Good! Use trains.
this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2026
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Please let me know when the bullet train across the Atlantic and Pacific gets finished.
If oil shortage is severe enough and long lasting, we might see passenger ships coming back for transatlantic travel. How badly do you need to cross the atlantic?
Based on what I know of cruise ships, I would bet that an ocean liner across the Atlantic wood burn even more fuel than a plane for the same number of people.
Rough calculation indicates that it would take about 3,000 gallons of fuel per person to go across the Atlantic.
I'd be interested into some data on this topic.
My undersranding is plane is one of the most polluting mode of transportation, all things being equal. It probably vary a lot depending on the specific ship/plane, route, ...
Data from the UK's Department for Energy Securityand Net Zero (2022) shows the carbon footprint is 8x higher for short/long-haul fight than for ferry. (CO2eq per passenger-km). Carbon footprint is strongly coupled with fuel consumption. It's not quite the same, but I'd expect the ratio to be roughly the same.
It looks like cruise ships [are significantly worse](epn07501.pdf https://share.google/fD7gRD431iLtVZbUU) than airplanes. About four times more fuel.
Thanks. This explain why cruise ships are much more wasteful than ferries:
perhaps the biggest difference is the payload. [..] The reason, of course, is that a cruise ship is a floating village, with shops, restaurants, swimming pools and the like
This is why it's important to compare transportation mode all things being equal. Keep in mind there's lot of people flying coach, very few planes with individual cabins and restaurants. Cruise ships are designed for entertainment and luxury. Ferries are designed for transportation.
Cruise ships need a lot of fuel because of their high speed. In general, sea transport is quite fuel-efficient. And battery technology like liquid redox-flow cells is advancing, too.
BTW the same issue about speed is valid for high velocity trains.
My family lives a 15 hour flight away, I guess fuck me for not being born in Europe, I should just go back home permanently.
Do you really need to be there or would a call be enough?
Well my mother whoβs in her 80βs lives 16,000 km so fuck me if she gets sick.
Ok? So the answer would be "No, a call wouldn't be enough" in your case? Why do you get bent out of shape over that?
Why would an European need to cross the Pacific? Asia is reachable by land.
Sign me up, but only if it involves duck trains. It's like a bunch of limo duck boats with couplings. Perhaps hydrofoilsβhigh efficiency, relatively low loadβcould be a good fit. I would ride on a solar duckfoil.
Will online meetings and trains become relevant again?
One can only hope so!
And steel beams!
IMHO: this only accelerated the inevitable. If you look at the airline industry, you will ask yourself how the hell can a flight cost 30 to 60 β¬ in one direction? Well answer is in my opinion it can't. No one can convince me that the pilot, the crew, the ground services, the fuel, the maintenance and the overflight services are cheap enough for this to make sense in a 200 people aeroplane. So I think this industry has been in a race to the bottom for quite some time now and basically they just wait to see who's left to hold the bag after that.
Maybe then we can finally start to fly lessβ¦
Imagine all flights being grounded due to lack of fuel and trains suddenly becoming important. Germany is going to be so fucked...
The upside will be that people will spend money in the local economy instead of flying abroad and spending money there.
Flights within Germany where never popular. People would rather use the car, because it's mostly cheaper and must of the time faster and more reliable than the train.
Sadly, cars use about as much fuel per person-kilometer as commercial flights. (I am not sure about the relative cost for take-off at short distances).
Trains are the real alternative - followed by buses (which are on long distance surprisingly efficient).
Oh, and we need more electric trolley buses in cities...
Oil reaches Europe and there are refineries, which can produce more jet fuel...
We do have a global shortage.
6 weeks from now I want to start my vacation π
Vacations doesn't require jet fuel.
Relatively few people in the world visit the other side of the world by plane. For our sake it should remain a rare occurrence. For most vacations, there's plenty of places that one can reach by train and bus.
If your area has shitty train infrastructure or too few bus lanes, I'm sorry, you may want to have a close look at where your taxes are going.
For someone who doesn't know shit about my vacation, you seems to have quite many words to spare ;+)
Right, I know nothing except it seems to involve jet fuel. This is a general comment on vacations by plane, don't take it personally.