Commercial Shipping Returning to the Eerie Canal

Commercial shipping is making a comeback in the Eerie Canal after decades of decline. Soaring gas prices have caused some companies to rethink sending goods via truck, turning instead to barges – and they’re not alone. More companies are beginning to look into it. So far this season, there have been 42 shipments up the canal – up from 15 last year. 42 shipments is still far from the numbers seen during the Eerie Canal’s heyday, when 33,241 shipments passed through the lock at Frankfurt, 54 miles east of Syracuse.

From The New York Times:

The canal still remains the most fuel-efficient way to ship goods between the East Coast and the upper Midwest. One gallon of diesel pulls one ton of cargo 59 miles by truck, 202 miles by train and 514 miles by canal barge, Ms. Mantello said. A single barge can carry 3,000 tons, enough to replace 100 trucks.

As the price of diesel climbed over $4 a gallon this summer — the national average is now about $3.31 a gallon — more shippers rediscovered the Erie Canal. On one trip in mid-October, the Margot motored down the canal at about seven knots, pushing a barge loaded with a giant green crane. The machine was being transported from Huger, S.C., to the Pinney Dock, operated by the Kinder Morgan Company in Ashtabula, Ohio.

“It really just came down to economics,” said Lee Demers, the dock’s manager. The other option was to move the crane through the St. Lawrence Seaway, adding more than 1,000 miles and greater fuel costs to the trip.

Wow, who knew barges were so green? If a single barge can replace 100 trucks, that’s really getting somewhere.  Of course, the environmental impacts of a huge increase of barges in the canal would have to be considered, but it’d still be a hell of a lot better than having all those trucks on the road. Interesting, how we’re returning to simpler ways of doing things in so many cases.

Link [The New York Times]

When Kenyan Greenbeans Are Better: Why Local Food Isn’t Always The Best Choice

For Mike Small’s family in Fife, Scotland, it’s all about the local ingredients. For the past six months, the Smalls have been dining only on foods and beverages that come from within their home district. That means that on any given evening, the Smalls sit down to a combination of meats like fish, pork and lamb and local veggies such as parsnips, beetroots, kale, potatoes, leeks and other root vegetables. As long as it’s local, the Smalls are down with it.

While it sounds like the Smalls are making big leaps towards reducing their own carbon fooprints, turns out it just ain’t that easy. There are so many factors involved in the production and distribution of produce that it does not suffice to simply “eat what’s local” and assume that the impact that you are making is significant. Here are some reasons why:

• Food grown in areas where fertilizers and tractors are used is hardly carbon-friendly
• Many developing countries that export produce don’t use machinery and use cow crap for fertilizer, which means that even after air-freighting occurs, the carbon impact is less than it may be on a local, diesel-driven farm
• Purchasing local ingredients that are naturally dried instead of cooked and ready (chickpeas, for example) doesn’t mean you’re saving energy - you’ve still got to take them home and cook them, something that emits more carbon when done in small batches than when done in large ones
• Storing locally grown products that are not available year-round requires refrigeration, which emits carbon. Importing seasonal produce from where it is grown, even when done so via air-freight, is often more environmentally friendly than storage.

“The concept of food miles is unhelpful and stupid. It doesn’t inform about anything except the distance travelled.” — Dr Adrian Williams, of the National Resources Management Centre at Cranfield University.

Link [The Guardian]

As Green as You Can Get: Shipping Wine With the Winds

Here’s something that I hope I read more of: French wine makers are using a three mast sailing vessel to ship 60,000 bottles of wine from France to Dublin, Ireland.

Brilliant!

Using wind to ship things around the world is something we’ve been doing for a long, long time. When the steam engine, and then later diesel burners, came onto the scene, the winds were mostly left behind. There has recently been some hopeful movements back to using wind to ship cargo in the form of the super kite- a giant rig that connects to traditional bunker oil burning ships that can save 15-20% of the fuel otherwise needed.

Each bottle of greenly shipped wine will come with the label “‘Carried by sailing ship, a better deal for the planet.’” Here’s a quick bit from the Guardian:

Later this month 60,000 bottles from Languedoc will be shipped to Ireland in a 19th-century barque, saving 18,375lb of carbon. Further voyages to Bristol, Manchester and even Canada are planned soon afterwards.

The three-mast barque Belem, which was launched in 1896, the last French merchant sailing vessel to be built, will sail into Dublin following a voyage from Bordeaux that should last about four days. The wines will be delivered to Bordeaux by barge using the Canal du Midi and Canal du Garonne, which run across southern France from Sète in the east, via Béziers in Languedoc. Each bottle will be labelled: ‘Carried by sailing ship, a better deal for the planet.’ Although the whole process will end up taking up to a week longer than a flight, it is estimated it will save 4.9oz of carbon per bottle.

Link [Guardian] via Environmental Graffiti