Originally Posted by
GTM 3442
Oh dear, you really are projecting the past straight into the future with not a lot of consideration for what’s happening in the present, El Zorro.
This will go on for a little. . .
First up, let’s look at your supertankers. Now, given that there are only two continents in the world, the only need for supertankers is to move oil to the American continent from the EuroAfricanAsian continent, or vice versa. Oh, and to New Zealand, of course. Better dredge Northport in Whangarei, so it can cope, hadn’t we!
Now, the American continent is self-sufficient in oil (Canada/Venezuela/USA). As is the EuroAfricanAsia continent (Russia/Nigeria/Arabia). So there’s no need for anything other than pipelines and tank-cars on a rail network.
Did someone say “rail”? Ah yes. 14 days by train from China to Germany, 20 days less than by sea. Given that Euro/Africa/Asia are contiguous, there’s a lot of scope for those “One Belt/One Road” initiatives to expand.
Second up, why oil anway?
At the moment, a lot of oil is burnt as transport fuel. Electric vehicles take that away. So we don’t need so many supertankers anyway, because there’s far less demand for the oil they transport.
And after all, solar doesn’t need fuel, nor does hydro, and both run 24/7, so there’s no shortage of transport fuel. Just flip the switch and recharge.
Third up, and last but not least, cheap goods from China. Yep, harder to come by in the Americas (and New Zealand, of course), but not in the Euro/African/Asian continent, with it’s rail network (electrified, of course).
So yes, we will see massive disruption, but it won’t come as you seem to anticipate. There won’t necessarily be less trade, in fact there will probably be more trade. But the patterns and the mechanisms will be quite different from what we see today. Intra-continental, rather than inter-continental.
Oh, a PS - as for your scientists cowering in their bolt-holes, well I rather think that those bolt-holes won’t be in some inaccessible place offshore from one of the two continents.