The construction, the crews, the control systems, the navigation, the onboard power systems, the structure of the ship: all different.
If you want to see what a modern cargo ship looks like and how it operates, Chief Makoi on YouTube has many videos.
Long story short: what you see on commercial cargo ships is the cheapest most reliable technology available. It has been incrementally refined over more than a century.
You are basically proposing to start over, and your idea has some activation threshold issues.
Without the ice way going far enough there’s no flow
Without ships able to sail it reliably, probably with heavy automation, there’s no flow
Without massive scale it’s more expensive—there’s no upfront initial profitablity
The current regime is evolved. Mostly it was small, modest improvements that pay off immediately. This is how the industry evolved to it’s current form. It means it is suboptimal but “trapped” at a cost minimum.
The construction, the crews, the control systems, the navigation, the onboard power systems, the structure of the ship: all different.
If you want to see what a modern cargo ship looks like and how it operates, Chief Makoi on YouTube has many videos.
Long story short: what you see on commercial cargo ships is the cheapest most reliable technology available. It has been incrementally refined over more than a century.
You are basically proposing to start over, and your idea has some activation threshold issues.
Without the ice way going far enough there’s no flow
Without ships able to sail it reliably, probably with heavy automation, there’s no flow
Without massive scale it’s more expensive—there’s no upfront initial profitablity
The current regime is evolved. Mostly it was small, modest improvements that pay off immediately. This is how the industry evolved to it’s current form. It means it is suboptimal but “trapped” at a cost minimum.