this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
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Solarpunk technology

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Technology for a Solar-Punk future.

Airships and hydroponic farms...

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Kinda bland name "eWolf". I would have voted for something more interesting - "Sparky McSpark Face" maybe.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

There's also Rum Tum Tugger. Or just a nice spiffy eTug.

Why's it called a Wolf? Who uses wolves to pull shit? eHusky would work since they are common sled dogs...who pull things.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

To tugs usually pull? I thought they mostly pushed

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

Tug Speedman

[–] [email protected] -3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Its a step in the right direction. I can't help but wonder if ports should be moving away from tugboats entirely though. They weren't strictly necessary for thousands of years of ocean shipping. Why do we need powered ships at all? Is it because we need container shipping? Because that might just be a feature of the highly globalized fossil fuel era.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Ships are a lot bigger and we expect a lot more reliability from them than we did in the wind-only era. This makes tugs necessary to enable safe maneuvering in harbor.

Bigger and containerization have the effect of making shipping cheaper on a per-unit basis, which is why they're used.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Yes but producing things locally improves resilience and allows for decentralization. Large container shipping is a feature of free market capitalism and highly centralized industries. In a decentralized economy there wouldn't be anywhere near as much demand for container shipping.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

The Baltimore bridge collapse could’ve been prevented if there had been a tug helping maneuver the ship after it had lost power. There’s probably a higher demand for them now and having an electric option should be good.