Rolls-Royce is developing crewless cargo ships that would be safer, cheaper and less polluting

[Guest]

"roughly $3,299 to support a crew each day at sea. That’s around 44 percent of total operating expenses for a large container ship."

I find that number hard to believe. How much fuel is needed per day?

http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch8en/conc8en/fuel_consumption_containerships.html

This is in tons per day! 200-250 tons per day is a reasonable range. ~350 pounds per barrel, 2000 pounds per ton (U.S. tons, not tonnes or metric tons) = 1142-1421 Barrels per day. One barrel today is trading for ~$100. That's $114,200 to $142,100 per day in just fuel.

A crew is a fraction of that cost, in the range of 3%, not 44%.

 

[captaincranky]

That's BMW's problem. If I recall correctly, Rolls-Royce Holdings only owns some of the trademarks of Rolls-Royce Motorcars. Considering their annual net income (in the billions) and their employee base (40,000+), I'd say its doubtful this is just a marketing ploy.

In any event, you "create jobs" ,( which you can crow about), manufacturing these pilot-less ships, while you eliminate jobs working them. Then you get a fat bonus for doing exactly that.

This is really same s***, different day and venue, as when some slick developer decides it's time for your town to have a mall. "It creates jobs", they bellow. "We're doing you a big favor here"!

And in the end, the construction jobs your shiny new mall creates, are temporary, and the mall is a "wealth" of minimum wage jobs, where suburbanites can store their latch key gay progeny, until the commuter train rolls in from the big city. (Did you like how I worked "Rolls", into that rant)?

In the end, everybody's real estate taxes go sky high, ecause after all , look at all the traffic the new mall brings into town, and the developer gets fat, and wanders off to do the next unsuspecting township a "big favor".

BTW, BMW has its other problems to contend with. It seems the German people are a bit upset about BMW brown nosing the US, by designing our bobsleds.

And trust me, you don't want to rile up the Germans, they can be ever, ever, so ethnocentric.....

 

[dividebyzero]

And trust me, you don't want to rile up the Germans, they can be ever, ever, so ethnocentric.....

Keep a weather eye out captain !

 

[captaincranky]

Keep a weather eye out captain !

I never knew Sisyphus was Polish......

 

[dividebyzero]

I never knew Sisyphus was Polish......

Only on his mothers side. These days I believe he rolls like this

 

[captaincranky]

Only on his mothers side.

So now the boulder gets to ride in a square wheeled pickup truck? What a slacker! I hope to all the gods, he has the good taste to at least challenge himself, by backing the rig up the hill.

Boy oh boy, wait til his dad gets wind of this....

 

[misor]

...And BTW, don't forget to recruit Bill Gates to ride on the bow of the lead ship, bullhorn in hand, announcing his intention to end world hunger....

and he will vow that he did not have a relationship with that Somali woman!

 

[captaincranky]

and he will vow that he did not have a relationship with that Somali woman!

Nah man, he was just hiding her from pirates under his desk....

(Boy did I tank the syntax on that little gem).

I should have read, "Her put her under his desk, to hide her from the pirates in the room".

(Who are sort of like, "the elephant in the room", but the elephant holds the sword in its trunk, and says, "ARGH"...., way louder).

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

Comparing an airplane to a ship's time travel is like comparing a snail with a motorcycle. The airplane won't be flying for more than a day. The ship is overseas for month(s).

And yes, plains have fallen out of the skies. They are under constant maintainance and checkups.

I wasn't comparing travel times at all, I was using airplanes as an example of something that doesn't just breakdown because they make sure it doesn't.

 

[Kibaruk]

I wasn't comparing travel times at all, I was using airplanes as an example of something that doesn't just breakdown because they make sure it doesn't.

But it takes hours to get from point A to point B so they have regular checks, if the maintainance for airplanes would be once every couple of months you could compare it to unmaned ships.