When the oil runs out, how are we going to ship?

Aug 24th at 12:13 am By: andrew*debbie

It is possible to produce synthetic liquid fuels from coal. This was first done on a large scale by Germany during WWII. Today, Sasol in South Africa runs commercial scale plants that produce synthetic fuel oils (as used by ships) as well as other liquid fuels.

We could go back to building coal fired steam ships.

A combination of advanced wind power and a diesel engine running on bio or synthetic fuel might be the least expensive and most environmentally friendly.

As shown by the NS Savannah, nuclear power is not economically viable. While fuel costs aren’t too bad, construction, maintenance, crew and decommissioning costs are all much higher.

Aug 24th at 12:36 am By: southarkansas

nuclear power

Aug 24th at 2:22 am By: truenorth675

Sail

Steam

Nuke

Don’t worry, there is oil to last for hundreds of years. The current craziness in the market is all about money and speculation. When the bubble bursts oil will be reasonable again.

Aug 24th at 3:04 am By: Robert R

Yes, we’re already going back to sails for merchant shipping. Modern sail rigs (which look more like a kite than a conventional sail) are already yielding a 10% to 15% percent fuel savings, and this is only the beginning.

And yes, nuclear power is also a very good option for commercial shipping. Once upon a time petroleum was cheap, but at $5/gallon for red-diesel, wind and nuclear are both starting to look very attractive to the world’s merchant fleets.