It looks like the Silly Party have taken Luton

A few weeks ago I was contacted by Sophia Campbell about her flightless trip to India from the UK.

With complicated calculations, the distinction from a huge array of vehicles efficiencies in each category, and fine-tuned judgment necessary to even start to calculate accurately your carbon emissions on a complicated journey, its no wonder that you might be in need of some help. I asked a range of people to help me out on my own calculations last year, but, more often than not, the answers I received were a general figure that came nowhere near close to the actual engine model I was riding on. Well, the below calculations have been kindly researched by, again, my dad. He is an electronic engineer, with a background in physics. He often contributes to the oil drum website, and you can read more of what he’s written on other subjects here

Modern ships are a very efficient way of moving cargo. The best of the huge diesel engines they use convert over 50% of the energy in the fuel to propulsive energy fed to the propeller. The best of petrol car engines struggles get 12% to the wheels.

There has been some alarm recently about the emissions from cargo vessels. They total about twice that from aircraft but this is because they shift so much cargo. In 2007 it was something like 51 trillion tonne-kilometres by sea, about 300 times as much as by air. There are improvements that can be made to the emissions from ships but what the world needs to do most is to cut down on international transport, but what long distance cargo transport that is left is best done by sea. Continue Reading »