From josh:

Any help on the details to go to the usa from europe or middle east.

And from james:

What is the carbon footprint of shipping a 40ft container by freighter compared to shipping by truck. More specifically I am looking for the impact from HK to the West Coast of Canada by ship compared to Toronto to Vancouver by truck. My simpleton gut feeling it will be the same or the container shipping will be more efficient.

Josh’s Q

Info about freighter travel

I haven’t attempted any journeys on ships other than the commercial, long distance passenger ferries that are usually fairly easy to find, and booking is straightforward.
My favourite on-the-level travel guide is the man in seat no. 61 and that link is to his USA page.
Ways of getting in and out of the middle east are also covered.

Outside that are freighters and some unusual alternatives: peaceboat, Cape farewell project, obscure luxury cruises… (all of which require that you either have a large sum of cash or lofty reputation in a subject related to their project)…

Back to frieghters and the man in seat no. 61 also has most of the info you need to start off on your search for freighter trips. Freighterman has far more extensive listings on his DIY website. The cruise people will give you a good run down of the Atlantic crossings. Bloggers and writers will also give you some idea of what’s involved.

James’ Q

Pitting a 28tonne container shipped by sea from Hong Kong to Vancouver against the same size container shipped by road transport to gauge the carbon emissions

Calculations from my ever obliging mathematical investigator, my dad:

The Ship

By Google Earth, Hong Kong container port, to Vancouver container port, skirting north of Taiwan and south of Japan and the Aleutian islands is 10,750 km.

Using 8.5g/tonne kilometre of CO2 as a mid range of the Wallenius Wilhelmsen figures given in the earlier post.

Taking 28 tonnes as the maximum you can put in a 40 foot container to be able to transport it by road and still meet the 44 tonne total curb weight limit in Europe (USA/Canada may be able to go nearer the 36 tonne sea limit but I don’t have any figures).

For the 28 tonne container by freighter
We get 2.56 tonnes of CO2

The Truck

By Google Maps.
Vancouver to Toronto going south to Redmond WA and across the USA
mainly on Interstate 90 and 94 to Chicago, crossing the border back into
Canada at Sarnia and on to Toronto on route 401 and 403 is 4,374 km

Using a figure from a German study, slide 10 of the PowerPoint presentation

container vehicles averaged 100g/tonne kilometre of CO2 counting just the cargo.

For the 28 tonne container by road
We get 12.25 tonnes of CO2

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