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Comment by SixSigma | Hacker News Reader

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SixSigma·

Pollution

- Air cargo - 0.8063 kg of CO2 per Ton-Mile

- Truck - 0.1693 kg of CO2 per Ton-Mile

- Train - 0.1048 kg of CO2 per Ton-Mile

- Sea freight - 0.0403 kg of CO2 per Ton-Mile

So I see this competing with air freight, not sea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_transp...

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Most of the people making these decisions are primarily concerned with cost and time and not pollution, so what determines whether this will be successful is primarily cost vs time.

The people I know in freight barely think about cost, it's all about time. But you're right - not pollution.

Some regulators might start offering incentives in that regard though.

Do they ever use anything besides air freight? The fact that slower methods get a lot of business suggests a lot of people are thinking about cost over time.

But the ship route China <-> London is a lot more miles than the train.

18 days train vs 30 days ships.

No-one I know in logistics is very worried about cost per container, especially with the massive over capacity in shipping.

When the iPhone launched they brought them by 747, I think this train would have been a viable option.

I would have thought so too, but I'm not sure. Does anyone have any figures on this?

no figures, but there is the northern route (north of russia) so getting to europe via sea is pretty direct. Thank global warming for that!

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/oct/05/melting-...

> the northern route could gradually be opened for four to six months a year

*There's a northern route that is only open for a portion of the year.

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