This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "Numbers Don't Lie" by Vaclav Smil. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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What percentage of carbon emissions come from transportation? Is it possible to eliminate CO2 emissions in the transportation industry?
Statistics show that one of the most significant contributors to carbon emissions is transportation/shipping. According to Vaclav Smil, the author of Numbers Don’t Lie, it would take a radical change to go carbon-neutral in these industries.
Let’s look at the numbers behind the carbon footprint of the transportation and shipping industries.
Diesel Engines Will Continue to Dominate
According to Smil, diesel engines are an integral part of the globalized economy. Diesel engines are much more efficient (15 to 20%) than their gasoline-powered counterparts, and they are reliable, durable, and have relatively low operating costs. Because of this, they power virtually every container ship, truck, and freight train, moving our most important commodities (oil, cement, grain) around the world. There is simply no better way to transport the massive amount of materials than diesel engines, and this will remain true for the foreseeable future.
(Shortform note: While we aren’t getting rid of diesel engines any time soon, there are some new technologies that may drastically reduce emissions from the transport sector. A Swedish transport company is using over 50 vehicles that run on HVO 100, a synthetic biodiesel, and they hope to further reduce energy consumption by designing more aerodynamic trucks. Additionally, researchers at MIT have devised a new way of powering trucks using a hybrid engine system that could also sharply reduce pollution.)
Electric Container Ships Won’t Be Efficient Enough in the Short Term
Though we’ve successfully built electric trains and cars, Smil points out that building efficient electric container ships will be a monumental task. The first electric container ship, built in the late 2010s, can only carry 120 containers, will travel at a slow speed of six knots, and will only be used for trips of up to 30 nautical miles. In contrast, diesel-powered container ships can carry over 20,000 standard-sized containers, travel at a speed of 16 knots and commonly make trips of over 20,000 kilometers.
To match the production of diesel, container ships would require lithium-ion batteries over 10 times more efficient than what we have today. To put this in perspective, in the last 70 years the efficiency of commercial batteries hasn’t even quadrupled.
(Shortform note: Besides electric container ships, there are other more environmentally friendly ships in the works, but they, too, are a long way from replacing diesel-powered cargo ships. One ship design, Vindskip, is partially powered by wind, and early tests have seen a 63% reduction in carbon emissions. But the earliest these ships could hit the waters is 2025. Another Norwegian ship design is meant to use hybrid propulsion systems to save energy and fuel, but again, these are hardly going to make a dent in near-term carbon emissions.)
Both Carbon-Producing Cars and Electric Vehicles Produce Significant Emissions
Smil argues that the age of the car began on August 12, 1908. This was the day the first Model T was assembled, making cars a much more affordable commodity. The automobile has had an enormous impact on the world but is also a major contributor of carbon emissions.
We’ll look at the numbers behind vehicles to explain why they are so inefficient as a means of transportation and why electric cars won’t save us.
Cars Use Energy Inefficiently
According to Smil, the main reason cars are energy-inefficient is their large weight-to-payload ratio—in other words, the weight of the car versus the weight of the people it’s carrying. This means it takes a huge amount of energy simply to move the car itself, not the passengers in it. For comparison, a Ford F-150, the most popular American car, has a ratio of 32, a bike has a weight ratio of 0.1, and a Vespa scooter 1.6 (for an average-sized human).
To make matters worse, in the US, almost three-quarters of Americans commute to work without other passengers, so the weight-to-payload ratio is especially bad. What’s more, the average car size is only increasing, especially with the heavy batteries required for electric cars. And while lighter cars would help, having fewer people drive alone would be the best thing to do to reduce the weight ratio of cars.
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Here's what you'll find in our full Numbers Don't Lie summary:
- How you can understand the world by understanding numbers and statistics
- Why the infant mortality rate is a better indicator of standard of living than GDP per capita
- Why nuclear energy is not the answer to sustainability
