That's something I could never reconcile. On the one hand, I hear that container ships are the most energy-efficient way we have of moving cargo across long distances. On the other hand, we have those issues with crappy fuel.
I wonder:
- What's the total ecological impact of container ships vs. alternative forms of transport using better fuel?
- Would container ships be a Good Thing if we could somehow make them use clean energy? (I just imagined a dream future of fully autonomous, nuclear-powered container ships.)
It's probably simply a question of the "lawless" open seas permitting absurdly excessive tragedy of the commons-style tradeoffs.
You don't need to go all the way to nuke-carriers; plain old combustion can be much, much cleaner than some ships at negligible (but non-zero) cost - witness similar engines/powerplants on land. But in an extremely competitive market, what sane operator would do that?
