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Junior G-man
Sep 15, 2004

Wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma


Tias posted:

I live in a well developed farming nation (Denmark), and it's my clear impression that organic tastes better and doesn't contain herbicides that are toxic to humans - but itt a lot of respected posters claim the label is bullshit?

Am I being a dumb, or is organic just not regulated in the United States?

Yay, farming and food production chat! I work in Brussels as an agri-lobbyist and crop protection is among my policy briefs :)

Organic is on occasion much more toxic and hideous for the environment than synthetic compounds are. The best example is copper, which is one of the main fungicides used in EU organic agriculture (and probably US too), especially in organic vineyards, as a fungicide.

Copper, unlike synthetics, does not disperse or dissolve naturally in the soil and therefore poses a long-term threat to soil health. In some areas, heavy copper use has rendered farmland unusable to anything but organic crop production as converting it back to pasture for cows or sheep would be too toxic for the animals - the copper would get into the grass and poison the animals.

There's so much utterly nonsensical hysteria in Europe at the moment regarding synthetic pesticides that it drives me mad - organic uses similar compounds but they just say it's better "because it's natural". Well, so is the anopheles mosquito but no-one likes them, or septorium/brown rust wheat infections that cause fusarium molds.

All pesticides are toxic - they have to be in order to work - but the organic ones (if you were so dumb as to drink a pint of them) will kill you just as fast as the synthetics. Probably a lot faster actually.

Don't ever believe that "organic" is the same thing as "no pesticides" - they've marketed that very cleverly but there's no basis in fact for about 99.5% of EU organic agriculture. They just use the same stuff but different, and those pesticides are nearly always made by the same companies that the anti-pesticide crowd now hates so much.

Mind you, there's a good number of studies that show organic to be better for the direct agri-environment (if we discount the whole displaced-extra-production-due-to-lower-yields discussion) and that's probably a reason to buy it, but there's absolutely no sense in buying organic because you don't want or like pesticides.

Marenghi posted:

Why is the discussion of subsidies limited to industrial farms. Where I live small farmers are entitled to subsidies just as much as large farms.
And it is generally recognised here that although small and part-time farmers help maintain rural economies, they limit efficiency and hinder long term development.

Though it's politically difficult to say that small farmers should be bought out and replaced by larger organisations.

In the EU larger farmers get more subsidies because the basic payment is per hectare; the more land you have, the more subsidies you get. I know the US has switched to an insurance-based model of 'protecting' farmers, but I'm not too familiar.

Junior G-man fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Jun 13, 2016

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icantfindaname
Jul 1, 2008


Tias posted:

I live in a well developed farming nation (Denmark), and it's my clear impression that organic tastes better and doesn't contain herbicides that are toxic to humans - but itt a lot of respected posters claim the label is bullshit?

Am I being a dumb, or is organic just not regulated in the United States?

Both

twodot
Aug 7, 2005

You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things
Organic is regulated in the US, it just doesn't regulate very useful things:
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?navid=organic-agriculture

Deteriorata
Feb 6, 2005

Tias posted:

I live in a well developed farming nation (Denmark), and it's my clear impression that organic tastes better and doesn't contain herbicides that are toxic to humans - but itt a lot of respected posters claim the label is bullshit?

Am I being a dumb, or is organic just not regulated in the United States?

A big factor in the taste of produce is the soil and growing conditions. Those have nothing to do with organic or herbicides. You would not be able to taste the difference.

An example here in the States is the Vidalia onion. There is something about the soil in Vidalia, Georgia that produces onions that are mild and sweet, that can be eaten like an apple. Genetically, the plants are identical to those grown elsewhere, and when those plants are grown elsewhere they taste like ordinary onions. There's just something about the soil and growing conditions in Vidalia that produces onions like that.

It's also why certain regions are renowned for their wine. The varieties of grape that produce ordinary wines elsewhere produce spectacularly good wines in particular places. The difference has been known for centuries, long before modern agriculture existed.

Another issue in the perception of taste is expectation. If you think organic food is supposed to taste better, you will generally find it does - although in a blind taste test you would not be able to tell the difference between organic and not.

Stinky_Pete
Aug 16, 2015

Stinkier than your average bear
Lipstick Apathy
I had no idea that USDA organic ruled out GMOs. That seems silly. The part I thought was important was

USDA posted:

Preserve natural resources and biodiversity

How true is it?

KiteAuraan
Aug 5, 2014

JER GEDDA FERDA RADDA ARA!


Stinky_Pete posted:

I had no idea that USDA organic ruled out GMOs. That seems silly. The part I thought was important was


How true is it?

You still have big fields of monocrops rather than whatever the given "natural environment" for the region would be, just ones that aren't GMO or that aren't being sprayed with synthetic pesticides or fertilizers. So not at all.

CommieGIR
Aug 22, 2006

The blue glow is a feature, not a bug


Pillbug
Its all GMOs anyways. Silly people not understanding artificial selection.

KiteAuraan
Aug 5, 2014

JER GEDDA FERDA RADDA ARA!


CommieGIR posted:

Its all GMOs anyways. Silly people not understanding artificial selection.

Hey, it's just not natural to insert the DNA from one species into another, never mind that tons of species already share DNA due to common ancestry.

CommieGIR
Aug 22, 2006

The blue glow is a feature, not a bug


Pillbug

KiteAuraan posted:

Hey, it's just not natural to insert the DNA from one species into another, never mind that tons of species already share DNA due to common ancestry.

That's the best part. People panicking when they change a SINGLE allele and don't realize they have at least a quarter of their DNA in common with their food to begin with...

Apparently if we change a single gene, it'll turn into some evil fish-strawberry hybrid. WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE?!

Grognan
Jan 23, 2007

by Fluffdaddy

CommieGIR posted:


Apparently if we change a single gene, it'll turn into some evil fish-strawberry hybrid. WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE?!

Sounds like some baller sushi to me.

Tias
May 25, 2008

Pictured: the patron saint of internet political arguments (probably)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund

Deteriorata posted:

A big factor in the taste of produce is the soil and growing conditions. Those have nothing to do with organic or herbicides. You would not be able to taste the difference.

An example here in the States is the Vidalia onion. There is something about the soil in Vidalia, Georgia that produces onions that are mild and sweet, that can be eaten like an apple. Genetically, the plants are identical to those grown elsewhere, and when those plants are grown elsewhere they taste like ordinary onions. There's just something about the soil and growing conditions in Vidalia that produces onions like that.

It's also why certain regions are renowned for their wine. The varieties of grape that produce ordinary wines elsewhere produce spectacularly good wines in particular places. The difference has been known for centuries, long before modern agriculture existed.

Another issue in the perception of taste is expectation. If you think organic food is supposed to taste better, you will generally find it does - although in a blind taste test you would not be able to tell the difference between organic and not.

I guess I've been deceived, then. It's just, looking at the public discourse here, it's generally perceived as objective truth that organic produce is less toxic( being made without glyphosate, for example), taste better and is better for the earth.

Junior G-man
Sep 15, 2004

Wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma


Tias posted:

I guess I've been deceived, then. It's just, looking at the public discourse here, it's generally perceived as objective truth that organic produce is less toxic( being made without glyphosate, for example), taste better and is better for the earth.

Don't get me started on the EU glyphosate discussion. It is without a doubt the most moronic EU-based discussion of the year. By a long margin.

Tias
May 25, 2008

Pictured: the patron saint of internet political arguments (probably)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund

Junior G-man posted:

Don't get me started on the EU glyphosate discussion. It is without a doubt the most moronic EU-based discussion of the year. By a long margin.

Can you start on the EU glyphosate discussion? Keep in mind that I don't know anything about farming, and as a (wannabe) conscientious consumer I get worried when I hear that I'm carrying it around inside me.

Marenghi
Oct 16, 2008

Don't trust the liberals,
they will betray you

Junior G-man posted:

In the EU larger farmers get more subsidies because the basic payment is per hectare; the more land you have, the more subsidies you get. I know the US has switched to an insurance-based model of 'protecting' farmers, but I'm not too familiar.

I'm from Ireland so we would be using the EU rules. That's what I meant though, small scale are just as entitled to large industrial farmers to subsidies, as it per hectare a larger farmer would receive more but as a percentage compared to production it would be the same. And there's all sorts of benefits available to small farmers and young farmers that industrial farms wouldn't be entitled to. So I always find it odd when people rail against the evil industrial farms receiving corporate welfare. Though I hadn't heard of the US insurance-based model.

I've heard people say that as a small island we have too many farmers for the arable land so there's over production in some areas due to duplication. That the land would be better utilised if we had fewer but much larger farms. I assume the same would be true on a wider scale, that larger farms are better able to use their available land and produce more efficiently with less waste.

Bar Ran Dun
Jan 22, 2006




If any one has any thing they want to know about the logistics of international grain shipments let me know.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

BrandorKP posted:

If any one has any thing they want to know about the logistics of international grain shipments let me know.

Everything

Bar Ran Dun
Jan 22, 2006




OK

I'll start with the very basics. Generally there are two ways grain is shipped in bulk internationally. By containers and in bulk. Maybe ... I should start even more basically, type and scale. What grain wise gets shipped from the USA? Soybeans, soybean meal, and corn are the big three. Generally they are going to be used as animal feed. Also big are wheat (human consumption), barley (for beer), and DDGS (a brewing by product used as animal feed). Now let's talk scale. The unit usually used to talk about the size of these shipments is MT. That's metric tons. The reason for this is because that's the unit ships use for displacement and it's the unit that will usually appear in the bill of lading.. Until the grain gets to a ship, a variety of units will be used. Bushels and lbs mostly. But back to MT. A good way to visualize an MT is an IBC filled with water. Alternately if you went "what the gently caress is an IBC?" Think a meter cubed of water. Grain stowage factors (this is different from a density) run in the neighborhood of 1.15 to 1.40 (1.30 is a good guess for corn) so 1 MT takes up about 1.30 m3 on a ship. Anyway on a Panamax vessel one might load 60000 to 75000 MT. So imagine a skyscraper of grain. A single grain terminal might load 100 vessels in a busy year. A grain port like Portland might have 5 or more terminals. Again mostly this is corn and soybeans, and thus animal feed.

Mountains, literally not metaphorically, of animal feed move around the world by ship. Tomorrow or when I get a chance, I'll write about how grain goes from silos to rail and barge and then to elevators to load on ships.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

Yeah this is my stuff, I love logistics and shipping. Specially trains and boats and ports. It's astounding the amount of stuff we ship around.
I guess the question is: why spend so much energy shipping it around the world, why not just grow the feed closer to where its needed? Well obviously with energy and shipping prices as they are, it's actually cheaper to grow where it's the most productive and then ship.

What would have to change for this to no longer be true? How much would fuel prices and transport costs have to rise before shipping animal feed around the world became cost ineffective, and at that point would we be probably more concerned about the total collapse of the global economy?

Bar Ran Dun
Jan 22, 2006




That Panamax bulk carrier burns around 25 to 35 MT of HFO (heavy fuel oil) a day underway loaded doing anything from 15 to 20 knots. The ship portion is amazingly fuel efficient compared to trucking or rail. Economies of scale rule by water.

Bar Ran Dun
Jan 22, 2006




How much oil converted to fertilizer would be needed to grow 66000 MT of corn locally in a less ideal place? How much to move it around internally in the importing country? Does the importing country have storage for these mountains of grain? Is the quality the same? ( maybe I'll write about import loads from Brazil)

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

I see a lot of bulk haulers every day going past my island, most likely a lot of them coming out of Vancouver. Probably a a 30-30-40 split between bulk, RORO/Other, and container.

The Cargil terminal is just one of many
Sea transport is tremendously efficient, I always try to explain that to people who think it's insane how much distance our goods cover. The distance doesn't matter, it's the cost/efficiency that matters and huge modern ships can move crazy amounts of stuff for basically nothing when compared to any other method.

Eat less meat, waste less food, grow more appropriate crops for climates and maybe give up farming areas with terrible water issues but don't stop the transport chain, it's a very efficient link in the system.

Stinky_Pete
Aug 16, 2015

Stinkier than your average bear
Lipstick Apathy
So it doesn't matter how slow the boats themselves are, because the overall rate of transfer is huge. Amazing. I wonder if a ship packed with microSD cards could theoretically exceed the best Internet speeds (not counting the time taken to transfer the data onto a computer).

It used to boggle my mind that shipping stuff overseas isn't crazy expensive, but now I see that's just because my monkey brain can't account for how small the margins can get at that scale. I saw a Dole corporation ship in the San Diego harbor a couple of months ago, and the cargo on that thing—the amount of bananas was literally incomprehensible, but I guess that shows how many grocery stores are all over the place. I'm just amazed how it all stays fresh along the way, but I guess they time the picking for that.

CommieGIR
Aug 22, 2006

The blue glow is a feature, not a bug


Pillbug
Yeah, diesels are incredibly efficient machines for moving things.

Stinky_Pete
Aug 16, 2015

Stinkier than your average bear
Lipstick Apathy
Oh yeah I wonder how expensive it'll be to retrofit them with the ability to use some other liquid fuel that we hopefully figure out

CommieGIR
Aug 22, 2006

The blue glow is a feature, not a bug


Pillbug

Stinky_Pete posted:

Oh yeah I wonder how expensive it'll be to retrofit them with the ability to use some other liquid fuel that we hopefully figure out

For ship engines, theoretically they can burn anything that is remotely similar to heavy oil.

The fuel oil used in ship oil is basically like tar, its the leftovers from refining. They have to heat the fuel to keep it liquid in order to use it, otherwise it turns into a tarry goo.

Most diesel can be retrofitted to run an abundance of alternative fuels, most road going diesels can burn veggie/waste oil or a variety of canola/cooking oils.

Quandary
Jan 29, 2008
How difficult it be to run on ships on LNG?

H.P. Hovercraft
Jan 12, 2004

one thing a computer can do that most humans can't is be sealed up in a cardboard box and sit in a warehouse
Slippery Tilde

CommieGIR posted:

Most diesel can be retrofitted to run an abundance of alternative fuels, most road going diesels can burn veggie/waste oil or a variety of canola/cooking oils.

a popular vegetable oil conversion are diesel mercedes from the 70s and 80s since they're a really cheap way to get a nice luxury french fry car

CommieGIR
Aug 22, 2006

The blue glow is a feature, not a bug


Pillbug

H.P. Hovercraft posted:

a popular vegetable oil conversion are diesel mercedes from the 70s and 80s since they're a really cheap way to get a nice luxury french fry car

Yes, the main issue is most people who do this fail to filter the oil properly. Running straight veggie oil involves adding heaters and extra filtration.

Quandary posted:

How difficult it be to run on ships on LNG?

Would need to change their entire motor at most, change the entire fuel injection system and lower compression at best. LNG burns more like gasoline and requires the motor to be setup more like a gas engine. You'd also have to change out the fuel storage, since LNG needs pressure tanks versus bunker style tanks. Its really not feasible nor worthwhile to convert current ships in service to LNG

That and losing the high compression ignition would also do away with their fuel efficiency and probably lower their power output. High compression in a compression ignition motor is part of why they are so efficient.

CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Jun 14, 2016

Bar Ran Dun
Jan 22, 2006




So here's basically how grain moves for export in the US. It starts in silos after it's been harvested. Normally it moves from silos by truck to grain elevators. At the first set of elevators it can be transferred to other modes. It could be loaded onto the rail, into barges, or directly onto a ship (often the case on the Great Lakes). From the mid west there are a couple of typical paths for the grain to take. The most common path is for it to be loaded onto barges to be sent down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Once in New Orleans it's loaded back into elevators then into ships or transferred directly from barges to ships. New Orleans is the largest grain port in the US for this reason. Alternately it gets loaded onto trains and which then go to a variety coastal ports: Portland, Corpus Christie, Sacremento, Norfolk, Brunswick, Seattle etc. Once it arrives it's re elevated and then loaded onto the ships at grain terminals. The third route is that is goes from truck directly to a grain elevator on the Great Lakes, where it is loaded directly onto ships. The competitiveness of these routes varies from year to year. When the Mississippi floods more grain moves by rail, especially to the West Coast. When tar sands oil trains take up rail capacity, more goes down the Mississippi. When grain gets very expensive because of a natural disaster some where else in the world (think like fires in Russia) suddenly all the elevators on the Lakes start running. The generally trend is towards more moving by rail to the West Coast to head to Asia. Another way grain moves for export is by being loaded into food grade shipping containers. This was a growing trend for many years, but recently the shipping lines have been reluctant to relocate food grade empties to the in land US for this purpose.

All along the way USDA (FGIS, Federal Grain Inspection Service) and state agencies like WSDA are inspecting and sampling the grain. US grain is very high quality, generally speaking if it's something I'm tempted to stick into my mouth straight from a cargo hold (say barley) I don't have any issues at all doing it. I've never seen insects (but know the percentages of parts in the grain) and I've never seen rats. Import grain is another story.

Stinky_Pete posted:

but now I see that's just because my monkey brain can't account for how small the margins can get at that scale.

Some categories of bulk carriers are being operated at a loss right now. There is an over capacity of tonnage because of the slow down in Chinese demand for coal and iron. The margin are negative in some cases.

Stinky_Pete posted:

I'm just amazed how it all stays fresh along the way, but I guess they time the picking for that.

Refrigerated and inerted holds. Think like long term apple storage.

CommieGIR posted:

Yeah, diesels are incredibly efficient machines for moving things.

Slow speed diesels with attached waste heat boilers were the most fuel efficient propulsion cycles for quite a long time. Recently Co-gas (gas turbines combined with waste heat boilers) became more efficient. But slow speed diesels are usually direct drive. They don't have or need a reduction gear. This is one of the reasons they started to displace steam plants during WWII. Later fuel costs killed steam.

And some slow speeds can be converted to LNG, because they were designed for the possibility. It was starting to be a thing for a little bit, but with fuel prices as they are now that trend died out.

LiterallyTheWurst
Feb 5, 2015

Sendik's Original
Wow, measure 1 was beaten badly in North Dakota , 75% no to 25% yes.
http://results.sos.nd.gov/resultsSW.aspx?text=BQ&type=SW&map=CTY

More or less, ND legislators voted last year to make exceptions to the 1933 ban on nonfamily corporate farming. The exemptions would allow for corporate dairy and swine production. People were not happy with the change, so the North Dakota Farmers' Union began circulating petitions to challenge it soon after it passed. My very conservative father in law and brother in law were all for the change, but I don't know how much time they've spent near industrial pig farms.

The ban is being also challenged in court, but who knows how that will go. The New York Times wrote a decent article on it if anyone is interested.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/06/1...www.google.com/[/url]

Killer-of-Lawyers
Apr 22, 2008

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2020

BrandorKP posted:

So here's basically how grain moves for export in the US. It starts in silos after it's been harvested. Normally it moves from silos by truck to grain elevators. At the first set of elevators it can be transferred to other modes. It could be loaded onto the rail, into barges, or directly onto a ship (often the case on the Great Lakes). From the mid west there are a couple of typical paths for the grain to take. The most common path is for it to be loaded onto barges to be sent down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Once in New Orleans it's loaded back into elevators then into ships or transferred directly from barges to ships. New Orleans is the largest grain port in the US for this reason. Alternately it gets loaded onto trains and which then go to a variety coastal ports: Portland, Corpus Christie, Sacremento, Norfolk, Brunswick, Seattle etc. Once it arrives it's re elevated and then loaded onto the ships at grain terminals. The third route is that is goes from truck directly to a grain elevator on the Great Lakes, where it is loaded directly onto ships. The competitiveness of these routes varies from year to year. When the Mississippi floods more grain moves by rail, especially to the West Coast. When tar sands oil trains take up rail capacity, more goes down the Mississippi. When grain gets very expensive because of a natural disaster some where else in the world (think like fires in Russia) suddenly all the elevators on the Lakes start running. The generally trend is towards more moving by rail to the West Coast to head to Asia. Another way grain moves for export is by being loaded into food grade shipping containers. This was a growing trend for many years, but recently the shipping lines have been reluctant to relocate food grade empties to the in land US for this purpose.

All along the way USDA (FGIS, Federal Grain Inspection Service) and state agencies like WSDA are inspecting and sampling the grain. US grain is very high quality, generally speaking if it's something I'm tempted to stick into my mouth straight from a cargo hold (say barley) I don't have any issues at all doing it. I've never seen insects (but know the percentages of parts in the grain) and I've never seen rats. Import grain is another story.


Some categories of bulk carriers are being operated at a loss right now. There is an over capacity of tonnage because of the slow down in Chinese demand for coal and iron. The margin are negative in some cases.


Refrigerated and inerted holds. Think like long term apple storage.


Slow speed diesels with attached waste heat boilers were the most fuel efficient propulsion cycles for quite a long time. Recently Co-gas (gas turbines combined with waste heat boilers) became more efficient. But slow speed diesels are usually direct drive. They don't have or need a reduction gear. This is one of the reasons they started to displace steam plants during WWII. Later fuel costs killed steam.

And some slow speeds can be converted to LNG, because they were designed for the possibility. It was starting to be a thing for a little bit, but with fuel prices as they are now that trend died out.

This is really interesting. I never knew that apples had a special method of being transported, but I guess it makes sense. When you say inerted holds do you mean they pump the holds full of inert gas and force the oxygen out?
What keeps the pests low in US grain? Do they have regular inspections of silos or something for that? I always thought the regulations for food didn't really kick in on grain products until they reached the mill.

Also do you find yourself often tempted to stick barley in your mouth from cargo holds?

CommieGIR
Aug 22, 2006

The blue glow is a feature, not a bug


Pillbug

BrandorKP posted:

Slow speed diesels with attached waste heat boilers were the most fuel efficient propulsion cycles for quite a long time. Recently Co-gas (gas turbines combined with waste heat boilers) became more efficient. But slow speed diesels are usually direct drive. They don't have or need a reduction gear. This is one of the reasons they started to displace steam plants during WWII. Later fuel costs killed steam.

And some slow speeds can be converted to LNG, because they were designed for the possibility. It was starting to be a thing for a little bit, but with fuel prices as they are now that trend died out.

Me, I'm all for returning interesting Nuclear powered cargo ships. In fact, there is renewed interesting in ships like the NS Savannah, with oil prices climbing again, the operating cost of a nuclear fueled ship is actually not much different from that of its petroleum fueled brethren

CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 14:00 on Jun 15, 2016

golden bubble
Jun 3, 2011

yospos

CommieGIR posted:

Me, I'm all for returning interesting Nuclear powered cargo ships. In fact, there is renewed interesting in ships like the NS Savannah, with oil prices climbing again, the operating cost of a nuclear fueled ship is actually not much different from that of its petroleum fueled brethren

But nuclear powered naval ships only work because Admiral Hyman G. Rickover embed strict safety standards into the heart of the US Navy nuclear fleet. I'm not sure I'd trust commercial shipping companies to avoid cutting corners on maintenance and safety.

CommieGIR
Aug 22, 2006

The blue glow is a feature, not a bug


Pillbug

golden bubble posted:

But nuclear powered naval ships only work because Admiral Hyman G. Rickover embed strict safety standards into the heart of the US Navy nuclear fleet. I'm not sure I'd trust commercial shipping companies to avoid cutting corners on maintenance and safety.

Simple solution: Make maintenance and upkeep of the reactors a Government issue, where ships must be inspected and an inspector must be on board at all times.

tsa
Feb 3, 2014

golden bubble posted:

But nuclear powered naval ships only work because Admiral Hyman G. Rickover embed strict safety standards into the heart of the US Navy nuclear fleet. I'm not sure I'd trust commercial shipping companies to avoid cutting corners on maintenance and safety.

This is ATOMS nonsense. Corporations run reactors safely throughout the world and if 'corner cutting' was an issue we'd see meltdowns yearly in China.

The technology is going on 60 years old at this point, I really wonder when we are gonna stop treating it like voodoo magic. The idea that all corporations are enron is also unsupported paranoia.

Bates
Jun 15, 2006

tsa posted:

This is ATOMS nonsense. Corporations run reactors safely throughout the world and if 'corner cutting' was an issue we'd see meltdowns yearly in China.

The technology is going on 60 years old at this point, I really wonder when we are gonna stop treating it like voodoo magic. The idea that all corporations are enron is also unsupported paranoia.

Not all corporations are Enron but some are and you only need one for a disaster. Nuclear power is subject to a lot of fear-mongering and hyperbole but no matter how you slice it, it's not without risk. Nuclear is great if you have the expertise and institutions to regulate it. I'm not particularly interested in seeing it in operation without those things.

Bar Ran Dun
Jan 22, 2006




Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

This is really interesting. I never knew that apples had a special method of being transported, but I guess it makes sense.

For apples it's more long term storage. The crop is ready all at once so they store them in inerted warehouses. Same thing happens with orange juice. They store it in inerted tanks, but with OJ it ruins the flavor and they have to add flavorings back into the juice.

Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

When you say inerted holds do you mean they pump the holds full of inert gas and force the oxygen out?

Yes. This is also common on things like product tankers.

Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

What keeps the pests low in US grain? Do they have regular inspections of silos or something for that? I always thought the regulations for food didn't really kick in on grain products until they reached the mill.

Good facilities, good pest management, good government over site. Also fumigants, grain industry can use some fumigants nobody else can, especially for fumigation once on a vessel.

People I used to work with were involved with an import load from Brazil once. Dead animals, scrap metal, general grossness. They said the ships crew reported that the grain had basically been stored in an open air pit before it was loaded on their vessel.

Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

Also do you find yourself often tempted to stick barley in your mouth from cargo holds?

Every time I was involved in a barley load. I home brew.

CommieGIR posted:

Me, I'm all for returning interesting Nuclear powered cargo ships. In fact, there is renewed interesting in ships like the NS Savannah, with oil prices climbing again, the operating cost of a nuclear fueled ship is actually not much different from that of its petroleum fueled brethren

In 2008 I was actually on the NS Savannah (it was in Baltimore at the time, and in rough shape) for a presentation on new nuclear, US flagged container vessels. The price of oil and container freight rates were getting to the point where a Nuclear premium (very fast) container Asia to US West coast service was feasible. Then the world poo poo a brick. Now fuel prices and container freight rates are too low, way to low. It's very unlikely that it would ever happen for bulk carriers. Bulk carriers don't really gain anything by getting there faster. Another problem many countries don't want nuclear ships in their ports.

Killer-of-Lawyers
Apr 22, 2008

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2020
Thanks for the answers!


As to nuclear ships, there are a few things to consider. One, piracy on the ocean is a problem, and we don't want pirates capturing entire reactors, it'd probably be a political mess. Two, most ships aren't going to be flagged and inspected by countries with high standards, like if I recall, hardly any ships fly american flags, so inspection safety won't happen as it should.

On the upside though, the bottom of the ocean is probably the best place for a sunken damaged nuclear reactor, and much less devastating then an oil spill where the oil from a spill collects on the surface and causes all kinds of problems. There's also a lot less material involved in a reactor. I suppose those made in a factory, small reactors for generating thermal heat would work well in a situation like this. The unit would be sold as is and sealed, and the people on the ship wouldn't touch it. After a few decades they'd swap out the entire reactor instead of doing any refueling.

Still, in the end, the pollution from oil from ships is so minor compared to cars and other industries that it's probably the last place we need to worry about putting reactors in, or worrying about fuel costs. Maybe in 60 years we'll feel differently, but right now it seems like a headache to try and push a nuclear merchant fleet, even if nuclear ships are amazing and cool.

Slanderer
May 6, 2007

Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

Still, in the end, the pollution from oil from ships is so minor compared to cars and other industries that it's probably the last place we need to worry about putting reactors in, or worrying about fuel costs. Maybe in 60 years we'll feel differently, but right now it seems like a headache to try and push a nuclear merchant fleet, even if nuclear ships are amazing and cool.

I'm not sure about that. The high-sulfur bunker fuel that these ships use means that their sulfur dioxide emissions exceed those from cars. They may produce less pollution per kilogram of cargo per mile (or some other metric, idk) than cars, but shipping is responsible for a massive amount of pollution overall

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Deteriorata
Feb 6, 2005

Slanderer posted:

I'm not sure about that. The high-sulfur bunker fuel that these ships use means that their sulfur dioxide emissions exceed those from cars. They may produce less pollution per kilogram of cargo per mile (or some other metric, idk) than cars, but shipping is responsible for a massive amount of pollution overall
Yeah, it's a pretty significant problem:

True scale of CO2 emissions from shipping revealed

quote:

The true scale of climate change emissions from shipping is almost three times higher than previously believed, according to a leaked UN study seen by the Guardian.

It calculates that annual emissions from the world's merchant fleet have already reached 1.12bn tonnes of CO2, or nearly 4.5% of all global emissions of the main greenhouse gas.

The report suggests that shipping emissions - which are not taken into account by European targets for cutting global warming - will become one of the largest single sources of manmade CO2 after cars, housing, agriculture and industry. By comparison, the aviation industry, which has been under heavy pressure to clean up, is responsible for about 650m tonnes of CO2 emissions a year, just over half that from shipping.

Health risks of shipping pollution have been 'underestimated'

quote:

Confidential data from maritime industry insiders based on engine size and the quality of fuel typically used by ships and cars shows that just 15 of the world's biggest ships may now emit as much pollution as all the world's 760m cars. Low-grade ship bunker fuel (or fuel oil) has up to 2,000 times the sulphur content of diesel fuel used in US and European automobiles.

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