Bigger Isn't Better as Mega-Ships Get Too Big and Too Risky

HughPickens.com - Slashdot User:
"HughPickens.com writes:
Alan Minter writes at Bloomberg that between 1955 and 1975, the average volume of a container ship doubled — and then doubled again over each of the next two decades.
The logic behind building such giants was once unimpeachable:
Globalization seemed like an unstoppable force, and those who could exploit economies of scale could reap outsized profits.
But it is looking more and more like the economies of scale for mega-ships are not worth the risk. The quarter-mile-long Benjamin Franklin recently became the largest cargo ship ever to dock at a U.S. port and five more mega-vessels are supposed to follow.
But today's largest container vessels can cost $200 million and carry many thousands of containers — potentially creating $1 billion in concentrated, floating risk that can only dock at a handful of the world's biggest ports.
Mega-ships make prime targets for cyberattacks and terrorism, suffer from a dearth of qualified personnel to operate them, and are subject to huge insurance premiums..."