Are Folding Containers the Future of Shipping?

swellconvivialguy writes "Earlier this year Maersk ordered 20 super-size container ships—each to have '16 percent larger capacity than today's largest container vessel, Emma Maersk.' But instead of embracing the bigger/more-is-better mentality, Staxxon, a NJ-based startup, has engineered a folding steel container (it folds like a toddler's playpen), which is designed to make shipping more efficient by 'reducing the number of container ship movements.' No one has yet succeeded in the marketplace with a collapsible container, but Staxxon has made a point of learning from the mistakes of others."

Comments

Tradeoff

[PhattyMatty]

Looks like a cool concept, though it looks like it takes much more human contact than regular shipping containers do (when being folded). This could be a problem, as a lot of the bigger shipping yards are automated and/or move containers around using large machines.

We'll have to see if the increase in human contact is worth the space saved when shipping empty containers around.

how many trips across the sea before it won't fold

[YesIAmAScript]

Having to slide 4 very heavy folded containers onto those bars seems like it might be difficult. It seems like it would get a lot worse after the container has made several trips across the ocean in the salt air.

Also, the folding process seems like a drag, although high volume sites would probably have a specialized rig just to fold them and unfold them if these becomes accepted.

It's too bad shipping containers are higher than they are wide, because it would seem like flattening 5 and turning them on their side and stacking them up would be more straightforward than this rod stuff.

What happens if you only have 3 or 4, can you still fold them, or only in 5s?

Or perhaps we could sell things to asia ...

[perpenso]

Or perhaps we could sell things to asia. If the containers going from the US to asia were not empty then there would be no need for them to fold.

Re:Or perhaps we could sell things to asia ...

[rolfwind]

That has to do with our geography more than anything else. Germany is about 3/4 the area of the state of California but has over double the population. Countries like Germany are basically filled with people. There are people everywhere, which means everything to fill your necessities are always nearby.

But this goes back to suburbanization which occurred mostly post-WWII. America has the geography, but there is no reason to have a large portion of the population spread out across most of it, Just like Canada is HUGE, but 90% of the population lives 100 miles from the US border (for various reasons, much of it temperature). Have it as farm land or what not.

I mean, it's probably too late now, way too much of our economy is still invested in the idea of ever-increasing real-estate... but think for a moment if America remained more urbanized. We'd have better mass transit, and our demand for fuel would be lower, which in turn wouldn't have us station our armed forces in outposts throughout the world so much to ensure steady supply (more than world peace). An armed force, which btw, is uses the same amount of oil as a decent sized nation just by itself.

When politicians talk about us "maintaining our way of life", I wonder how much of that is maintaining our freedoms, or if they simply mean that Suzy Homemaker can commute her SUV an hour each day 20 miles to and fro from work? Nationally, It's an expensive lifestyle to keep, yet people don't see that.

As far as houses go, good insulation adds maybe 5% to the overall cost (something that contractors often skimp on as it cuts into their margin) but would save the homeowner that amount many times over. And planning would go down close to 0 if it became the norm.

Other folding container designs

[raahul_da_man]

While this company's idea is interesting, it is still two years away from even being approved for commercial use. There are at least two competitors with easier, simpler to use technology:

Indian Shipping Company

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV-R5jlf6bQ&feature=related

Dutch variant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHlTrOVv9gs&feature=related

The problem, so many shipping containers just pilling up unused in the Western world, and forcing the creation of countless new containers in Asia, is certainly worth solving. But so many companies have tried and failed before. For my money, the Indian or Dutch version seems that more likely to win out. India has far lower steel costs, and is at the centre of shipping between Asia, Europe, Africa and Australia.

Indian one looks interesting

[YesIAmAScript]

The Dutch one is too lightweight. And having the sides fold might seem like a great idea, but when you stack 4 more containers on it and go crashing through waves, you have to start wondering if it's going to fold up when it isn't supposed to.

Also, a roll-up door on the end? You must be kidding me. What happens when the contents shift? You may end up with something leaning on the door and keeping it from rolling up or just flat out bending the door so it won't roll. The sturdy doors of a standard container (or the Indian one) are stronger and open outward so you don't have to give up space inside for the door tracks and stowage space.

"Reducing the number of container ship movements"

[Solandri]

Staxxon, a NJ-based startup, has engineered a folding steel container (it folds like a toddler's playpen), which is designed to make shipping more efficient by 'reducing the number of container ship movements.'

You can't do that. Imbalances in amount of cargo going East vs West are inevitable because of trade imbalances, but Kirchoff's laws also apply to container ships: Every container ship going East must return West.

Say there are 5 container ships with containers full of cargo which travel from China to the U.S. On the return trip, say there's only one container ship's worth of cargo. So you load one container ship with cargo for the return trip. The containers from the other 4 ships you collapse and load onto a second ship. You've now loaded all the containers needed for the next 5 ships worth of cargo onto 2 ships heading back to China. Great! You've eliminated the need for 3 ships on the return leg, right? Wrong. Once those containers get back to China and are loaded up with cargo, you now have 5 ships worth of cargo containers, but only 2 ships to transport them. Those 3 ships you left in the U.S. have to make the return trip to China regardless of whether they're loaded or empty.

The number of container ship movements is dictated by the maximum amount of cargo traveling between two destinations one-way, not the minimum. The minimum is irrelevant since you need the empty containers and container ships to make the return trip anyway to ferry the next batch of cargo along the maximum one-way route. The only way you can reduce the number of container ship movements is to scrap the 3 container ships you left in the U.S., and replace them with 3 new ones built in China. That's just not economically feasible. You might be able to shaft some of the ship captains into having to make an empty trip back to China, but all that'll do is cause them to raise the price they charge for the next trip from China to the U.S. The net result is no reduction in container ship movements, and no reduction in fuel consumed, and no reduction in overall cost.

Re:Advertisement?

[larry bagina]

If you drew a Venn diagram of "news for nerds" and "stuff that matters", you know what would be at the intersection? That's right: folding shipping containers.

A solution without a problem

[PPalmgren]

The way containerships are built now, empties are frequently used to balance the weight distribution of the vessel. Folding them up won't create more capacity because they aren't built with the expectation of being loaded to the brim with fully loaded containers, and condensing empties creates space but condenses weight. A containership taking on full loads will only hit about 70% of its slot capacity due to weight constraints.

Also, wear and tear on moving parts in the shipping industry should not be overlooked. Twist locks, the things that lock containers together on ships, are very simple mechanisms that are built with extreme robustness. Doesn't matter, they constantly break and have to be replaced during ship operations. This solution is much more suscpetible to breakage than twist locks.

The only thing these containers do is make trade lane management more fluid and make empty storage more efficient for shipping terminals/container yards, but at the cost of equipment maintenance, labor, and reliability. The costs won't offset the benefits until the worldwide port infastructure or shipping capacity is bursting at the seams (creating space issues and a premium on crane productivity). That simply isn't the case.

Re:"Reducing the number of container ship movement

[roskakori]

Once those containers get back to China and are loaded up with cargo, you now have 5 ships worth of cargo containers, but only 2 ships to transport them. Those 3 ships you left in the U.S.

Good point. Seems they need to find a way to fold ships, too.

Similar to bikes, planes and (to some extent) cars.