wrote:
| I just can't believe any financial institution would
| underwrite a large business plan with no collateral but
| would not underwrite a mortgage for the same person when
| they could repo the house/property if the mortgage
| failed.
|
| I have no problem personally getting a mortgage, but even
| with a fantastic business plan I wouldn't give myself
| $10M for a shipping startup.
|
| Am I totally out of touch?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| xnx wrote:
| Giant corps in adjacent industries. Look at how a bookstore
| (Amazon) now runs a logistics operation that competes with
| USPS, UPS, and Fedex.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| End government regulation. End government oversight. It's only
| government that can screw up the operation of a free market. /s
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| monopoly power, except effectively extranational so no antitrust
|
| Faaaantastic.
|
| Of course the entire "make 5000 miles away, ship it over the
| pacific" was enabled by the lack of a proper carbon tax.
|
| If monopolies perform the same "service" then more power to them.
| WJW wrote:
| > ship it over the pacific" was enabled by the lack of a proper
| carbon tax.
|
| This is just demonstrably false. For a typical household
| product, more carbon is emitted trucking it from the port to
| the store than is emitted shipping it across the ocean. Cargo
| ships are extremely energy efficient. And of course for a great
| many products the raw materials are not actually produced
| locally, so if you shift manufacturing back home you now have
| to ship the raw materials instead.
|
| A "proper carbon tax" would increase oversea production since
| economies of scale are real and huge.
| specialp wrote:
| It depends where the port is, and where the store is. While
| it is true that a cargo ship produces 20% of the carbon per
| km per ton that a truck does, the distance is very large.
| This also does not account for freight rail which produces
| half the carbon per km per ton that container ships do. So
| yes, if a cargo ship goes the 11,000 km from China to LA,
| then a semi-truck takes this from LA to NY the overland route
| would produce more carbon.
|
| Also, the part about the raw materials not being produced
| locally, this is true abroad too.
| topkai22 wrote:
| Ocean shipping is extremely carbon/energy efficient and would
| likely be advantaged with a carbon tax. It's emissions are
| concentrated in sulfur from the low grade oil it burns, which
| is harmful to humans and the environment in other ways.
|
| You could potentially argue that a carbon tax's impact on
| transportation generally would increase local manufacturing,
| but I kind of doubt it- it would advantage those manufacturers
| best concentration of raw materials and suppliers as those get
| transported multiple times in the production cycle, whereas the
| finished production only moves once.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| You might be correct, but what we have now is an effectively
| subsidized system.
|
| If it is properly regulated / priced to account for
| externalities (I would like some conservative regulation to
| make up for the unaccountable/unknown externalities, perhaps
| protectionism could function in that manner), then it would
| likely properly account for environmental concerns.
|
| My top comment of course didn't even deal with the
| "environmental arbitrage" that international shipping
| represents. You make stuff where there isn't as much
| regulation/price accounting for externalities, THEN you ship
| it 5000 miles.
|
| It used to be this amounted to simply getting to offload
| localized pollution on the third world, and the first world
| gets the benefits. You know like this:
|
| https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-
| place-...
|
| But carbon emitted in China impacts us here. And that is the
| existential threat.
|
| If you want a good, modern "Web3" example of this, hm, why is
| Mongolia a new bitcoin mining hub?
| thfuran wrote:
| >Of course the entire "make 5000 miles away, ship it over the
| pacific" was enabled by the lack of a proper carbon tax.
|
| I think this pretty much sums it up:
|
| >Shippers earned $25 billion in 2020; research consultant
| Drewry predicted $300 billion for 2021 and 2022.[...] A study
| by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found
| that pollution from cargo ships has led to 60,000 deaths per
| year and costs up to $330 billion in annual health costs from
| lung and heart diseases.
|
| Even after the preposterous profit-taking from the recent
| supply chain clusterfuck, their profits would still be zeroed
| out by accounting for just some of the externalities.
| harpersealtako wrote:
| How many people's lives are saved from increased access to
| trans-oceanic trade? I don't have an answer to that, but
| isn't it possible that the counterfactual world where no
| container ships exist involves worse health and mortality
| outcomes?
| wilkommen wrote:
| Probably not, national economies would just have to
| function more independently. The only way I can see how
| trans-oceanic trade results in better health and mortality
| outcomes is that it makes the various world superpowers
| more dependent on each other for trade, reducing the
| likelihood of large-scale armed conflict.
| nicbou wrote:
| user10874967111 wrote:
| I was excited to read about the hidden cost of dockerizing
| everything...
| james_burden wrote:
| Same ;)
| TameAntelope wrote:
| I will pay someone in pageviews if they write that article!
|
| But it's kind of funny, you can see a few comments at the
| bottom from people who didn't actually click the article, and
| therefore thought similarly to us.
| briffle wrote:
| I guess I have not understood why the port in Long Beach is the
| one all these ships pile into? Aren't there large ports in San
| Francisco/Oakland? and the entire Puget Sound? Or are they, but
| the media doesn't talk about them as much? Portland's old
| container terminals are empty last I drove by them (although its
| been a while). I know the Portland terminal is limited on how
| large of a ship by how deep the water is dredged, but wouldn't it
| make more sense to utilize the smaller ships to get your highly
| important cargo delivered faster?
| notpachet wrote:
| It's a good question without a simple clear answer. The
| shortest answer, which elides a lot of nuance, is that the
| shipping conglomerates (like so much in the current global
| supply chain) have been overly-optimizing for profit, at the
| expense of resiliency. That means consolidating business
| operations in fewer ports in order to drive up efficiency.
|
| Long term I definitely would not be surprised if some of the
| bigger shipping players recognize the need to diversify and
| invest in operations facilities across more ports. But that
| takes time and money.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| > have been overly-optimizing for profit
|
| profit, and continuity of control authority
| mediaman wrote:
| Price of container shipping has skyrocketed due to high demand
| and the supply of ships being fairly limited, even more limited
| when the average trip time of a boat increases.
|
| One question I've been thinking about is whether the ocean
| freight companies will respond by increasing supply of ships.
| These ocean shipping companies didn't actually make a lot of
| money prior to the pandemic: back when China-USWest prices were
| under $3k a container, their margins were actually kind of thin.
|
| So if we've had all this consolidation, and there are now three
| alliances that handle most of the freight, what is the incentive
| to increase supply? Just a 30% increase in ship capacity would
| likely crater profits.
|
| Is the industry going to respond with building more ships, or,
| like OPEC, will they be able to coordinate to constrain supply so
| that long-term rates settle down in the $6-8k range versus the
| <$3k that existed previously?
|
| If they are able to operate as a cartel, that will have major,
| long-term consequences for the dynamics of geographic
| manufacturing and supply chains. If they can't, then the pandemic
| will be a multi-year blip and we'll go back to hallowing out
| manufacturing and sending it to Asia.
| techdragon wrote:
| They will not increase the supply of ships because of the lead
| time involved. If they could add one tomorrow, sure.. but they
| can't. Bringing a ship online takes months, to years depending
| on how "off the plan" the design is. It's not going to fit into
| their modelling or be relevant to the current global situation
| which from what I can tell is mainly constrained by containers
| not container ships. Repurposing existing container capable
| ships is valuable but beyond that it's not helpful due to the
| rapidly increasing volatility of the available container
| supply. If there aren't enough containers there's no point
| adding ships that will need to be deprecated over a decade or
| more. Ergo... no new ships.
| acrooks wrote:
| I work with a number of container shipping companies. Almost
| all have kicked off new-build projects since the start of the
| pandemic, after several years of tight margins, budget cuts,
| bankruptcies, and asset sales. The industry is in a real peak
| right now - some ocean shipping companies paid a 100% bonus in
| 2021.
|
| It's really difficult for the industry to target the right spot
| of the supply/demand curve. A new-build project takes several
| years they need to commit in advance to the shipyards how many
| vessels will be built as part of a new class. Meanwhile, many
| other companies are simultaneously building vessels. And it's
| impossible to predict events like the port congestion in LA
| that drastically reduced supply for a period of time. And it's
| difficult to predict macroeconomic changes in demand. And a
| vessel might cost a hundred million dollars, so the operator
| isn't going to let it sit around and do nothing - they're going
| to put it to work and make as much money as they can.
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