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Post by ronturner on Dec 4, 2019 14:28:51 GMT 1
With all this stuff about climate change and the continuing attacks on aviation I have been wondering if we might see a revolution in sea travel. Imaging if some brave person was to start something like EasyShip or RyanSea.
Out of the box thinking all round. Cabins without the luxury demanded by todays cruise passenger. Basic Ticket, gets you there. Mid Ticket get you breakfast and dinner too. Upper class gets you the drinks and the cinema... etc . How many would pay for a four day ride on a modern fuel efficient ship with 2000 others. Could be renaissance for Liverpool. Daily departures from the Mersey to Manhattan. Rail connections to a new modern station below the landing stages. Is this all pie in the sky or is it worth a second thought? Might we see it in our lifetime?
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Post by viscount on Dec 4, 2019 16:41:20 GMT 1
Ah BUT, sea travel and in particular cruising are also firmly in the sights of the 'costs to the environment' lobby. Shipping in general is accused of being a much greater polluter generated from burning fossils fuels than aviation and are not finding ways to clean and reduce emissions in the way, that for example, the motor industry is doing with in seeking and making useable workable alternatives to petrol/diesel.
Listened to an interesting guest on our local English language talk radio station in the past week who was talking about how cruise ships leave behind a 'dirty' trail of pollutants in a way that aviation, cars and buses do not. I didn't realise before that the number of cruise ships in arctic/Antarctic seas is tightly controlled and licenced apparently - individual cruise ships have to show that their pollutant 'footprint' is limited and the older vessels have a massive environmental pollution 'footprint' trail, way beyond that produced from their engines, little of which can be seen from above the waterline.
I can remember being taught in school that the global supply of oil would be diminishing rapidly, indeed could well run out by the end of the first quarter of the 21st Century, so within our lifetime. A situation that has not happened, although the reserves of fossil fuels are certainly finite. In the 1930s there were hints that aviation would be the way the masses would travel long distance in the future. It took a world war and massive technology advances for that to start really happening in the later 1950s and be well underway in the 70s. So, yes it was foreseeable and did happen in less than half a lifetime.
So Ron poses an interesting thought. What, based on current innovations will provide long distance travel options in next half-a-lifetime future? It is very difficult to see beyond jet engined aircraft and oil burning ships. True there will be substitution with bio generated fuels to replace fossil derived fuels, but are there any signs of true innovation, something quite differently powered? I would consider space travel, high trajectory supersonic, and atmospheric supersonic are relative dead ends when considering mass travel as they still require burning fuels when within the atmosphere. There is a limit to how large and certainly how fast ships can get. Yes, ships can use wind, aircraft maybe solar power, but such is a long way off reality for mass travel, but maybe in twenty or so years technology may be catching up with science fiction. In the short term, as to Ron's thoughts of cruise ships replacing Jumbos and A.380s for intercontinental travel, and the Pier Head usurping JLA as Liverpool's main port of entry, sorry it is 'pie in the sky'. I fear that fossil fuelled shipping as well as aviation and the motor industry are 'game on' for those environmentalists looking for an easier target than the major global polluting countries such as China still massively increasing their 'dirty' burning of coal as they seek an industrialised economy or Trump's denial of Global Warming and so not pushing forward through global investment in alternative power sources.
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